(DRUM BEATING)
D.B. WEISS:
It was an exciting, thrilling thing to watch
happening even as we were shooting it.
Once we realized that we're kind of getting a charge
out of just seeing this happen on a set,
which is a notoriously boring place,
we had a sense that it would carry over
to the finished version of the scene.
That audience chamber was built by Aegon Targaryen
to intimidate anyone who came there.
MISSANDEI: You stand in the presence
of Daenaeys Stormborn of House Targaryen.
WEISS:
So, I think he sees a rich girl with a fancy name
sitting in a big chair with a fancy dress on,
proclaiming herself the queen of the world.
So, I don't think he's looking upon her
with as much respect as she has come to take as her due.
DAVID BENIOFF:
He didn't come down there to bend the knee.
He didn't come down there to join her in her fight against Cersei.
None of that matters at this point, though.
All that matters is... fighting the dead.
If they get past the wall,
and we're squabbling amongst ourselves...
we're finished.
She looks at him, and she thinks this is some unwashed barbarian
from the North and a bastard. His name is Jon Snow,
yet he's calling himself king.
If she knew what he'd seen,
she'd be looking very, very differently...
at what he's telling her, but at this moment in time,
she only sees somebody who's trying to carve up
her piece of her kingdom for himself.
And if what this guy is saying is true,
then it really is an issue, and she has...
her own very serious issues to deal with
in the shape of the woman who's now sitting on the throne.
(APPLAUSE)
This is a murderous... vicious woman.
Cersei Lannister is capable of insane amounts of brutality
without a second thought, if she feels like
it's what needs to be done.
And by the time you get to the end of episode three,
it's not at all clear that the playing field...
is nearly as lopsided as it was when we ended episode one.
Everyone kind of realizes that the two pulls of power
for Cersei and Jaime at this point are King's Landing and Casterly Rock.
But Jaime also knows he doesn't have the forces to defend both,
and makes the strategic decision to give up Casterly Rock,
you know, to use it as a decoy, to lure...
the Unsullied over there to take it and to get them on the exact
wrong side of the continent.
The siege of Casterly Rock is so much about...
what doesn't happen, you know.
How it goes contrary to expectations,
so in order for us to understand that...
it doesn't play out the way Tyrion expects it to,
you really need to hear Tyrion's expectations.
TYRION LANNISTER:
The fight up the walls will be hard.
We will be at a disadvantage.
(SHOUTING)
What he thinks the Unsullied are gonna find,
which all seems true up until the very end...
Where are the rest of the Lannisters?
WEISS:
much more valuable because
Highgarden's the Tyrell stronghold,
which commands all the most fertile regions of Westeros.
They are the wealthiest house,
but fighting isn't really their forte.
I mean, they're just not known for being
the most fearsome warriors.
So, to have a long, extended battle there...
It didn't make a lot of sense.
We decided to cut to the chase and cut right to Jaime...
single-mindedly making his way to the person he's there to see,
which is Olenna Tyrell.
It's done.
It is.
Did we fight well?
(SIGHS) As well as could be expected.
BENIOFF:
He finally gets to kill one of his enemies,
which we haven't seen that much throughout the series,
and she still wins the scene.
The one thing she does have left to live for
is the thing she saves for the very end of the scene.
The piece of information she's been sitting on...
since season four.
You don't think I'd let you marry that beast, do you?
She beats him in the middle of her own death scene,
and there's nothing he can do about it.
He knows it's true the moment she says it.
Tell Cersei... I want her to know it was me.
WEISS:
I-- it's impossible to imagine somebody...
doing the job she's done with this role.
And I think this scene is probably my...
favorite scene that she's ever done for us on the show.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS) ♪