Stories are beginning to merge, which is good, because there were too damn many of them at the start of the season. And, hey, no Dorne stuff again this week, which is always a plus.
The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
Missandei and Grey Worm aren't happy about it, but Tyrion has a big meeting and offers the masters of Slaver's Bay seven years to wean themselves off slavery. He seals the deal with some hookers because everyone likes hookers.
Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
Sansa's merry band now includes her older half-brother as they arrive at Castle Black to find that Jon has not actually buggered off. Brienne tells Davos and Melisandre that she executed Stannis and that she's still pissed about what they did to Renly. Later, a letter from Ramsay arrives telling Jon he has Rickon and trying to goad him into marching on Winterfell. They don't have enough men, but they'll figure it out somehow.
Hey, remember the Ironborn?
Theon's home, but Yara's not happy because she thinks he's there to claim the throne. Instead, he says he's just there to help her out at the upcoming kingsmoot.
Wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels
Littlefinger returns to the Vale with a present for Robin. He then suggests that Lord Royce leaked his travel plans to the Boltons, which is how Sansa wound up married to Ramsay. Robin's an idiot, so he believes Uncle Petyr and threatens to toss Royce through the moon door. To save his life, Royce grovels a little and Littlefinger suggests he should use his military experience to lead the Vale's armies up to Winterfell to save Sansa. Little Lord Arryn agrees and the civil war is officially back on.
Ramsay, Shitlord of Winterfell
Because he wasn't enough of an asshole, they show Ramsay eating an apple, which has apparently become movie and TV shorthand to demonstrate that someone is a huge dick. His guards bring Osha in, and she thinks she's there to play hide the sausage because Ramsay had her cleaned up. While she's about to hop on the train to bone town and simultaneously grab a knife from the table to kill him, he tells her how he tortured Theon and got him to tell him everything, including how Osha helped Bran and Rickon escape by killing a dude while he was distracted by her boobs. Ramsay then sticks his secret killing dagger into her neck and watches her bleed out while he finishes his apple.
The Wacky Adventures of the Lannister Family
Margaery finally gets to talk to Loras. They've been gay-bashing him pretty severely for quite some time, and although Margaery tells him to stay strong, all he wants is for the beatings to stop. Back in the Red Keep, Tommen confesses to Cersei that he's been having regular chats with the High Sparrow. She then concocts a plan, which I'm 95% certain is going to involve some kind of double-cross. She suggests to Kevan and Olenna that the Tyrell army should attack the Faith Militant just before Margaery is to make her walk of atonement, while the Lannisters, city guards, and Kingsguard stand down to create plausible deniability. Everyone thinks it's a fantastic idea and agrees immediately.
The Widow Drogo
Daario and Jorah have arrived at Vaes Dothrak, and they know exactly where Daenerys is and how to get her out. Except, she doesn't want to go. Instead she stands before the Khals and allows them to pass judgement on her. They're not happy about her sass mouth, so they resolve to rape her a lot, at which point she flips over the cressets and burns them all to death. Then she waives her nudity clause and walks outside where everyone bows to her because she's fireproof.
What I Liked
-Tormund makes eyes at Brienne. She's not quite a bear, but any port in a storm.
-Littlefinger's got some kind of plan. I'm not sure it's a good one, but at least it's something.
What I Hated
-Even though they probably had a few days to discuss it, Tyrion didn't tell anyone else his plan. How did that even happen? "What we talk about at meeting?" "You'll find out at the meeting, that's why we're having the meeting."
-It took Davos way too long to ask what happened to Shireen and Stannis. He doesn't have any work to do, so I have no idea how it didn't come up.
-Ramsay's letter was delivered by a courier almost immediately after Sansa and co. arrived. If someone could just ride after them and catch up when they had a decent head start, I don't know why he didn't just send a bunch of guys to catch her. It's not like he didn't know exactly where she was going.
-Killing the Khals was way too easy. Only two guards outside? No windows? Doors that can be barred without any difficulty whatsoever? Every Khal in one room at the same time. It's astonishing that it took this long for someone to kill them all. They're a marauding horde that's been rampaging across Essos for centuries, and their whole leadership could've been taken out by the twenty good men Ramsay used to burn Stannis' tents, or whoever it was who burned all of the ships in the Meereen harbour.
-All the Dothraki bow to Daenerys. Even the ones on the other side of the building who can't see what's going on.
Final Thoughts
They're called cressets, people. Braziers are for heat, not light.
Something that's begun to bother me recently about this show is that loyalty only seems to work to the advantage of really terrible people. To be sure, it doesn't always work for them, but it seems to work for them exclusively. The knights of the Vale are more than willing to kill Lord Royce on the whims of a slow, sickly boy, just because he happens to be their Lord. Whereas the Lords of the North are willing to betray anyone at any time for any reason... except for Ramsay. They'll get eaten alive by wildlings before they'll betray Ramsay. Because reasons.
Speaking of Ramsay, we know he's a shitlord. It's pretty much his only character trait. They don't need to keep reminding us at this point.
Presumably, a substantial portion of the Dothraki won't follow Daenerys because they enjoy the whole raping and pillaging thing, and she did just murder their leaders. But, that would make sense, so it's completely plausible that the writers will have the whole horde follow her without question. Once again, I have to ask why she would ever want to go back to Westeros. She now has a big enough army to forcefully end slavery forever, and she can rule a big chunk of Essos from her giant pyramid in Meereen. Why go to Westeros where the weather's not nearly as nice and she'd have to deal with constant threats to her rule?
What the hell did Jon do between the end of the last episode and the start of this one. It seemed like he was walking out the front gate, but I guess he realized it was chilly and he didn't have a coat, so he turned around and came right back. That must've been embarrassing.
Supposedly in good weather it takes about a month to get from Winterfell to Castle Black. But since people move at the speed of plot, it seems like they're right next to each other.
I'm having real trouble envisioning a situation where Cersei and Jaime don't double-cross the Tyrells. Cersei seemed entirely too pleased with her plan, and everyone agreed to it far too readily. But, unless it's some kind of double-double-cross, I'm going to be pretty ticked. Lady Olenna has shown herself to be pretty damned devious, so having her go down to such an obvious trick will seem entirely out of character. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Maybe it'll all work out, and the annoying and pointless Faith Militant storyline will end just as rapidly as the annoying and pointless Dorne storyline did.
This season's just not doing it for me, yet. At least they've sped things up a bit, and they're focusing more of the show on people whose motivations are clear and whose goals make sense.
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