18) Joffrey Misuses The Royal Scepter
You want an example of how terrible Joffrey can be? Look no further than season two’s “Garden of Bones.” Before this episode, we’d seen people do bad things at Joffrey’s behest – killing the butcher’s boy, beheading a particularly well-loved main character – but the King himself was never actually an active participant.
That changes in Garden of Bones, as Joffrey accepts his ‘gift’ of two prostitutes from Tyrion with characteristic malice – only this time he’s very much involved in the brutalization, handing Littlefinger’s favorite whore Ros a large, pronged royal scepter to insert into her fellow lady of the night. It’s such an unspeakable act of violence that even this show – as hard R as they come – looks away.
17) Cersei’s “Shame”
Cersei’s ‘atonement,’ as dictated by the High Sparrow and his Faith of the Seven zealots, lasts a whole six minutes. It’s one of the most agonizingly protracted scenes on the show, consisting mostly of a stripped Cersei walking naked through the streets of King’s Landing, mocked by her people and pelted with feces and rotten fruit, as a gloating Septa Unella rings a bell and repeatedly cries “shame!”
It’s a rare moment of vulnerability for the queen mother. Kudos in this scene goes to Lena Headey, who wordlessly conveys the feelings of a woman of strong resolve feeling the sudden shock of intense public humiliation, just managing to retain her shield of calm as she slowly crumbles on the inside.