TV & Movies

Well, it’s taken me a couple of weeks to process that GOT is actually over for the season. *Sigh* I also read that next season will be pushed back until May or possibly even later, which is almost as devastating as the Red Wedding. Almost.

Anyhoo, I proceed on to my final GOT recap of 2016, before I move on to other topics and television shows for the remainder of the year. As usual, a bit of spoiler space for anyone who hasn’t seen the episode yet (but let’s be honest, everyone has):

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Firstly, our Stark direwolf is back on Winterfell in the opening credits. FINALLY.

The show opens in King’s Landing, in one of the most amazing montages I think the show has ever had. You can really feel the weight of the situation at hand — it’s time for trial, and it’s truly a matter of life and death for both Cersei and Margaery.

I also want to point out that the music for this montage is particularly awesome. Major, major props to Ramin Dijawadi for this piece. I’ve listened to it twice since the episode, and still get goosebumps when I listen to it. Enjoy:

Check out that outfit Cersei’s wearing. Some shit’s going down today — no question about it.

And so, we move to Loras in the Sept; confessing his crimes. It seems as though he’s being encouraged by Margaery, so I assume it all fell in to her plan. When he was pushed to his knees and the Sparrows got out their knife, Damon and I immediately assumed they were going to kill him. Oh. Duh. Not so — he’s just getting initiated into the carved forehead brothers club. Still, ouch.

This is like when frat bros get tats, except without all the drinking and chest-bumping beforehand. Initiation’d.

Pycelle gets summoned by a little bird, drawn into Qyburn’s lair, and stabbed a zillion times. In the book, this happens to Kevan in his own room, and is perpetrated by Varys. So, a little odd. I can see why they’d want to include the scene, as it is shocking to watch a bunch of children murder someone, but it didn’t really feel completely necessary here. Neither did the entirety of one of those little birds suspiciously getting Lancel to follow him down into a deep underground tunnel where he gets literally stabbed in the back and left for dead. Other than, of course, to let us see a glint of green in the nearby barrels. (Wildfire! I win!) Lancel clearly can’t stop what’s about to happen, so…this whole thing was for suspense, I guess.

Margaery has clearly figured out that shit’s about to go down, and she hasn’t even seen Cersei in her black armor dress today. But the High Sparrow apparently knows best.

I really did think she was going to get out. I’m thoroughly disappointed that she didn’t. Fuck the Sparrows, I couldn’t care less about them getting blown to green smithereens. But Marg? She had a plan, man. And we never got to see it. (This kind of makes me feel like the show Lost — I wonder if there ever really was a plan, or if the showrunners just did whatever they wanted with her knowing they didn’t need to have any true end game. Hmph.)

But anyway. BOOM. The candles go out and the wildfire blows up, taking the entirety of Baelor’s Sept with it.

I’ma be straight up, I got no sympathy for this guy.

And…Cersei and her wine. Victory sip. Also, she’s got Septa Shame? I’d like to know how she ended up with her, but I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that with the undead Mountain around Cersei can have pretty much anything she wants at this point. When she told Shame gal that she wouldn’t die today I thought, “whoa, okay girl…you do you.” YUCK. The feeling of victory is short lived, though. She’s left Tommen alone, and, well…that doesn’t go over particularly well.

This is the first time that Tommen ever makes a decision solely based on himself and his own feelings — and he immediately follows through. The scene where he sort of “falls” out of the window was shot particularly well and I loved the direction in it. The silence and the solitude really gave you a sense of where Tommen’s head was at the time.

Prophecy fulfilled: Gold will be their crowns and gold their shrouds. All of Cersei and Jaime’s children are now deceased.

And then before we know it we’re back to the Riverlands and The Twins, where we see Jaime and Bronn having a grand ol’ time. (Didja eat that bread and salt? Because it don’t mean shit around here, brah.) A gal that Bronn’s interested in keeps making eyes at Jaime (though later we discover it’s not for the reason we think), and they have a fun little conversation with some ladies. Jaime and Walder Frey end up having a really pointed conversation about being “Kingslayers”, and I’d wager Jaime has never felt worse. Though his show character doesn’t really portray it very much, Jaime does have honor. So screw off, Walder Frey.

Then we bounce over to Old Town for a quick visit with Gilly and Sam. We see the white ravens being released signaling the start of winter (duh). Sam gets to see the most amazing library in the world, and finally has everything he ever wanted — a million books, a Gilly, and Heartsbane. He may be the only character in all of Planetos that’s actually happy right now. Everything’s coming up Samwell.

A long, trudging jaunt North takes us back to Winterfell, where we see Davos confront Melly about her and Shireen’s campfire, from which Shireen did not return. Liam Cunningham has an amazing scene here. And now, Jon is ready to decree his judgment and — Mel will be banished? That whole thing seems very odd to me. That ain’t the justice of the North.

It’s head chopping or it’s nothing around here. Clearly my Azor Ahai/burning sword theory was incorrect, but I can deal if — as Mel foretold — she and Arya are able to meet up next season. Littlefinger has his throne dreams; Sansa does not swipe right. Sansa promises to be honest with Jon from now on.

And now alllllll the way South to Dorne — Olenna Tyrell saying what we’ve all been thinking since the episode where Oberyn was killed. Enough with the Sand Snakes already. Also, like, how far in the future is this? She’s in all black mourning the loss of her entire family less than half an hour after it happened. Book wise, this should be entirely different; there are more members of House Tyrell that are not currently in King’s Landing. In addition, I think it’s relatively clear that they will ally with Aegon, who does not exist in the show-verse. Also, hey Varys. Nice of you to take your water-jetpack over.

I mean, he literally got here in like 5 seconds. What gives?

And back to Meereen, where Dany is breaking up with Daario. It was time. Bye, Felicia; this Queen gotta find a real hubby (pls Jon Snow pls). She and Tyrion get a great scene where he can really ask how she feels about the fact that she’s headed home to Westeros. But I think this question was posed more to the viewers than anyone else. How do we feel about the fact that she’s finally headed over? Like, FINALLY. We’ve waited forever. She names Tyrion the Hand of the Queen and it’s an emotional moment — he’s finally earned it with his own merits. Not because of his family name. Rad. He deserves it after a season spent piddling around making jokes with Missandei and Grey Worm.

Back to the Twins. Oh yes, yes, here we go — time for Frey Pies! (This does happen in the book, too, albeit quite a bit differently — but I’ll take it, because he deserves it!) I do wish he’d have gotten a good bite down before she told him what was in the pie but…holy shit, that’s Arya. This was so completely unexpected. No wonder she was eyeballing Jaime before — he’s on the list! Wondering how exactly the faceless faces work, but I guess she knows the technology behind it now. Also, she seems to be enjoying this death a little…too much? If that can even be said for Walder Frey? We’ll see how this affects her going forward. Hopefully she runs in to her family and changes her murderous ways.

And now, the final roundup. Bran gets us in to the Tower of Joy, finally. It is CONFIRMED. Jon Snow is the daughter of Lyanna Stark and some whispered name they won’t tell us until next season (spoiler alert, it’s Rhaegar Targaryen).

Back in Winterfell, it’s clear that baby is Baby Jon. Lyanna Mormont gives another rousing speech (seriously, Lady Mormont for Season 10 MVP). She’s cool as hell, but she’s also wrong. Ned Stark’s blood doesn’t run through Jon’s veins, and now we all know it. This KINGINDANORF scene is eerie and feels unsafe. Littlefinger is giving Jon an evil eye — he had planned to have Sansa leading the North, but she’s giving it up in favor of Jon. Although this is clearly meaningful to Jon, it channels Robb’s coronation. And we all know how that ended.

This time, on the narrow sea, but not across — Daenerys is ACTUALLY ON A SHIP, SAILING TO WESTEROS. Yes, you heard that right. And Varys has shared his teleportation skills with Highgarden and Dorne. They are on the way. Ominous.

And that’s it. 10 episodes are over, and now we wait. I’m excited for the next season and have high hopes it will be action-packed.

See you in 12ish months! (*Sob*)

And here it is…the episode we’ve all been waiting for. The Battle of the Bastards. Ho-ly crap.

Episode 9 usually contains the most epic battle scene every season, and this did not disappoint. In fact, I feel like it set the bar even higher for the battles to come. This episode was amazing and completely made up for the sauntering storyline in the last two.

I almost always watch the episode on HBO Now, but this week I was in Texas visiting my parents and ended up watching it live on television. Lucky me, because it sounds like HBO web services were having issues for nearly an hour! I would have lost my mind.

I’ve split this recap up by battle, so we can cover them separately.

Spoilers incoming.

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The first of the two battles I’ll discuss was the less traumatic of the two — the battle in Meereen. Truly, this went pretty easily for Dany; I can’t imagine things will happen the same way in the books. Especially since we’ve been waiting all this time for the Meereenese Knot to untangle itself. Basically, gal comes home from a short vacay to find the place in a complete shambles, thanks to this guy:

Nice one, T. And now he seems to be trying to advise her against going directly into battle with the dudes throwing flaming rocks at her house. Luckily, your girl Dany is pretty forgiving…and also, did he not hear the Fire and Blood thing? Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, taking what is hers with fire and blood, mother of HELL NAW. Seriously, Dany doesn’t do negotiations.

Except when the negotiation is surrender of the offending party. They convene on a mountain top outside the city, and for some reason the Masters seem to be under the impression that they can take down Dany and her dragons. The internet seems to think that this is because they were rather small the last time anyone from Yunkai saw them…but they still managed to win her the entire Unsullied army. Maybe these guys are just cliche dumb villains. Actually, yes, they very much are.

Anyway, dracarys, motherfuckers. Viserion and Rhaegal are BUSTIN OUT (finally…WTF have they been doing in the pyramid since Tyrion unchained them weeks ago!?) and reuniting with Drogon (carrying Dany) for a quick flyover.

And by “quick flyover”, I mean BURN, BABY BURN. *DRAGON INFERNO!*

V & R should be quite a bit smaller than Drogon, considering they’ve been in that cave. It looks like they’re all about the same size here…but I’m just being picky. It’s obvious D&D saved their entire CG budget on this episode, and I sure as hell won’t complain about that. DRAGONS! I’ll take ’em.

They completely torch this ship — but just the one, because she’s going to need a fleet later. In the meantime, the Harpies are taking out what appears to be a bunch of innocent citizens from Meereen, and these guys come flying around the corner:

Dothrakiiiiiii(s?) FTW! Everything’s converging at once, and Dany wins this battle handily. Grey Worm puts a hurtin’ on the Masters that came to negotiate (well, 2 of them) and the end is nigh.

Afterward, Theon and Yara arrive with their ships, and make a pact with Miss D. This is her first Westerosi alliance! A great GIRL POWER scene for Dany and Yara as they are both strong female leaders. This way they’re both safe from Euron; Yara from his murderous ways, Dany from his downstairs bidness. The Iron Islands will be independent-ish and ruled by Yara, but no more pillaging for the Ironborn? Interested to see how this plays out, though instinct tells me it will be great for a while but the peace won’t last for generations.

Overall, a quick and easy battle in Meereen. It wasn’t difficult for Dany — she had the numbers, the dragons, and the city.

On the other hand, things look quite a bit more dire back at Winterfell for ex-Lord Commander Jon Snow.

He and Sansa, along with Tormund, Davos, and lil bb Lyanna Mormont, have a quick chat with Ramsay. Jon challenges him to a duel (yes!) and he declines (no!). Ramsay’s got an ego, for sure, but is cunning enough that he won’t fall for it.

Sansa wishes him a nice evening (“You’re going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well.”) and then they head back to their tent to play Tic-Tac-Toe with some X & O rocks.  Sansa gets furious because apparently the game is for guys only. I didn’t really get the sense that she was being ignored in the scene, but hey gurl, you do you. Surprised she’s continued to keep her communication with Littlefinger secret at this point; the only thing I can think of is that it’s the only way she feels like she can retain some power.

Here’s a shot of her lookin PIST.

Tormund and Davos have a fun little chat about pre-battle prep. Tormund likes to get drunk, Davos gets diarrhea. Fun for everyone! Davos actually takes a stroll around, and during his walk, finds the little wooden deer he carved for Shireen…in a pile, where she was burned at the stake. He still hasn’t seen Season 5 yet, so he had no idea. But judging from the “scenes from next week” section at the end of the episode, Melisandre is gonna be getting an earful about this. And soon. In the meantime, Jon’s asked her not to revive him if he were to die again. Melly won’t deprive us of that man bun, Jon. Get over it.

Morning of, the troops line up. The silence as they pan over the troops is deafening. As I mentioned earlier, they did such a tremendous job filming this entire battle sequence. The weight of the upcoming scene is not lost on the viewer.

We see the small Northern/Stark army and the much larger Bolton/allies army. One interesting thing they mention during battle prep is that there’s some possibility that some of the Northern houses will turn in support of the Starks, but they don’t. We see them here, behind the Boltons, but that doesn’t change throughout the course of the battle.

Anyhoo, about this time, Ramsay makes his way up to the front lines, a rope in his hands. Guess who’s on that rope? That’s right, it’s Rickon Stark. Sansa and Jon have written him off at this point; she told him back in the tent that Rickon was as good as dead. Ramsay walks him out onto the battlefield.

Here he is freeing Rickon, telling him all he needs to do is run over and reach his brother. Jon, on the other side of the field, starts running at him as fast as he can go on his horse. ZIG, RICKON! ZAG! ANYTHING BUT RUN IN A STRAIGHT LINE! (He apparently didn’t hear me.)

We learn that Ramsay is an insanely skilled archer, and he picks Rickon off just before he gets to Jon. Go back, Jon! Stick to the plan! Make them come at you! Jon lets his emotions take over, unfortunately. Then a volley of arrows takes out Jon’s horse, and he’s left alone on the battlefield as his men rush in. Both armies are charging toward him, where he stands alone. Horses coming in from both sides. (To note — these are real horses, not CG. Insane.) And somehow, as if by some ~*magic*~, Jon remains unscathed.

The battle starts out intense, and just intensifies. Ramsay is firing volleys of arrows in, to the detriment of his own men. This creates an enormous pile of bodies that the men are fighting on and around. Until, that is, the Bolton army begins to surround them.

What’s left of the Northern/Stark army gets completely enclosed — Bolton men on one side, bodies on the other. They line up with their Bolton shields linked together, a move clearly plucked from world history, and start to close in.

The men are being pushed back. More Bolton men are coming over the top of the pile, and Jon turns to nearly face off with one of their old allies until he’s suddenly trampled beneath a wave of moving soldiers.

This is one of the most intense scenes in the entire episode. Jon is physically suffocating, and I felt like I was being crushed too, just on the safety of my parents’ couch under a nice warm afghan blanket. One of the things I like best about the direction here is that they stayed filming from under the pile, so you were missing out knowing the battle was going on in the background. It felt very realistic.

Here’s Davos swimming through the sea of men:

Things start to look dire. Wun Wun is even being backed up into the pile, though he’s doing a pretty good job of tossing folks around. Would have been nice if they’d fashioned him a giant sword of some kind; I think he probably could have done a bit more damage.

Tormund gets himself trapped and is being attacked. I thought for sure they were going to kill him off in this episode, and was so not looking forward to it. I mean, what about his gal Brienne?  Not yet officially shipped. Come on. In a last ditch effort, he bites a guy’s throat right out. YAS TORMUND! Look at that magnificent beard!

Things are getting worse and worse. I’d actually forgotten about Sansa’s letter to Littlefinger, I’d become so wrapped up in the fight. We waited for someone — anyone — to come and save these guys. They couldn’t lose, right? I mean, come ON. They’re the Starks. Winterfell belongs to them.

And then, at the last possible moment:

WHO DAT? AWW YISS check dem blue flags w/ birds on ’em. FLYING HIGH! THE VALE! This jagoff!:

Don’t get me wrong. Littlefinger is legit the worst. But if he can save the Starks, I can deal with him (today).

Good call, Sansa. Super glad you waited to tell anyone so like 3/4 of your army was killed when you could have waited a day to make a siege and this whole thing could’ve gone down differently. I’m for feminism as much as the next gal but it’s Jon freaking Snow. Don’t you dare put his beautiful life in danger!

The Knights of the Vale come in and break through the Bolton lines, giving Jon, Tormund and Wun Wun the opportunity to get free. They immediately head towards Ramsay, who’s spent this entire time spectating like this is WWE on Pay-Per-View.

The Bolton Boyz get back inside of Winterfell and board up the doors, because they don’t seem to realize that Wun Wun is literally a giant and can push through ’em. So he does, and after they break in, Ramsay shoots him in the flipping EYE and kills him. Wun Wun is our first *big* (har har) casualty of the night. Unpleasant, yes. But it does save money for CG…which I guess means maybe we’ll see Ghost again? Because it seems like Jon dropped him off at the PetsHotel before this whole ordeal.

Once he’s taken down the giant, Jon is next. But it’s a little late for that now. Jon starts heading right for Ramsay, catching his arrows in a shield. And check that shield out! Recognize the sigil? That’s the Mormont bear. He’s currently carrying a Mormont sword (thanks to Jeor of the Night’s Watch) and a Mormont Shield (thanks to one of those 62 soldiers kween Lyanna provided).

Jon finally reaches Ramsay and starts pummeling the shit out of him, which is probably the best part of the episode. I would literally have watched a full 60 minutes of this by itself. Battle of the Bastards, indeed.

I thought Sansa would finish him off with a sword, but instead Ramsay ends up in the kennels with his starving dogs, one of whom bites off his face. Not punishment enough, but I guess it will do. Would love for Sansa have taken the opportunity to call him a bastard one last time in the conversation we have beforehand, but she’s too busy internally gloating.

And with Ramsay gone, there is finally a Stark back in Winterfell.

It is done.

I have some grandiose theories about next week’s episode — one of them being that Jon may finally get his flaming sword, as per Azor Ahai — but we’ll just have to wait and see. I can’t believe the season is almost over. I do have hope, though, that GRRM’s next book may make it out before next season. I’ll try to read it slowly and savor it. (Won’t happen. They’re too good.)

All images courtesy of HBO.

I’m a couple weeks behind, and considering that neither of these two episodes were particularly eventful, I’ve decided to lump them together in to one post. And I’ll put them together by character, rather than writing about what happened in order — it’s a bit easier.

I’ll be back later today or tomorrow with my Episode 9 post.

For now — spoiler space!

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So let’s start with the Hound, since he was our big reveal. I could not be happier that he isn’t actually dead. The Hound is one of my favorite characters. Book Hound has been absent since Arya left him to die, though there were some subtle hints he might be hanging out with some religious folk…and it looks like he is! Being with them has clearly given him some time to think, and you can tell he’s remained a bit conflicted about his life and his past actions. Awesome. Now, my initial excitement was for CLEGANEBOWL (get hype) but as it turns out, looks like that isn’t going to happen (more on that later).

His Septon pal was generally interesting for the 10ish minutes of screen time he had before being hung by a few jerkoffs from the Brotherhood without Banners. And thus, the Hound is back on his vengeance trip, and I’m totally okay with that. After them! With an axe!

And look who else is back…Beric Dondarrion! This totally removes all question of whether or not Lady Stoneheart will make an appearance, really, ever. If not because she’s been dead for like over a year instead of a few days, then surely the fact that Beric is still leading his band of merry men. Oh, and hi Thoros! His return marks our 3rd current red priest, all three with different interpretations of their faith.

The Hound negotiates the opportunity to kill 2/3 of the murderous assholes, and has a lovely scene with the Brotherhood. Interesting that they’re somehow knowledgeable about the White Walkers now? I guess they’re headed North to fight? Maybe make a pit stop at Winterfell? Maybe Hound + Sansa = 4ever? (Non-readers — Sansa kinda has the hots for him, even if she doesn’t realize it.) We shall see.

I’m pretty content for the Hound to do just about anything, as long as we keep getting quality lines like, “I beat you because I’m better than you, Beric. I was better than you before you started yammering on about the Lord, and I’m better than you now.”

Over to Margaery, Tommen, Cersei and the High Sparrow drama in King’s Landing.

We finally find out that Margaery has been playing the High Sparrow, which is pretty sweet. These Tyrells are straight up the best at scheming. Cersei seems to pride herself on being the best manipulator in King’s Landing, but I have to say — I haven’t seen the Tyrells make a single mistake. Even when they took Joff out, they managed to fly under the radar.

Lady Olenna is instructed to get the hell out of King’s Landing. Margaery has a plan. Right now, she seems to have control of both Tommen and the High Sparrow, so things are going well.

Tommen then has a special gift for his ma — he announces there will be no more Trials by Combat. This comes as a complete shock to me (meaning there will be no Cleganebowl — the Hound and the Mountain will not battle it out) and to Cersei, considering she’s just had her bodyguard rip a sparrow’s head off (the religious kind, not the bird).

I have high hopes Margaery is gonna make it through this whole thing pretty unscathed. Cersei, though…not so much. Book readers will note that her specific prophecy states that all of her children will die before she does. 2 down, 1 to go — not sure when we’ll see this happen, as we’re nearing the end of the season. Her trial may not happen before next year…except one small detail — Qyburn mentions a “rumor” that his little birds have confirmed.

My guess? Wildfire under the city. Cersei’s ready to take the whole place down with her.

This move should surely anger Jaime, who’s off in the Riverlands throughout these two episodes. Hopefully this gets him back on track with book Jaime. He’s had about enough of Cersei and her BS.

Jaime shows up at Riverrun to retake the castle. He gets a nice golden backhand onto a Frey face and has a pretty snarky conversation with the Blackfish. Things are not looking easy. Book Jaime remembers the promise he made to Catelyn never to take up arms against the Tullys again, so he’s working to get through this without any violence. Show Jaime just wants things to be simple, it seems.

And, guess who shows up looking to recruit the Blackfish to the side of Sansa Stark…Brienne! Reunion time!

She gets to keep her special sword gift. Also there’s an odd scene where I thought she and Jaime were going to kiss. But they didn’t. Hopefully because B only has eyes for Tormund now (a girl can dream). However, Jaime does respect her, and grants her the opportunity to try to get the Blackfish rallied to her cause. No selfish reason for wanting him out of the castle at all, right?

We also get a solid Bronn & Podrick scene. Meeeemmmmoriesssssss.

Jaime has a talk with our old friend Edmure Tully. He ends up surrendering the castle, and the Blackfish apparently fights to his death? Not even really sure what the purpose was of him being in the story again other than for them to drag out the season. Same with Brienne’s visit, really — she can’t get what she needs, then Jaime lets her go. She has absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever. She won’t even make it back in time for the battle at Winterfell! I digress.

Our pals at Castle Black — Jon, Sansa, Davos, and Tormund — are working to gather an army to make an assault on Winterfell.

With Tormund’s help, Jon rallies the Wildlings; then they start cruising the minor houses of the North looking for some support. In the meantime, Sansa sends a letter off to Littlefinger asking for his help (but keeps it secret from Jon).

We also get to meet Lyanna Mormont, who may be the best show character of all time. SASS CENTRAL. YAS LIL KWEEN.

Off to Essos, where we catch up with Miss Arya Stark. She’s chillin, making plans to take a quick boat ride back to Westeros and seems to have conveniently forgotten that the Faceless Men threatened her life, and also could basically be wearing any face at any time.

Yep, that lil old lady is (drumroll, please…pause for dramatic effect…) the waif. Ready to carry out orders and give Arya a quick, painless, death. Except for like, how, she stabs her in the gut with a knife and gives it a twist.

Luckily, Arya has recently made friends with Lady Crane (Cersei from the play). She seems to have some kind of crazy magical skills, because apparently a butterfly bandage and a piece of gauze manage to heal what I can only assume are massive internal wounds. All the fun theories I’d read online about how the show wouldn’t make it this simple were wrong, it was Arya who was stabbed, and she was saved by the woman whose life she spared. Anyhoo, Lady Crane is still on the Many-Faced God’s list, so she basically lives just long enough to save Arya. And of course, the waif shows back up again to go T-1000 on her ass.

Arya leads her down into a cave and takes her out with Needle in the dark (YASSS) and then puts her face up in the hall of faces (gross). She has a convo with Jaqen, who’s apparently like hey great work, you’re in now…? This whole scene was incredibly odd. But apparently Arya Stark is now “going home”, so we’ve got that to look forward to. Feels like that whole bit with the Faceless Men was kind of pointless though, other than to give Arya some assassin training. Fingers crossed she’s headed directly back to Winterfell.

We also make a quick stop by Theon and Yara, who have arrived in Volantis. Theon’s feeling pretty down, so Yara gives him a pep-talk that’s the equivalent of trolling by the many-faced Egg profile on Twitter. “Kill yourself.” Astonishingly, it works. Theon decides he’s ready to buck-up and be Iron Born.

And finally, over to Meereen.

These two are out pal’in’ around, enjoying their handiwork after making a deal with the slave masters. Also watching a nice red priestess say good things about Daenerys. They give each other a good pat on the back, then Varys leaves (heading back to Westeros, I presume, so that he’s back in line for his book role…since, of course, he should never have traveled here anyway).

We get some really ridiculous filler in Meereen over these two episodes. Let’s get to the good stuff. There’s 10 eps a season, and you’re wasting my time forcing me to sit around and watch Missandei and Grey Worm try to make jokes? No, thank you. Also, Peter Dinklage is just tremendous. These are the scenes he gets this season?

ANYway, as we suspected they would be, the slavers are back and ready to battle. Meereen is under siege. Things start to look a bit dire until…Mom gets back to straighten everything up.

The return of Khaleesi, Mother of Dragons, Resolver of Conflicts, Rider of Drogons, Chastiser of Tyrions, Giver of Angry Looks, means that shit is about to go down. Relief!
I’m ready for a real battle. Let’s do this, Battle of the Bastards.

All images courtesy of HBO.

Blood of My Blood was definitely a more chill episode than last week’s. Although there was nearly no way for it to hit as hard as last week’s ending, we did still get some theories confirmed.

Moving on.

Spoilers incoming.

Are you really this far behind?

We’re 6 episodes in!

Get to it!

We opened where we left off — Meera has left Hodor holding the door, and is dragging Bran through the winter wilderness. Bran is still snoozing while poor Meera does her best to pull him on a sled. It’s obvious she’s struggling, and Bran’s stoned as hell. Unfortunately for us, she’s too busy trying to get the both of them to safety and doesn’t have time to put shaving cream in his hand and tickle his cheek with a feather.

He’s seeing all sorts of amazing stuff — interestingly, things we haven’t seen on the show and things that Bran wasn’t present for. Young Ned with blood on his hands (Lyanna’s, presumably); Ned’s beheading. But the theme that persists throughout — Aerys’s voice. “Burn them all!”

Oh hai, Mad King Aerys. We see Jaime doin’ his Kingslayer thing, exploding wildfire, and flashes of White Walkers. And we keep hearing “Burn them all!” throughout — makes me wonder if there wasn’t a hint about that wildfire being necessary to destroy the White Walkers. There are a lot of theories, though, that Cersei will be the one to bring King’s Landing down via wildfire. Things aren’t going particularly well there for her, so should be interesting to see.

As an aside — early on, in the House of the Undying, Dany sees a vision of herself walking through the throne room with what appears to be snow falling; but is it snow, or ash? Really looking forward to gaining more insight on what’s to come in KL.

But, getting back to Bran and Meera — Bran wakes up just in time to let Meera know that her efforts have been futile, and they’ve been located. Thanks, Bran.

Luckily for them…Coldhands, to the rescue! He’s got a flaming fireball and frostbitten fingertips, but is strong enough to one-handed rip Bran off the sled and carry him and Meera off to safety. But he won’t show his face! How suspicious.

Over to Sam and Gilly, who are riding a carriage over to Horn Hill. We get our first glimpse, and dayyyyyym Horn Hill hawt as hell! Much larger castle than I’d pictured when reading the book. We get to meet Sam’s mother and sister, who are super sweet and so excited to meet Gilly and baby Sam. Luckily, Dad ‘n’ baby bro are out on a hunt, so they all get a few moments to get acquainted.

Sam’s sister takes Gilly off for what has got to be her first ever bath. And she gets her all fancied up — yes, Gilly puts on a DRESS! Most adorable thing ever. Time for dinner!

Gilly is doing her best with a fork and knife and also trying to remember to not tell anyone she’s a wildling. But oops, that slips out, and worst dad ever candidate (he’s still alive, so he could possibly overtake Tywin Lannister) Randyll Tarly does not take kindly to that. He also doesn’t take kindly to Sam eating carbs. Gilly tells them all that Sam killed a White Walker but no surprise, they don’t believe her. Whatevs. Sam is instructed to leave at first light. Gills is gettin’ set up in her new bedroom.

Sam comes in to say goodbye, then leaves. Then he bursts back in 5 seconds later — they’re outta here. Sam can’t leave her there, and it’s probably a good move. She may not be as safe as he’d like her to be. He tells Gilly to grab her things, and oh yeah, she literally doesn’t own anything at all. But they’re about to own one thing — and it’s Heartsbane, the Tarly family Valyrian steel sword. TBH, Sam is gonna need this way more than anyone else in the Tarly family in the future when he’s back at The Wall. But, they’re off to Old Town. So at this point, Randyll is either going to go after them for the sword, or keep the whole thing quiet so as not to admit that his ‘lame’ son snagged it. We’ll see.

Off to Braavos. Arya has some work to do.

Whee! Reliving Joffrey’s death! But…No One has not reached sneak skill level 100, and she gets stopped by her mark after poisoning her drink. After a few tense moments of conversation, we can see that Arya’s morality is winning out. She slaps the drink out of Actor Cersei’s hand and saves her from…well, Arya. She warns her against the fake Sansa’s plan to have her killed.

She leaves and digs out…Needle! Yes! There’s always been a question about whether or not she was going to make it as one of the Faceless Men, and this pretty well answers it. However, they’re clearly not going to be happy about this.

Waif bitch wants her dead, what else is new? Jaqen approves, and Arya goes down in to…her bedroom? Not a particularly good hiding spot. But she has her sword now, so we can expect a pretty dramatic showdown to come. Also, unrelated but Jaqen totally peels a dude’s face off and it’s disgusting.

Save the drama for No One’s mama.

Over to King’s Landing, for a showdown on the steps of the Stony Sept. (Say that 3 times fast.) Margaery has had a quick moment with Tommen, and seems as though she’s repentant. Tommen eats it up, because he’s Tommen. On the other side, though — the Tyrell army is marching in.

Shame?

Here’s something interesting, though — Marg’s not had a haircut. You’d think this might be an indicator for Jaime or Mace, but they’re dudes and apparently can’t tell whether Margie has long hair or a pixie cut. And so, they try to look as tough as possible, and Jaime threateningly rides his horse up a flight of stairs (Can it even get down? I’m imagining them trying to make some kind of ramp while Jaime retreats, embarassed.).

IT’S A STANDOFF! The Tyrell Army vs. The Sparrows!

Lancel is becoming more zealot-y by the day.

Except it isn’t, because the High Sparrow seems to be agreeing to their demands. Except he isn’t, because Margaery has already delivered something to him.

Goddammit, Tommen. Can you just, not? For like five seconds. Don’t.

No really. Just like, play with your cat and hate beets and let the adults take care of this one.

Really, this guy again? Sigh. Well, at least this scene confirms that the information given to Sansa by Littlefinger was in fact, true. The Blackfish has retaken Riverrun, and Walder Frey continues to live on pure hate and spite. Murderous old freak.

And now for a quick chat between Jaime and Cersei. Get this. JAIME IS GOING TO THE RIVERLANDS! Now he’s back on track for his book storyline, except for the part where he thinks Cersei is the worst. Maybe it’s coming. One can only hope.

Jaunt back to Bran and Meera. Time to find out Coldhands’ identity. IT’S UNCLE BENJEN! He was dead, but now he’s not (kewl he and Jon will have stuff to talk about when they reunite). This has been a longtime theory, but this looks like confirmation. Odd considering GRRM had said that Coldhands was dead a long time…suppose it just depends on a person’s opinion of how long a long time is. Either way. THEORY CONFIRMATION: COLDHANDS IS BENJEN. (Now let’s just see if he’s also Euron or Daario. Lols.)

Finally, we head back over to Essos for a clip of “Everybody Loves Khaleesi”. She’s taking her Dothraki blood riders on a trek and they’re headed back to Meereen.

All the images in my post today are from HBO. And apparently they can’t provide one freaking shot of Dany on Drogon’s back. Instead, here’s the crowd.

Dany pops up onto Drogon, because apparently all she had to do was burn down a house and now he obeys her every whim. No whip necessary. She gives a rousing speech to the Dothraki, and they’re ready to go for a trip across the narrow sea to pillage Westeros. But first — Meereen, I’m guessing.

This episode felt short but sweet. We got some storyline advancement and a few great moments from Arya and Sam. Only four episodes remain this season. It’s going by too fast!

Well. This was an episode. The Door proved to be one of the biggest episodes of the season — some small consolation for the fact that the season is halfway over.

Damon and I bought a new giant TV this weekend which may have made the episode that much more intense. I’ll follow up on that later, when we finish fully KonMari’ing and redecorating our living room! Exciting.

Anyhoo–on to my spoiler space…

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All right! The episode began at The Wall again (which I’m starting to think we may not see much more of until the end of the season). Sansa got a letter asking her to head over to Mole’s Town to meet up with “Uncle” Creepo.

(Source)

His wannabe magician style has apparently given him the ability to teleport, because he made it from The Eyrie to Mole’s Town in like a minute. Seriously — even if the guy had 7 days to travel (i.e., between episodes), there’s no way he would have made it that far. Magic! He’s brought some good news for Sansa (if it’s true…if we’re anywhere near the book storyline, it is not) — her uncle, the Blackfish, has retaken Riverrun. Sansa, however, has had some time to think a bit about some questions she’d like to ask Mr. Baelish.

(HBO)

Unfortunately for him, none of these are rhetorical. Sansa wants answers, and Littlefinger is not prepared to give them. It’s like some sick episode of Match Game. “Ramsay touched me on my (blank).” BWOMP do do do do do do do do BWOMP do do do DO do do do do BWOMP do do DO DO do do do do do do do DO DO DO DO DO. No green triangles for Petyr.

Quick jaunt over to The House of Black and White where Arya’s continuing her training. Another beating with a wooden dowel and Jaqen has decided she might be ready to take on another task. She’s sent off to give “the gift” to a local actress. And how lovely — as a nice break from getting beaten up, she gets to sit and watch a play.

(HBO)

Unfortunately, the play happens to be a dramatization of her own life. A Redditor pointed out that she actually ended up playing her own part; there, in the audience; watching Ned Stark lose his head. You can tell she’s struggling seeing him portrayed as a bumbling idiot, but it’s probably very likely what common folk might have perceived of the entire situation.

Next up: backstage dick shot?! Gratuitous boobies in the play, no surprise. But a full-on, camera-filling, shot of a guy’s twig ‘n’ berries? Okay, fine, it wasn’t one of the main characters. And it had warts. Whatever. We’re getting there, guys! Equal opportunity nudity!

Arya feels conflicted about killing a woman who seems like a good person, but Jaqen reminds her that that death does not only come for the wicked. Is she Arya Stark, or is she No One? I suppose we’ll soon find out.

Time for a Bran vision! No, it’s not the Tower of Joy (sigh), but we’re getting to watch the creation of someone else…

(Source)

WHOA. Of course, the internet had all the info about book-related hints that the Children of the Forest had created the White Walkers. But…whoa. I hadn’t seen it coming, so this was pretty wild. Who the hell is this dude? And why the gag, is he a biter? Book canon indicates he might be a Stark. But who?

“Regrets so hard Night’s King wanna kill me, but first Walkers gotta find me.” -Leaf

(We’ll soon discover that’s not as hard as we thought it was gonna be.)

But FIRST, the KINGSMOOT! YEAHHHH! Team Asha/Yara!

(HBO)

Theon gives a moving speech for his sister. Things seem to be going relatively well until ol’ Uncle Euron shows up and starts raving about murdering his brother and the size of his ween, which apparently is all it takes to get support from the Ironborn. These two cleverly take off with the fleet, which was probably a good idea, considering Euron admits shortly thereafter that he straight up wants to kill them.

This is super weird, because book Euron never admits to being involved in Balon’s murder, and he certainly doesn’t intend to kill these two. I think they might end up taking the place of Victarion, sailing across the Narrow Sea headed toward Daenerys. Kind of bummed at Euron’s characterization in the show, as his book character is pretty damn rad. Jury’s out for now, though.

Speaking of across the Narrow Sea…Daenerys is now leading her Khalasar. She takes a moment to thank Jorah and Daario for assisting in her rescue, and gets a glimpse of that nasty lookin’ rash Jorah’s got going on.

(HBO)

This is actually a pretty great scene. Jorah gets to profess his love for Dany, and she sends him off on what’s most likely an impossible mission, one to find a cure for his Greyscale. It’s a tender moment between the two of them, and is giving him something to live for — the fact that he is invited to rule by Dany’s side.

Some folks online seem to think that he will take on another aspect of Victarion’s story, and have himself healed by one of the red priests. Moqorro seems to be missing completely from the show, which leads me to…

This new red woman.

(HBO)

Is she a billion years old? Not sure. But Tyrion and Varys have brought her in to assist them in keeping peace in Meereen. And she’s got major dirt on Varys. Probably the first time we ever get to see him uncomfortable. This will be an interesting relationship to watch.

Our new gal believes Dany is Azor Ahai. The Princess that was Promised. Just goes to show — those flames are up to interpretation. (I choose to go with Mel on this, but mostly because I’m partial to Jon. Also, he’s like, come back to life? You may be fireproof, Dany, but you hain’t seen the nothingness.)

Bran, like any teenager in a dark cave filled with tree roots, gets bored and decides to find himself something to do. He hops into the past (?) and ends up under the same weirwood tree from before, covered in snow, and being stood over by an ominous looking army of wights.

Still not sure why, but he decides to walk in to them. Sure, they “can’t see you” or whatever but like gross dude, get out of there. No surprise, this ends up being a terrible idea.

(Source)

Turns out this guy can see ya, Bran. He grabs ahold of Bran’s wrist, leaving some major freezer burn. And once Bran returns, he gets the bad news — he’s ruined everything now. Nice one. All it took was that one mark, and now the Night’s King and other White Walkers/wights are free to enter their cave of solitude.

There are some theories out there that the mark on Bran’s arm will destroy the magic of The Wall and allow the Others to get through, where they once could not. That seems a little too simple to me. We shall see.

Back to Castle Black, where Sansa’s returned. She passes her newfound knowledge over to Jon as they make a plan on how to retake Winterfell. Sansa mentions a great book line, “The North remembers…” and I’m looking forward to seeing their meeting with some of the great houses in the coming weeks.

One odd bit — Sansa chooses to lie to Jon about her meeting with Littlefinger. I’m not quite sure why, and she doesn’t explain. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as well.

Also, to ease the whole mess of shit we’re about to get in to momentarily, D&D (David Benioff and DB Weiss) kindly give us a bit more Tormund & Brienne. #Tormienne #Briemund

(Source – check this HelloGiggles article. Adorbs.)

Too. Cute. Last note — the fact that Jon told Edd not to let the wall come down while he was away is basically proof that it’s gonna happen because a) irony and b) Edd. I’m sure it’s Bran’s fault, because everything is.

Remember how I said everything was Bran’s fault, and that he ruined everything? Welp, the Night’s King has found his way over to the cave. Leaf does what she can to put out a lil fire ring, which lasts for about 3.5 seconds before they just step over it and head on in.

Bran and the TreeMeister are busy, though, back in past Winterfell.

(HBO)

Oh hai, Rickard Stark. There’s no time for you right now. I literally heard almost nothing that was going on in this flashback because I was too overwhelmed with what was happening in present day. Meera’s yelling at Bran to wake up, wake up!

The Night’s King is in the cave. Wights are coming in. Meera gets a good shot off with a Valyrian spear and takes out White Walker Fabio. TREE MAN GETS CHOPPED. He vaporizes from the past, but not before telling Bran to “listen to [his] friend”. Meera’s calling out to him. “Warg in to Hodor!” She needs help to get Bran moving.

And he does. They take off, Bran still in the past, but Hodor pulling the sled. Summer stays behind, and the wights overtake him. (Come the fuck on with this. Another direwolf this season? Fuggin’ cheapskates. I think this is all because the CGI is expensive. I have major doubts this will happen in the book.)

They’re running down a tunnel. Leaf suicide bombs some wights, holding them off just long enough for Meera, Bran and Hodor to reach a door at the end. It’s hard to open, but Hodor manages. Then, they push through. But the wights are coming.

Bran needs help. So, he takes Meera’s advice. He looks over at Wylis, and boom. Warg’d.

“Hold the door!” Meera is calling. Past Wylis is hearing it. “Hold the door!” he repeats.

(Source)

“Hold the door! Hold the door!” Wylis is seizing. Is he seeing his future death? Is the connection to the future/past frying his brain?

(Source)

“Hold the door! Ho de dor! … Hodor!”

Hodor is overtaken by the wights as Bran and Meera escape. Ouch. I was so taken aback by the entire thing I hardly had time to feel anything. Hodor is one of the few people that’s been around since the beginning. He’s practically a Stark at this point. I think that’s part of what makes his death so difficult.

But also — here he was, this normal kid, and Bran…basically used him. His entire life was for Bran. Did he sacrifice himself? Did Bran make that decision? It gets pretty dark, the longer you think about it.

What else has Bran affected or changed? If this whole thing turns out to be a Bran fever dream, I’m OUT.

Sheesh. Five epsiodes in and we’re down two direwolves (maybe?) and a Hodor. The season is halfway through and has been pretty rough thus far. Right now, I’m just looking forward to the Starks retaking Winterfell at some point. Please?

Book of the Stranger certainly was an interesting episode — I think the very first this season that had almost no book material in it at all. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with myself when I don’t know all the plot points ahead of time. Where will all the hardest-hitting dialogue come from? How am I supposed to know when to look away because something disgusting is coming? And how do I lord my vast knowledge of Westeros’ future over all my friends and coworkers?

I digress. Your obligatory ‘spoiler space’:

SPOILERS

IT’S SPOILERS

FOR THE SHOW

IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED IT

DON’T READ THIS

YOU GET THE IDEA

LAST ONE, I MEAN IT.

So. Castle Black. I am really loving how much of our time is being spent here this season. It’s one of my favorite locations in all of Westeros. Some of the best sidestory characters are here (Edd, Tormund, show Davos). Jon is on his way out after ending his shift — and for a split second, I thought he was gonna leave flipping LONGCLAW behind when Edd picked it up. Looks like Edd was just helping pack, though. Phew. (I mean, nice of you to leave your Valyrian steel sword behind, but, um, you’re probably gonna want that, Azor Ahai. Just for the flames or whatever.)

And, just as Jon’s about ready to toss his knapsack over his shoulder and go for a long hike, guess who shows up at Castle Black.

(HBO)

Yeah, that’s right. Flipping *SANSA*. Now, TBH, I thought there was no way she was going to make it to Castle Black before Jon left. That’s just kind of par for the course for the Stark/Starkgaryen family. I figured: Jon leaves, 5 minutes later, Sansa arrives and his tracks are already covered by fresh snow and they’ll never find each other.

Instead, we get a welcome reprieve from the emotional devastation that is Game of Thrones. Now, this most definitely won’t happen in the books, as Sansa’s not anywhere near this journey — but I’m going to accept this as basically the ASOIAF fanfic that everyone’s been dying for. Sansa makes it pretty clear Jon’s not going anywhere without her, and you can’t blame her. She’s just been through the musical chairs of the Biggest Jerks in Westeros nominees (*music plays* Joffrey Lannister, Cersei Lannister, Petyr Baelish, Roose Bolton and Ramsay Bolton (Ramsay is cutting an apple with a knife in his cutaway before he smiles and waves)). Jon gets a pretty great “father’s ghost” line. Whose father, Jon? Mhmmm…

Davos and Melisandre have a quick convo about her plans. As it turns out, she’s got herself a rebound man, and it’s the prince that was promised (dat’s you, JSnow). Just a quick heads up, Melly — Jon is prooooobably not gonna be your shadow baby daddy. Davos senses he could totally console her right now and instead takes this opportunity to give her some pretty solid snark.

Just before we leave Castle Black, Mel and Brienne also get to have a quick girls’ talk and reminisce about Stannis. Melly fondly remembers his clenched jaw and how he was sort of Azor Ahai but not really. Brienne smiles a bit when she thinks about that time she got him to admit he used dark magic to kill Renly and then drove her sword through his chest. Do I sense impending BFFs?

Now, off to visit Sansa’s cousin, Robyn Arryn. Still in the Vale, but taller, more tired-looking, and somehow even more physically inept.

(HBO)

Lord Royce is trying to teach lil Robbie how to shoot a bow and arrow, and he’s just awful. He’s worse than some of the Hell’s Kitchen contestants from last season. (That’s not saying a lot.) Hoping they find him some way cooler weapon to fight with. We know there’s like four to choose from, right? Katana, bo, sai, nunchucks? Whoops. Wrong canon.

There we go. Cannon! That’ll do it. Either that, or his fancy new pet falcon can just scratch everyone’s eyes out from a distance! New pet falcon, you say? Where would he get something ridiculous like that?

From this guy, of course:

(HBO)

Littlefinger is like that asshole relative that buys your kid that drum kit with 5 sounds that they beat over and over and over again until the batteries run out and you tell them it’s “broken” just so they forget about it until it gets pushed to the back of their closet and you can secretly sneak it in to a bag that’s going to the Goodwill. Alternatively, the one that gets your kid a BB gun after you’ve made it very clear that they’ll shoot their eye out with it. The falcon somehow falls in to both those categories.

Lord Royce is less than pleased that PB has dumped Sansa off to the Boltons. Littlefinger, not a fan of his dissension, manipulatively brings it to Sweet Robin’s attention. And what do you know, this kid wants to throw Lord Royce through the Moon Door. Surprise! That’s pretty much his best line of defense at this point. Stand on the other side of it and hope his enemies fall through.

As it turns out, Lord Royce is not a fan of base jumping and decides to stay in line with Baelish. For now.

Sidenote: Non-readers, Sansa was still currently located here in the Vale when we last left her. A pretty good ways from Castle Black. PB is still weird uncle creepin’ on her and somehow trying to find her a hubby at the same time. It’s like if Richard Dawson hosted The Dating Game. (Suddenly feeling very proficient in current events/references.)

To Essos! Diplomatic relations time. Who likes CSPAN?

I feel like the scenes here were more of a setup than anything else. Tyrion attempts to make a deal with the slavers that they can continue in their ways for 7 years if they will stop funding the Sons of the Harpy. As you can imagine, the ex-slaves Missandei and Grey Worm are none too pleased. I have a sneaking suspicion Dany will not be either. Her idea of compromise is “Dracarys“. (Mine too.) The one interesting point I think that’s being made here is how different Westeros and Essos are. We will soon find out who’s right and whether or not Tyrion is as good a Hand of the King as he was over there.

And now, more hijinks from Dany’s would-be rescuers, Jorah and Daario 2.0!

(HBO)

Did you ever know two people who had soooo much in common that they should be best friends, but somehow they’re just too alike and so they become awkwardly competitive? Well, if not, here they are!

Here’s a basic recap of these scenes from inside Jorah’s head.

“Fine, fine, I’m old, whatever. Okay Daario, you may have slept with Dany, but did you save her life? Oh, yeah, you did. But like, what about advising her on important decisions? All right fine, you did that too. What about getting a really jacked up rash on your oh shit I wasn’t supposed to show anyone that welp too late now hey nice knife or whatever maybe we should team up, right? Yeah let’s do that hot damn I’ma take on this Dothraki guy hiiiii-yaaaaa dammit he’s strong and I guess I am gettin’ too old for this shit WHOA thanks for saving my ass and stabbing that guy. WAIT we can’t stab people here oh sure smash his head in with a rock and let’s get outta here, bro. But not too far. We still gotta save our queenleesi. *whispers to himself* My queenleesi.”

To Kings Landing!

(HBO)

Margaery has been asking to see her brother since day 1 in lockup, and today, the High Sparrow is going to let her. Right after he tells her about this SICK party he went to one time. He was like, sooooo drunk off of all the booze and like there were women EVERYWHERE dawg, like you wouldn’t even believe. He woke up in the morning and had noooo idea where his shoes were, crazy, right? And that was like, especially weird because he made shoes. Like, for a living. Then, it was like, this light just like, shined down from the heavens and suddenly he realized he was gonna leave everything behind and live his life for the church. Cool story, bro.

Marge gets to go and see Loras, who’s clearly had it much worse than her. She’s whispering to him to keep fighting back, as it’s obvious he’s about to cave. This was kind of an odd scene for me, because I couldn’t tell which one of them had the “right” idea. Should they fight? Should they give in?

Well, as it turns out, Cersei thinks they should fight (certainly this only benefits her). She barges in to another small council meeting after a chat with Tommen (Pycelle getting another amazing physical comedy routine during that scene…slowest. exit. ever.) and convinces Olenna Tyrell and Kevan Lannister that the Tyrell army should march on the Sparrows in Kings Landing. This is NOT going to end well.

No photos of our next stop, Winterfell, because we were literally there just long enough for Ramsay to kill Osha. Fuck that guy. That is all.

And now, over to Pyke!

Another extremely quick pit stop in this episode. We’re here just long enough for this guy to get home:

(HBO)

He comes in, sees his sis, and firmly joins #TeamYara (#TeamAsha) for the Kingsmoot. Nice choice.

Quick jaunt back to Castle Black, just in time for dinner and some googly eyes.

(Source and Source)

Hey gurl, hey. Tormund liking him a big ol’ woman. Brienne like dafuq dawg? Jon receives a correspondence from one Ramsay Bolton, firing up the Stark/Snow/Tarth/Wildling alliance to go back and retake Winterfell.

In the book, this letter is what actually causes Jon to be killed. He receives it, gets fired up by its contents, and reads it to the entire Night’s Watch in the Shieldhall, wanting them to join him in attacking Winterfell. I am surprised they included it, because I think it could have had a lot more weight in its original timeline. However, this letter (known as the “Pink Letter” because of the wax seal color) has a lot more questions around it in the book storyline. One wonders if this truly does mean that Ramsay was the sender, or if we’ll find out more information on this topic when the book is eventually released.

And now, back over to Vaes Dothrak.

Dany chats with the gals of the Dosh Khaleen for a bit and makes some new friends. Then, while stepping out to pee, Dany runs in to her two Stooges and lets them know there’s no way they can escape from this place. However, she conveniently has a plan.

(HBO)

Remember earlier, when I said Dany’s idea of compromise was dracarys? Yeah, I was totally right.

These Khalbro guys start giving her shit, and she burns the motherfuckers up. The entire building goes up in flames, and guess who doesn’t get burned. If you guessed Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, The Unburnt, then you would be correct. Bitches be bowin’, and she be takin’ it all in. Khaleesi. Straight up.

Next week marks the halfway point of the season. Can this go on forever and ever, please?

It’s that time again…My weekly Game of Thrones recap! I was happy with this week’s episode, though it felt too short. Why can’t they just release all the damn episodes at once, Netflix-style? Oh that’s right, because I’d have to take a vacation day from work to make sure I watched every single episode immediately. And then another vacation day to sleep off my GOT hangover.

(I did that for the fourth season of Arrested Development. I’m pretty sure it’s the first and only time I have seen the sunrise in the last 10+ years. Is that sad?)

And now, for my obligatory spoiler space:

SPOILERS SPOILERS HERE COME THE SPOILERS

REALLY THO

I AIN’T PLAYIN’

I MEAN IT

YOU’LL SEE

WHEN I GIVE THE SPOILERS

HERE THEY COME

SERIOUSLY

Okay that’s enough.

Fortunately for us, this episode started at Castle Black. We got a glimpse of some Jon Snow BOO-TAY *waggles eyebrows* as he sits upright and is conveniently caught by our pal Davos. Davos gives him a nice cloak straight out of the dryer to warm up in while Melisandre comes in for an interrogation.

(Source)

“Is there gold in the village? What did you see while you were dead? Where is Beric Dondarrion?”

Jon actually has a pretty heavy response to her question about what exists after death: Nothing. He saw nothing, he knows nothing. It’s actually pretty interesting that he also says, “I shouldn’t be here.” As usual, I look forward to reading this in the books. Knowing that he’ll be spectating from within Ghost, I’m interested to see if he actually does not want to be brought back to life after his death.

Anyhoo, Jon gets dressed and heads out into the icy courtyard to surprise everyone with his reanimation. Tormund eases up the tension with a clever dick joke and Jon gets some hugs from his pals. It’s like old friends getting back together again, if the last time you’d seen your friend he was stone cold dead laying on a table and it was yesterday.

Next up we “cruise” (boat pun) on over to Sam and Gilly, who are at sea (see?) on their way to Oldtown.

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Sam is seasick as hell (I don’t know how you could not be, but please take in to account that I get motion sick at the gym when I’m running on the treadmill and trying to watch one of the stationary TVs as my head bobs up and down) and Gilly is enjoying the adventure. Until, that is, she finds out that women can’t study to be maesters and that they earn .79 for every dollar a man earns. (Some bullshit, ain’t it gurl?)

Eventually she agrees to go to Horn Hill and settle in with Sam’s family. I don’t know what’s to come when they arrive, as Sam hasn’t exactly shared any nice memories of the place where he grew up. Best of luck to you, Gilly and Baby Sam. Let’s hope Daddy Tarly ain’t in a mood.

One more thing — Sam’s dad was pret-ty dang upset about the idea of him becoming a maester in his childhood. Not sure how he’s gonna take that news. But either way — Gilly, whatever you do, do not take your baby and follow anyone in to the dog kennels. That will not end well.

FLASHBACK! Bran is on another journey, this time to the ~*Tower of Joy*~. This is the place.

IN THIS CORNER, THE YOUNG AND HONORABLE NED STARK OF WINTERFELL AND BAND OF MERRY MEN, INCLUDING HIS CRANNOGMAN COMPANION, HOWLAND REED. IN THIS CORNER, SER ARTHUR DAYNE, THE SWORD OF THE MORNING AND HONORABLE BADASS MOTHERFUCKER.

Love the casting on both young Ned and Arthur Dayne. We get to see, for the first time, Bran seeing the truth about the fight — that Howland dishonorably killed Dayne from behind. But, it was either that, or lose Ned — Howland saved his life. Bran has heard Ned’s side of that story for a long time, and is having one of those “oh my god, my parents are people” moments. Just as everything is as it should be, the fight ends, and we’re ready to see what we’ve all been waiting for…

A GIANT COCKBLOCK. Bran isn’t allowed into the tower. This some bullshit.

“You must learn everything, Bran! Not today tho lol time for a nap. Also fuck the viewers” – 1000 yr old tree jerk

 The only saving grace in this scene was that Ned appeared to hear Bran calling out to him from the future. What does it mean? I don’t know yet, but I like it.

Next we make a quick jaunt over to Vaes Dothrak.

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Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t remember giant horse statues anywhere near here. The Dothraki aren’t builders. They steal things. And they’re nomads. These are tripping me out. I’m going to pretend that they found them somewhere like this and just stuck them up here.

Anyway, Daenerys is getting dropped off at her slumber party. But guess what, there’s already a clique formed, and they don’t take kindly to girls who have a billion titles. On Wednesdays, they wear brown. Surprise surprise, Dany’s not safe here.

(Source: HBO)

The Regina George of the Dosh Khaleen

MEANWHILE, IN MEEREEN…What will these crazy kids get in to next, now that the show killed off Ser Barristan? Well, today, Tyrion is trying to make jokes and Varys is blackmailing a murderer.

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Tyrion learns that Missandei and Grey Worm have literally no sense of humor, and is feeling really disappointed that the one item he chose to carry across the Narrow Sea in his crate was Pictionary.

And next, as if reading our minds — the GOT folks knew exactly what we weren’t getting enough of. I work full time, 40 hours a week. I sit down on the weekend and I watch fantasy shows because I need to see more meetings.

(Source: HBO)

I can sum this whole scene up for you pretty quickly, with a second Mean Girls reference.

Also, thanks for the Pycelle fart joke, guys. Needed something to keep me sane while watching this.

To wrap up our Kings Landing updates, we head to Tommen, who’s gone over to stand up to the High Sparrow. This whole scene, as I see it, is basically a conversation between two kids. Tommen, the gullible little brother, comes over trying to get his way. “I DEMAND that my mother be allowed to see Myrcella! I’m the King!” Then the High Sparrow pulls the classic older sibling move. “No, no — you want to eat all the yellow banana Runts. They’re better, see? All the cool kids are eating them.” Guess who comes out on top. (Hint: It’s always the one that got the better flavored Runts. Red and pink FTW)

Also, I couldn’t find any pictures of this scene except one on Buzzfeed that had a stupid superimposed caption. Whatever, Tommen. We know what you look like. Get used to not being around, anyway, you’ll be dead soon.

And now…it’s time for everybody’s favorite blind apprentice!

(Source: HBO)

Just add some sweet-ass 80’s music and you’ve got yourself a killer training montage. Arya gets her eyes back by drinking from the death fountain, which seems rather suspicious. But what about the House of Black and White isn’t, at this point?

Also rather interesting that she mentioned The Hound and specifically that she hadn’t killed him, but had left him to die. Might we be seeing our old friend back again later this season? I have high hopes. (CLEGANEBOWL 2016 GET HYPE)

Heading back to northern Westeros, we see Ramsay Bolton (yuck) again. Haven’t we had enough of this guy? And an Umber has brought him a gift:

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Oh, come the fuck on with this. First off, nice to see you Rickon and Osha, it’s been ages. But like, best timing, right? As you’re handed over to a lunatic murderer? And also — SHAGGYDOG? Come ON. No more animal deaths! My sensitive soul can’t take it. My only saving grace right now is that the internet suggests that might not really be Shaggy, as the head was so small. Let’s hope the real Direwolf is just busy licking himself outside Winterfell right now waiting to gnaw all over Ramsay.

And last but not least, we’re bookended back at Castle Black. Jon’s going for that sweet man bun look, which is the new hotness among those who have returned from the dead. He’s on his way to the gallows, where we find none other than Alliser Thorne and Olly ready to go for a swing. TIME TO DIE, BITCHES!

Jon swings his sword to cut the rope and we get to watch those two (among others) kick around deliciously while they turn blue. YOU KILLED JON SNOW YOU FRICKING IDIOTS. YOU DESERVE IT. However, Jon is clearly struggling to pass the sentence on these guys. One wonders if it’s because he knows what’s to come for them (he seen death, y’all).

After a few difficult moments, he passes off his Lord Commander’s cloak to Edd (999th LC, anyone?) and heads out.

YAAAASSS best line of the night! It’s time, JSnow. Get out there and get Winterfell back from that flaying bastard and CLAIM YOUR RIGHTFUL PLACE ON THE THRONE AS THE KING OF EVERYTHING*.

*Okay, that last bit may have gotten away from me there. But I think we all know Jon has an important role to play. At least he’s got to rescue Rickon, right? Right?  … Don’t ruin this for me. JSnow 4 LYFE.

Ooooooooooweeeeee! What an episode this was! Much faster paced than last week, which was needed.

And now, the obligatory spoiler space:

I WAITED A WHOLE DAY

SPOILERS INCOMING

SPOILERS INCOMING

TRANSMISSION RECEIVED

Okay, that’s all you get.

This episode started out with Bran (Who’s that?), who we’ve not seen in over a whole season. Isaac Hempstead-Wright looks like he has aged about 15 years from the pre-pubescent boy that got pushed out a window in Season 1. But he’s back! And now logged in to weirwood.net via his tree root connection.

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He’s back in time, getting eyes on young Ned Stark and some upcoming plot points (Hi, Lyanna!). Walking, too! Magical. And check out “little” Hodor! He talks! I’m very hopeful they’ll show us more of his past in some of Bran’s upcoming visions.

We left Winterfell and the cave to head back to The Wall and Castle Black. They’re killing us and they know it, so are planning to drag this out as long as possible.

Davos isn’t much of a fighter, but he’s willing to do what he has to…over Jon’s dead body.

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Fortunately for him, our pal Edd has taken care of roping in the Wildlings (TORMUND!).Wun Wun plays paddle ball with an archer…and Jon is safe (-ish. I mean, he is already dead).

Next we make a quick jaunt down to King’s Landing. Some comedian is telling a fun story to some pals in a bar, which seems like a nice safe place to have a private conversation. But one thing they apparently don’t tell us about zombies is that they have super-hearing, and a certain purple-faced re-animated gentleman doesn’t take kindly to Momma Cersei being defamed.

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Ouch.

Jaime has a nice chat with Tommen while they stand over Myrcella’s body (stone eye covers still just as creepy as ever). Tommen has banned Cersei from attending the funeral because the High Sparrow won’t allow her in the Sept, and he doesn’t want her to get arrested again. He heads off to apologize to her because he’s a child and has literally no idea what he’s doing. (Why hasn’t anyone seemed to notice/mention that this entire thing is Cersei’s fault to begin with…?) The High Sparrow enters the Sept and he and Jaime have an awkward showdown, where Jaime decides he’d rather not fight all of the religious zealots at once. The High Sparrow lives to see another day.

Aaaand we’re back to Meereen. I could watch these guys sit around and chill for the whole hour (not true). Tyrion drops some knowledge bombs on the crew about *~dragons~* and how they shouldn’t be kept in captivity. Agree, T. Dany collaring up her babies is one of the saddest moments of the series for me, besides Lady getting killed in Season 1. (I was also sad when Ned died, but I have a soft spot for animals.)

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This was one of my favorite scenes of the episode. Tyrion tells an amazing heartfelt story about his childhood (love that they included this) and frees the sweet lil dragons. (Book readers – I have a feeling we were all losing our collective minds praying that this wasn’t how they worked Quentyn in to the story. Lucky for us, they left him out entirely.)

Not really sure why the dragons didn’t immediately fly past Tyrion and Varys on their way out. Maybe they’re just packing their bags. Got some burnt bones there in the back they don’t want to leave behind. Can’t wait to see Rhaegal and Viserion out and about soon, though.

Next we see our girl Arya, but she doesn’t see us. Or anything. Still. She won’t give up her ‘name’ to Jaqen. Even for food! We get it. She’s super cereal about her training. Can we get back to Castle Black?

No, we can’t. Time to follow a couple of sadistic assholes.

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Great news! New baby Bolton is born. Except like, about 5 seconds later, Ramsay takes out Roose. This came as a complete shock. I actually like Roose. I mean I hate him, but I like him. This seems like another one of those odd deaths in the series where they killed off a show character and the book character is going to be a hell of a lot harder to kill. I can’t really see Roose letting this happen, especially because we know Ramsay’s already taken out one sibling.

And so, Ramsay stabs Roose while a jerkoff Karstark looks on. Then, explains to the spectating Maester that Ramsay was poisoned. Next, he heads outside after calling poor, poor Walda to him.

I’m not putting an image from any of the following scenes in Winterfell. GROSS. I will say they had me going for a second there. She hands lil bb Bolton over to Ramsay and I thought, “Oh my god, he’s gonna throw that baby on the ground or in the fire.” But he didn’t, and for a bit I figured all was not lost. Until he lured Walda in to the dog kennels. GURL NO. NO! I mean, I can’t think she’d have gotten away but fuuuuuck don’t go in there.

We stop by Theon, Brienne and Sansa just long enough to hear Theon say he’s headed “home”. To PYKE! (Although some folks on the internet seem to think that might be a reference toward Winterfell…is he headed for revenge on Ramsay? Mayhaps.)

And here we are. Back with Balon, Yara (Asha) and the Ironborn. After a chat with Yara, Balon heads out for a quick jaunt along some DANGEROUSLY HIGH AND SWINGING ROPE BRIDGES between his castles. (It’s great to be a ruler, but like, shit. I’d rather have Harrenhall.) Also note that the rope bridges are wide enough to be crossed by only one person at a time.

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And what do you know, some hooded figure is blocking his path. IT’S MOFUGGIN EURON. EURON! We get one of his best book lines (altered, but it’s there), “from Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray”. Shortly after he appears, he kindly gives Balon a hand over the edge of that rope railing. For you non-book readers, just know that this was a loooooong time coming. Remember when Melisandre burnt dem leeches? And one of ’em was Balon Greyjoy? Yeah. Like, he should have died seasons ago. It was time.

And we’re getting the effing KINGSMOOT! So exciting. #TeamYara

AND THEN.

*MEANWHILE, AT CASTLE BLACK…*

Davos hits up his pal Melisandre for a miracle. Yes, pls. She reluctantly agrees. Cleans him up, cuts some head and beard hair (was srsly expecting her to go for pubes, but I guess the Lord of Light ain’t in to that kind of thing?) and says the words.

Melisandre is just as impatient as I am. She thinks her steps haven’t worked. She leaves.

And then.

THEN.

JON SNOW.

COMES BACK TO LIFE.

(via Giphy)

I *may* have jumped up and flail danced all over my entire living room, missing the ‘scenes from next week’ entirely. Look. Straight up. I didn’t even read this book immediately after it came out. But I read it a good while ago. Try 2013. I’ve been waiting NEARLY THREE YEARS to find out if Jon was coming back to life. I mean, I knew he would. But I didn’t know.

I still think things will happen differently in the books and look forward to reading them. But HOLY FUCK he’s alive! Anyone think he’s gonna be mega fucked up, Beric Dondarrion style? (i.e., Memory loss?) Wondering if he really will be as affected considering he was chillin’ inside Ghost the whole time. Sorry show-only peeps — Jon’s a warg. Oh yeah, so is Arya. You’re missing out on that bigtime. (Interesting note here — when Arya is going through this blind-stick-beating (training?), she actually wargs in to a nearby cat and uses its vision to see when she’s about to get hit. More fun, right?)

Cannot wait until next week and am thrilled they didn’t draw out Jon’s revival any longer. Mah boi is BACK!

Well…it’s that time of year again! Game of Thrones is back! Even for us book readers — this is the year we’ll find out the answers to so many of our questions: whether Jon Snow lives or dies, who his parents are, and where Daenerys is heading. Also, is Bran going to get assimilated in to underground tree-ville? How hard is it for someone to get Jorah some lotion for that dry-ass skin he’s got going on? And of course, the ever-present, how many more living book characters are D&D going to kill off for the purposes of the show?

Now – I won’t go in to too much detail, but here’s my take on last night’s episode. And, for anyone who hasn’t seen the episode yet — SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS. Spoilers are coming.

I mean it. The night is dark and full of spoilers. Here we go.

I’m spoilering you. Starting…now.

Now.

Now.

Okay, right now.

And, go. So, the show started off focusing on this fucking guy:

(Snagged from the internet)

I mean, he’s kind of the biggest deal right now, so this makes sense. We start off seeing his (true and loyal) Night’s Watch bros discover his body. They haul him off for safe keeping and are understandably pretty upset. (Me too, Edd. Me too.) Now, we’re not here yet chronologically in the books of course, but in some aspects are pretty far away (I mean, Davos, where the hell is Rickon?) but I can at least appreciate that we do get more Davos scenes at the wall, and they’re good ones. Melisandre gets a look at everything and starts questioning herself, and I mean, come ON just get to it already! JSnow is coming back, and I just know Melly is involved. I refuse to believe that anything else could be true. (Also, you know what, it makes a lot of sense that Mel would be questioning herself, considering her leech trick doesn’t seem to have done as well in the show as it did in the books.)

Either way — I’m excited to see what happens in this storyline, but it’s not quite right, book-wise — and I’m currently struggling to get over that. Come back to me at the end of the season and we’ll see if I’ve learned to tolerate the divergence.

Next up, we visit these two escapees:

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These two. Book storylines be damned, Sansa and Theon are on the run. Theon’s scheme to lure the dogs away from Sansa literally works for about 30 seconds. Not even sure why that needed to be included. I was pleasantly surprised to see our old pal Brienne of Tarth arrive to save the two of them. But also, is this whole thing a dream sequence? Stannis is dead? Brienne has actually found Sansa? I’m interested to see where they take this. I’ve read that the showrunners may possibly intend to use Sansa as a bit of a plot replacement for Lady Stoneheart, so…we’ll see. Would much rather have zombie Catelyn Stark. Podrick correcting and helping Sansa through accepting Brienne’s sword was pretty adorable, though. Pod + Sansa 4 ever.

Speaking of odd couples, here’s some people I have no sympathy for:

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Jaime shouldn’t be here, Myrcella shouldn’t be dead, and he should never have gone to Dorne. But, I digress. This whole situation is just very odd to me. At least Cersei mentioned the prophecy (I feel like it might be the first time she did?). Now I think it’s pretty clear that Tommen is going to die too — but where? And when? Poor Margaery. Once, twice, three times a widowwww. (And I’ll quickly mention her here — my first Monty Python reference of the day — “Confess! Confess! Poke her with the soft cushion!”)

And now, for the most rage-incuding scenes of the night:

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Doran Martell is probably one of the best characters in the books. This guy is a straight up mastermind. Conniving, pointed, intelligent — everything you’d want in someone vying for the throne. And believe me, he has a plan. He’s hedged the hell out of his bets, and is ready and waiting. (Also, a solid casting choice.) So, what better way to preserve his character than have him murdered by people who really should be listening to his plans? And then kill Trystane? (Also, how the hell did those two Sand Snakes even get on the boat? Did they ride there from Dorne? Did they swim?) I can only assume that they’re planning to have Ellaria take up his cause but am really disappointed by this. They’ve taken a shit on the whole Dorne storyline and I’m not particularly happy about it. I wish they’d even included Quentyn, however pointless his quest may be. *HEAVY SIGH*

I’m going to mention this gal about as quickly as she came and went:

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Oh hey Arya, good to see you. You’re clearly still in training, and apparently no one in Braavos gives a flying fuck if a bitch beats up a blind beggar with a stick in broad daylight.

And now since we’re in Essos, a visit to Meereen and our old pal, Daenerys:

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Damn, I miss Barristan Selmy. Meereen has issues, no surprise there — and Tyrion and Varys are just struttin’ around when it’s clearly pretty dangerous. Interesting choice. Daario and Jorah have joined forces (adorable?) and are out Khaleesi hunting. And Dany has a nice chat with Khal Brogo (thanks, internet) and his henchmen. Who are also very Monty Python-esque. (“What have the romans ever done for us? … The aqueduct?” or “Our three key elements are: surprise, fear, and ruthless efficiency!”) Okay, okay. Top 5. I’d read a lot of theories online (and agreed with them) that the Dothraki would be taking Dany to Vaes Dothrak, and it does seem that that’s the case. So, no shock there…but once she gets there, that will be new to me.

Last, but certainly not least, #iwokeuplikethis Mel:

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Mofuggin sweet necklace, girlfriend. This also didn’t come as a surprise to me because it’s kind of been unconfirmed theory for a long time. Good to know it’s true. The one thing it did get me wondering was — is it possible she’ll give her own life for Jon’s? I still have suspicions that it will be Shireen that does in the books…but it’s an interesting thought. And we know she knows how to revive people (ahem, thank you Thoros and Beric). (Show only, of course.) Only time will tell, and dammit if they drag JSnow out three or four episodes I’m gonna lose my shit.

That’s all for this episode…stay tuned to see where they take it from here and how much angrier I get throughout Season 6!

I’ve been meaning to write a quick blurb about Galavant since I finished watching Season 2. Not sure if the show has been picked up for a third season (which I feel is sort of common for particularly great comedies), but I can’t recommend it enough. If you’ve not seen it, you’ve got to get your hands on it.

The show is basically one long medieval musical. What more can you ask for? The characters are exaggerated, but not in a way that makes them seem out of touch; the scenarios are ridiculous, yet plausible; the show delicately toes the line of being so silly it’s pointless and investing you in the characters enough to have you wanting to see what happens next.

I also particularly love the little nods to other medieval-style shows. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride, Game of Thrones — I feel like I need to watch the show a couple of times through to catch all the inside jokes. Those are the kinds of shows I particularly appreciate — those that have layers far beyond the surface plot.

The main plot of the story follows the hero Galavant on his quest to redeem his reputation, but before you know it, the whole story has turned on its head. Galavant really does a great job of picking apart the “knight in shining armor” trope. The plot twists and turns, but still provides the little moral lessons you’d expect from a story like this.

Overall, I think the show is excellent. I’d love to discuss it more specifically here, but don’t want to give away too many spoilers. Go watch it, come back, and we’ll talk.

And if you don’t like it, well, you can go and “die in a brown fart.” (That’s a joke you’ll only get if you go watch the showwwwww lolololol DO IT.)