It's season finale time. Who will live? Who will die? Who will care?
Stannis
It seems that the sacrifice has worked as things have started to thaw out, but it's not all good news for the sole-surviving Baratheon. Selyse has decided that she actually did care about Shireen, and has hanged herself in the woods. Also, all the sellswords buggered off in the middle of the night and stole all the horses. Then just when he thinks it can't get any worse, Melisandre rides out of camp (apparently the sellswords stole all but one of the horses). "Well, them's the breaks," thinks Stannis, and he decides that a prophecy's a prophecy, so he'll just march his remaining men to take Winterfell without horses, siege weapons, superior numbers, or food. It doesn't go well for him.
Two minutes after they arrive, Stannis' forces are overwhelmed by the Boltons' cavalry and annihilated. Stannis himself manages to limp away to the woods, and even show a little baddassitude by killing two Bolton pursuers at the same time. Unfortunately, he's wounded, alone, and probably won't be able to drag his ass back to Dragonstone. Even more unfortunately, Podrick spotted his army coming in, and Brienne is not at all happy to see him. She's still a little miffed that Stannis killed Renly, so she tracks him to the woods and asks him if he has any last words before she whips out Oathkeeper and takes a swing at his head. All he can think to say is "Go on, do your duty."
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| "I've had a really bad day." |
Sansa
Most of the Bolton soldiers are out slaughtering Stannis' men, so Sansa figures it's the perfect time to escape. She picks the lock on her room and heads up the ruined tower to light the candle Brienne had smuggled in to her. Unfortunately, Brienne is busy likewise engaged in Stannis-related business, so she can't come and save her. Myranda catches her out of her room, tells her of all the horrible things Ramsay has in store for her, and aims an arrow at her chest. That's all Theon can stands, he can't stands no more, so he tosses Myranda over a railing to her death, and leaps with Sansa from the wall of Winterfell into a snow bank and the freedom of season 6. Or to their deaths. Probably freedom, though.
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| Although, it is a reaaaaaaly long way down. |
Arya
Ser Meryn doesn't just like underage prostitutes, he likes beating them. Arya's not cool with that, so she poses as a young whore, stabs his eyes out, then slits his throat. Later, she returns a borrowed face to the hall of the Many-Faced God. Jaqen catches her, and as punishment he forces her to watch him drink poison. Which is an odd punishment, to be sure. As she weeps over his body, the girl who has been taunting her all season turns into Jaqen and tells her that dead Jaqen wasn't Jaqen at all, he was no one. Arya rips faces off dead Jaqen until she reaches one that looks like her, then she goes blind because to a girl who is still someone, the faces are as good as poison. It's very confusing.
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| A girl has no idea what's going on. |
Jaime
It's time to sail back to King's Landing. Ellaria gives Myrcella an obviously poisoned kiss goodbye, Tyene gives Bronn an obviously erotic bite on the ear, then it's sailing time. Two minutes into the trip, while Jaime awkwardly tries to explain his love for his own sister, Myrcella tells her dad that she already knows and that she's glad he's her dad. Then she drops dead. Back on the dock, Ellaria wipes some blood from her nose, cleans the poison from her lips, then downs the antidote. Then, I assume she and the Sand Snakes flip the boat off, Dornish style, before they walk home.
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| That's two kings, a crown prince, a prince, and three princesses that Jaime's lost during his time in the Kingsguard. It may be time for a new vocation. |
Daenerys
Jorah and Daario ride north to look for their queen, while Tyrion, Grey Worm, Missandei, and (surprise!) Varys stay behind to run the city. Daenerys herself is somewhere off in the mountains trying to convince Drogon to take her home. He's a sleepy dragon, though, so she goes for a walk and is quickly surrounded by a... er... whatever the hell they call a group of Dothraki. So, I guess she'll be hanging out with them again next season.
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| I hope she remembers how to ride a horse. |
Cersei
Cersei's tired of getting smacked around, so she confesses some of her sins and is shown the Mother's mercy. Which entails getting her head shaved and then walking home naked while the townspeople wave their genitals in her direction and throw what appears to be barbecue sauce at her. When she gets back to the Red Keep, she's met by her uncle Kevan, Qyburn, and the latest member of the Kingsguard.
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| Ser Frankenmountain |
Jon
With Aemon dead, the castle needs a new maester, so Sam asks Jon if he can take Gilly and Little Sam to Oldtown so he can train at the Citadel. Reluctantly, Jon agrees. Later, Ser Davos begs for whatever Jon can spare, but the Night's Watch is low on just about everything, so there's nothing to send. Melisandre shows up (because apparently Stannis' camp was a 20-minute horse ride from Castle Black), and looks sad while Jon and Davos ask her what happened to Stannis and Shireen, respectively. Still later, Olly bursts into the Lord Commander's office to tell him of a wildling who has news of his uncle Benjen. Instead, he finds Ser Alliser and about fifteen other brothers standing around a sign that reads "TRAITOR". Then the actual traitors pull out their daggers and one-by-one, stab Jon to death. Yes, he's really, super dead and he's not coming back. For serious.
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| I mean, that's not chocolate syrup beside him. |
What I Liked
-Wounded, and alone, Stannis still manages to kill two dudes before he goes down. He hasn't really had the chance to whip out his sword since season two.
-Myranda's head makes a satisfying splat when it hits the ground. She was boring, and I'm glad she's gone.
-When he dies, Jon's pupils dilate. I'll assume it was a special effect and not just incredible facial acting by Kit Harington.
What I Hated
-Literally a minute after he says the sellswords left with all the horses, Stannis' commander tells him that Melisandre was seen riding out of camp. It's like the writers never went back over the script after they wrote it.
-Brienne looks away from the broken tower five seconds before Sansa lights the candle. A watched pot never boils, I guess.
-The kiss of death could not have been more obvious.
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| I guess they don't have Sicilians in Westeros. |
-Everything with Cersei. There was nothing good about her scenes at all.
-"Shame... shame... shame... *ding*" I'm not sure what they were going for with that bit, but it really just made me laugh.
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| SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! |
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| Lena Headey and Lena Headonsomeoneelsesbodyey |
-When she's finished walking, she looks like Bruce Willis at the end of Die Hard. Is the ground in King's Landing made of glass or something?
Final Thoughts
Little Sam is clearly still a tiny baby, and Gilly had him in the middle of season three. Which means that everything that's happened since then has taken place over the course of about a year. It seems like an awful lot has happened in that time.
Poor Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. He's still going to be on the show from time to time, but he's not going to be doing much in the way of acting if his character can't talk and you can't see his face.
They couldn't have telegraphed the fact that Olly was going to stab Jon more if they'd had him hold up a sign that said "I'm going to stab Jon". Seriously, anyone who was surprised by that wasn't paying attention. Of course, now we're left with the question of just who the hell would want to be the new Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. The last two were murdered by their own men, and by now there can't be more than 600 total brothers left to defend the wall against an army of tens of thousands of wights and walkers. The wildlings would've easily overwhelmed Castle Black without Stannis' intervention and they were no match for the army of the dead. At this point, they might as well seal all the tunnels and disband. Which would be fine by me, because if Jon really is permadead, there's no one left at Castle Black to give a crap about. Seriously, the men mutinied because Jon saved a bunch of wildlings who would've otherwise wound up as members of an enormous zombie army. Winter is coming, and the only people with any sense of what that actually means are dead. I'm rooting for the Others. At least they're not stupid.
Speaking of stupid, I'm not a Stannis the Mannis fan or whatever they're called, but I've gotta wonder how he went from greatest military general of his generation to getting completely wiped out in the space of a single season. Apparently, he went deaf as well, because half his army deserted in the middle of the night and took all the horses, and he didn't hear a thing. Which brings up something else that's sure to be ignored: There's now a substantial army of sellswords out there, riding around the North with no food and no way to get back home. They ought to begin pillaging the countryside fairly soon.
What the hell is Petyr going to do now? I know he's got the whole wheels within wheels thing going on, but Sansa's no longer at Winterfell and Stannis is no longer in any condition to capture it. Sure, he's Lord of Harrenhal and protector of the Vale, but that's not really worth too much. Even his brothel's been destroyed, so if he's got some grand plan in mind, it seems like it's probably not going that well.
Since Brienne doesn't know that Sansa escaped, when she goes back to look for the candle again, she'll see it's still lit and will break into Winterfell to try to save her. Or they'll coincidentally run into each other on the street. It's happened before.
Apparently Loras, Margaery and Tommen have gone off to live with Gendry, Osha, Rickon, Edmure Tully, the Greyjoys, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and Salladhor Saan in the land of forgotten characters.
I figure Myrcella's dead, Stannis is alive, Jon's dead but not for long, Theon and Sansa are just fine, Arya will be blind for three episodes, and Cersei will take the opportunity to grow out her bangs.
Overall, I didn't much care for this episode. Stannis, Jaime, and the brothers of the Night's Watch were stupid, Daenerys and company didn't do much of anything, and Cersei was incredibly boring. I had such high hopes for this season, but the writers didn't fare too well. When they straight up adapted the books, they did fine. But when they tried to merge plots and make up their own stuff, they failed miserably. With very little left in the (published) books for them to draw on, I'm not optimistic about what they'll do next year.
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