After a long hiatus, I have returned.
We're following five stories this week.
Stannis' Camp
Ramsay and his twenty good men manage to sneak into Stannis' camp and set fire to damn near everything, destroying tents, killing horses, and burning much of the food. Now lacking the resources to properly lay siege to Winterfell or to return to Castle Black, Stannis sends Ser Davos back to Jon Snow to ask for supplies, then reluctantly burns Shireen as an offering to the Lord of Light.
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| Her mom's not too happy about it. |
The Wall
Jon returns from beyond the wall with what remains of the wildlings. After a brief moment of hesitation, Ser Alliser opens the gate for them, then tells Jon that his compassion will get everyone killed.
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| Olly's not too happy about it, either. |
Dorne
Doran allows Jaime to take Myrcella back to King's Landing, so long as Trystane accompanies them so their engagement may continue and he can take a seat on the Small Council. Bronn is also set free, with one condition: Areo gets to elbow him in the face.
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| Bronn's not too happy about it. |
Braavos
A girl is just about ready to kill the thin man, when the ship carrying Mace Tyrell and Meryn Trant arrives. So, instead of doing her duty, Arya decides to stalk Meryn to a brothel, where she witnesses him buying the services of a young prostitute.
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| The prostitute's not too happy about it. Neither is Meryn, for some reason. |
Meereen
It's fight night! The great pit is open, and it's time for blood! Jorah fights in a small mêlée, and miraculously pulls out a win. Daenerys isn't overly happy to see him down in the pit until he picks up a spear and fires it into the chest of an assassin. Apparently the Sons of the Harpy are big fight fans, too, and after the second fight, several dozen of them pop out of the crowd and start killing everyone, including Hizdahr. Eventually, all the named characters and a handful of Unsullied are surrounded by about 100 assassins. Even though they attack one at a time, kung-fu movie style, it doesn't look good for our heroes. But, when all seems lost, Drogon flies out of nowhere and starts kicking ass.
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| Also, burning it. See, 'cause their butts are on fire. |
What I Liked
-Either the guards at the camp were incompetent, or in league with Ramsay, either way, Stannis wants them hanged. Tough, but fair.
-After Areo busts him in the chops, Doran offers Bronn some soup. I like a leader who has a sense of humour.
-Daario says you should always bet on the little guy. Then this happens:
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| Heh... now he's even littler. |
What I Hated
-Regardless of whether Stannis' guards were on his side or not, Ramsay apparently has supernatural fire-lighting powers. There's no one around, and fires just start popping out of nowhere.
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| Seriously, who lit all those fires? |
-Arya very obviously takes the poison out of her cart and puts it into a pouch on her waist. It's done entirely for the benefit of the viewer, in case we've forgotten that she was going to poison the crooked insurance agent, but it was just so clunky and obvious. When you're going to assassinate someone, you need to be inconspicuous. You don't wave the murder weapon around for all to see. She also quite obviously follows Meryn around, to the point that he'd have to be blind not to see her.
-They make Meryn into a creepy dude who likes underage prostitutes. There was already a perfectly good reason to kill him. Not everyone who Arya kills has to be a complete monster, it'd be fine if some of them were just kinda dickish.
-The Unsullied continue to suck. Apparently being trained from birth doesn't give you the skills to take down a bunch of pampered noblemen with short daggers and no armour. Seriously, for a renowned and feared fighting force, they're pretty worthless.
Final Thoughts
Where the hell is Arya getting all her oysters, clams, and cockles? Is the House of Black and White furnishing her with a new cartful every day?
The Sons of the Harpy must've bought those masks in bulk.
Hizdahr's dead. Does anyone care? He didn't really do much of anything, and the actor playing him wasn't exactly compelling. I'm not sure what the point of the including him was if they were just going to unceremoniously kill him off.
Ser Alliser takes his oath to the Night's Watch seriously, but he's a complete moron. If Jon hadn't gone to Hardhome, there'd be a few thousand more walking dead making their way down to the wall. Apparently, Alliser and Olly simply don't understand that. To the point that I think they both must've been kicked in the head by mules when they were younger.
Killing Shireen makes absolutely no sense. Stannis hasn't had the best luck fathering heirs, and she was his sole surviving child. Without her to succeed him, what's the point? And don't give me any of that Warrior of Light nonsense. If that's all he cared about, he could've stayed at Castle Black and waited for the White Walkers there. He wants to be King. Apparently, he wants to be King, rule for 30-40 years, then die of old age, leaving the throne to some distant cousin.
Honestly, it doesn't seem like there's anyone who's really capable of holding back the long night. Cersei's too paranoid and Tommen's too weak, Daenerys is too inept, Jon's surrounded by morons who hate him, and Stannis is too unlucky. Unless there are some drastic changes next season, season seven is liable to be the story of how the White Walkers rolled over Westeros and conquered the world. Which might be good.
As for this particular episode, it had some enjoyable moments, but those were outweighed by the moments that made me want to punch stupid characters in the face.
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