Game of Thrones Roundup: The Mountain and The Viper

Game of Thrones Roundup: The Mountain and The Viper
This episode races ineluctably towards a single point of conflict: the trial by combat to decide the fate of Tyrion Lannister. Fighting for Tyrion is Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, and against him is Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane: "The Mountain and The Viper" of the title. We're treated to one visit to Tyrion's cell before the fight, where he dispenses some of his trademark erudite gallows humor (which, for my money, compares favorably to that deployed by Hamlet and Vladimir/Estragon), where he educates us on the various specific descriptive words that exist for killing one's different relations (starting, of course, with “suicide”), and then muses on his inability to understand why his “simple” Cousin Olsen spent all of his time bashing beetles with rocks. The significance of the story is hard to pin down, but it seems to gesture towards the futility of existence– a subject on which Tyrion is always eloquent.