Game of Thrones 6x05: Door

The stories are merging! Soon we may make it down to less than five from the 47 we were dealing with before.

Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
Sansa gets a letter from Littlefinger, inviting her to a secret meeting. He tells her that he's mustered an army from the Vale and has them encamped at Moat Cailin. She's so pissed off at him for leaving her with Ramsay that she doesn't give a fuck, and comes very close to having Brienne kill him where he stands. After pointing out that he damn well knows what Ramsay did to her and making him think very hard about what he's done, she merely says she never wants to see him again. As he leaves, he tells her that the Blackfish has reformed his army and retaken Riverrun.

Back at Castle Black, Jon and Davos are figuring out how to build their own army. Sansa tells them about the Blackfish and sends Brienne to get him, while the rest of the band ride out to round up every Northern house they can get. Which leaves Edd in charge of the ten or eleven remaining members of the Watch, although even he's not sure if he's the Lord Commander or not.


Hey, remember the Ironborn?
It's kingsmoot time! Yara's the first to declare, and when Theon gives a quasi-elegant speech about how she's been leading men into battle and so forth while their father nearly led them into ruin, it looks like she's got it in the bag. But, then uncle Euron shows up, and he's a man with a plan (not a very specific plan, of course), so the local lords support him. While the high priest crowns him (which involves nearly killing him through drowning), Yara and Theon and every loyal soldier they can muster fuck off. Which was an excellent idea, since their uncle's first command as king is to find them and murder them. They're long gone, though, and they've taken most of the ships, so his second command is to build more boats.


The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
The Sons of the Harpy have ceased their attacks, and it looks like the slave masters have accepted the deal, returning peace to Meereen. However, with Daenerys still away, Tyrion worries that her brand might be suffering, so he calls in a marketing guru. They get the High Priestess of R'hllor to drop by, and while Varys is skeptical of her motives and abilities -as Melisandre was backing Stannis and that didn't turn out well- she knows all about how his dick was cut off by a sorcerer, and that seems to be enough of a demonstration of her powers. Daenerys is the prince who was promised as far as she's concerned, so the word of her greatness will be spread far and wide.


The Widow Drogo
Before she can take her Dothraki horde anywhere, Daenerys has to decide what to do with Jorah. She keeps banishing him, but it never seems to stick. Before she can make up her mind, he informs her of his illness and his love, then starts to leave. However, as he had pledged to serve her until his dying day, Daenerys tells him to stop, and orders him to spend the rest of his days looking for a cure so he can be her right-hand man when she conquers Westeros.


Montage Assassin
Arya's bow-fighting still needs work as the girl with no name is able to beat her ass pretty easily. Nevertheless, it's time for her second chance at becoming a real assassin. Not Jaqen sends her to the theatre so she can kill one of the actresses. It turns out the troupe is putting on a satirical play about the politics of Westeros and Arya's supposed to assassinate the woman who plays Cersei.


What'chu Talkin' 'bout, Hodor?
The Three-Eyed Raven shows Bran the origin of the White Walkers: The Children of the Forest made them because they needed an army to fight the men who had invaded their lands. Somewhere along the line, they fucked up and lost control.

Later, while everyone else is asleep, Bran decides to do some greenseeing on his own. Unfortunately, he winds up walking amongst the undead, and when the Night's King grabs his arm, it somehow breaks the magic seal around the tree cave they've been hiding in. There's precious little time before the army of the dead arrives, but the young padawan's training is not yet complete, so they need to do some quick work back in the Winterfell of 25 years ago before they run the hell away. The army gets there really fast, and though the remaining Children mount an admirable defence, they're quickly overwhelmed. Meera manages to kill an Other and smack Bran back to reality just long enough for him to warg into a terrified Hodor so they can flee. They're still pretty fucked, though. On the way out they lose Summer, the Three-Eyed Raven, and the very last of the Children who uses a suicide bomb to slow down the wights just long enough for Hodor, Meera, and Bran to get out the door. There's still an army behind them, though, so Meera yells at Hodor to "Hold the door" while she tries to drag Bran away. Bran somehow hears this back in the past, and through a combination of things that aren't really explained, he accidentally fries past-Hodor's brain and "Hold the door" is contracted to simply "Hodor". The big man holds it with all his might as long as he can, while his young charges flee into a storm.


What I Liked
-Tormund's still making eyes at Brienne. Their giant children will conquer the world.
-The play in Braavos was fantastic. If they scrapped the current "previously on" format and instead had the troupe perform a synopsis at the start of every episode, I would not complain.
-You've got to drown before you can be King of the Iron Islands. That's pretty hardcore.


What I Hated
-Summer went out like a punk. He just charged right in to a group of wights and got stabbed. They should've at least had him take out a few more before he died.
-Varys got all pissy with the red priestess. Did Tyrion not discuss his plans with the other advisers again?

Final Thoughts
While it's nice that they've been really moving the plot along in the last few episodes, the speed at which people travel has become so ridiculous that I feel I need to comment on it again this week. Littlefinger had time to muster an army, march them to Moat Cailin, and then travel nearly all the way to the Wall. Why even bother sending messages via raven when someone can ride a horse halfway across a continent in a day and a half?

Aiden Gillen and Sophie Turner put in an excellent performance for their scene together. Sansa's genuine disgust and Littlefinger's possibly genuine repentance both come across really well. It's a pity that he won't be around that much this season. He has Maze Running to do. Although, I expect him to return in episode nine or ten to rout the remaining members of the Stark loyalist army after they retake Winterfell.

Bran now has Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure style time travel powers. He can't really travel back in time, and he can't change the present, but he can set things up so that things he needs to happen will have already happened. However, I doubt he'll use his powers to do much more than steal his dad's keys or drop a trash can on his enemies. People use their magic so infrequently on this show that it's actually a little infuriating. There are several characters who basically have superpowers, but they mostly brood around like sullen Clark Kents instead of frying fools with their laser eyes.

I hope they delve into the White Walkers' motivations a bit more before the end of the series. While it appears that they were designed to kill men, and rebelled against their masters, it's been at least a thousand years since that happened, so my biggest question is: Why now?

The frequency with which they've been mentioning Stannis' death leads me to believe that he didn't actually die. I know that's antithetical, but it just seems a bit odd how people keep bringing it up. It's like how the entire cast was saying that Jon Snow was dead and not coming back. We all knew it was BS.

They've done some really good casting work this season. Rebellion age Ned Stark and Rickard Stark both look a heck of a lot like Sean Bean. The guy who plays Rickard even sounded a bit like him.

Arya really needs another training montage. The Stark children have both been trained quite poorly, and I fear it shall lead to their downfall. Bran's going to join the dark side after his wife dies, and Arya's going to become an emo kid and kill Han Solo.

It seems like they're trying to cut down on the direwolf cgi budget this season. There's only one left (that we know of) and there are still five episodes left in which to turn him into a nice coat and some mittens. It's not all bad, though, since it'll free up some money to spend on wight cgi, some of which looked just terrible.

What was the point of making it seem like Yara had any chance of prevailing at the kingsmoot? Did anyone out there expect that they would introduce Euron and then not have him take over as king? It just made it seem ludicrous that any of the lords would be on board with murdering the younger Greyjoys. If they'd laughed Yara off the island, that would have been one thing, but they were fully prepared to make her their leader just moments before Euron showed up.

Speaking of Euron, his plan to win Daenerys over with his giant cock leaves a lot to be desired. My expectation is that we're more or less done with the Ironborn for this season, and they'll only pop up again at the end of next season when their ships arrive in Meereen and Daenerys promptly steals them. The ships in Meereen were destroyed to delay the invasion of Westeros for at least another year, but the invasion still needs to happen, so a fresh fleet from Pyke is just what the doctor ordered. Why even bother with the Ironborn if that's what's going to happen? They could've just as easily had the people of Essos construct a new fleet.

Once again, there was no mention of Dorne. I'm fully on board with never mentioning it again, but it means that everything that happened there last season was just a huge waste of time. Which is funny, considering how they've been accelerating things this year.

So far this season we've lost Summer, Shaggydog, Balon, Roose, Walda, Osha, Trystane, Doran, Areo, Alliser, Olly, all the Children of the Forest, the Three-Eyed Raven, and Hodor. That's a lot of characters who've bitten the big one. My guess is they're making room for some of the other plot lines that the writers were going to completely ignore until they found out they were somehow important.

This was a better episode than last week's, although I still haven't been wowed this year. Perhaps the second half of the season will impress me a bit more.

Game of Thrones 6x04: Book of the Stranger

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.

Game of Thrones 6x03: Oathbreaker

On this week's exciting episode of Game of Thrones, oaths are broken, characters you've never heard of or can't remember die, and absolutely nothing happens in Dorne!

The Widow Drogo
The khalasar arrives at Vaes Dothrak and Daenerys gets sent to the home for old Khaleesis. They strip her naked, but her contract has a no-nudity clause, so they give her a nice burlap sack to wear and tell her that if she's lucky she'll get to live out her days with them. But, she didn't follow an obscure Dothraki rule about immediately going to Vaes Dothrak after her husband died, so she's probably going to get her head chopped off.

Temporary Blindness
Montage? Montage! Arya learns to be a girl with no name, and a man gives her back her sight.

Mr. Sam Goes to Oldtown
Sam, Gilly, and Li'l Sam are on a boat headed for Oldtown, but since no women are allowed in the Citadel, Sam's going to drop Gilly and the baby off with his parents. Also, he's seasick, because it's funny to watch people barf.

The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
Varys uses his skills in bribery and subtle threats to find out who's funding the Sons of the Harpy... it turns out it's everyone. Meanwhile, Tyrion learns that he, Grey Worm, and Missandei have absolutely nothing to talk about.

What'chu Talkin' 'bout, Hodor?
In this week's flashback, Ned Stark, Howland Reed and some unnamed jobbers fight Ser Arthur Dayne and another guy outside the Tower of Joy. Arthur dual-wields swords and defeats four men at once. Fortunately, before he can finish Ned, Howland stabs him through the neck from behind. Then the Three-Eyed Raven cuts off the flashback before anyone can see what happens in the tower. He tells Bran that he won't have to stay with him forever, but he can't leave until he learns everything!

The Wacky Adventures of the Lannister Family
Tommen goes to see the High Sparrow, and learns that religion's not all bad. Jaime and Cersei try to sit in on a small council meeting, but Kevan (who is back, apparently) doesn't want to include them. Ser Frankenmountain's presence prevents the council from expelling the twins, but it doesn't keep everyone else from simply getting up and leaving. Elsewhere,

Ramsay, Shitlord of Winterfell
Shitlord Bolton and Shitlord Karstark welcome Shitlord Umber to Winterfell. He refuses to kneel to Ramsay, but to prove his loyalty, he gives him a present: Osha and Rickon, whose identity he proves by displaying the severed head of Shaggydog.

Jon is Dead, Jon is Dead, I am the Walrus
Davos notices that Jon has popped back up and gets him some pants. The wildlings think Jon's some kind of god, Melisandre doesn't know what to think, and Davos has a "Who the fuck cares? I'm just glad you're back" attitude about things. Though he has a little trouble enacting the sentence, Jon hangs the traitors, then gives Edd his cloak of office and fucks off. His watch is ended.

What I Liked
-Arya got to have a training montage. It would've been better with some 80s pop music behind it, though.
-They hanged Olly. Good. Fuck Olly.
-Pycelle farts when he notices Ser Frankenmountain standing behind him. I do enjoy a good fart gag.

What I Hated
-They spend what seems like five minutes on the non-conversation between Tyrion, Grey Worm, and Missandei. The city's in pretty dire straits and they apparently have nothing to talk about.
-Another Lord pledges his loyalty to Ramsay for no particular reason. The Umbers following the Boltons makes even less sense than Lord Karstark not immediately shanking Ramsay.

Final Thoughts
Arya's montage needed some 80s pop music behind it. Eye of the Tiger or something like that. This show has dick and fart jokes, it's clearly not a serious program.

Lots of dudes getting stabbed through the neck from behind this season. I think that's an indication that the people of Westeros need to develop neck armour.

The actor they got to play young Ned seems to be in his early 20s. While in the books, Ned was only about 20 during Robert's Rebellion, Sean Bean was 51 when they shot the first episode, meaning young Ned should've been in his early to mid 30s.

Things aren't moving along much temporally this year. The plot lines don't all move at the same pace, but only two or three days have passed at Castle Black, and it hasn't been a whole heck of a lot longer at King's Landing.

The amount they've diverged from the books grows with each episode. In the books, Smalljon Umber dies at the Red Wedding, and only about half of their people grudgingly follow the Boltons because the Greatjon is held captive at the Twins. In the show, the Greatjon has apparently perished off screen, and the Smalljon betrays Rickon, ignoring the fact that the Boltons massacred his soldiers a couple years back. Characters have repeatedly pointed out that "The North remembers" and loyalty is kind of a big deal, and yet two of the major Northern Lords have sworn fealty to a conniving, betraying murderer. Karstark should have stabbed Ramsay and Umber should've rallied the rest of the northmen and marched on Winterfell. Sure, Jon Snow let the wildlings come south of the Wall, which could turn out to be a bit inconvenient, but that's hardly a good enough reason to turn a protected guest over to a guy who's probably going to slice his dick off.

Speaking of catchphrases, whatever happened to "The Iron Bank will have its due"? Yes, there was finally a Small Council meeting, but it doesn't seem like anyone has figured out how they're going to pay back all the money they owe. Nor will there likely ever again be a mention of all the money Stannis borrowed.

If her adventure doesn't somehow lead to Daenerys gaining command of a good chunk of the Dothraki, then I'll consider it a huge waste of time. Not that I know what she'd do with them, but it's a heck of a lot better than just getting saved by Jorah and Daario, and going right back to Meereen.

This episode didn't have any dudes getting smashed against walls, so it wasn't as good as last week's. Character motivations are still really unclear, and no one's ultimate goal is particularly apparent. Hopefully things will become more clear now that Littlefinger's finally coming back next week. I don't know what the hell he's got planned, but it better be damned interesting.

Game of Thrones 6x02: Home

We're back again for another week. Is Jon Snow still dead? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.

What'chu Talkin' 'bout, Hodor?
The Three-Eyed Raven has spent the past year teaching Bran how to use his powers, which apparently include the ability to see into the past. As it turns out, Hodor was a stable boy named Willis, although it's probably spelled Wylys or something like that. Meera's a bit bored, but the weird child of the forest girl tells her they won't be hanging out under the tree forever and Bran will need her help when they leave.


The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
The dragons in the dungeon are refusing to eat, so Tyrion unchains them.


Temporary Blindness
The girl comes back to whoop Arya's ass some more. Afterwards, a man who is not Jaqen H'ghar makes Arya three increasingly enticing offers if she'll tell him her name. She refuses, and he takes her off the street for more training. Could the next week feature a montage? I sure hope so.


Worst Kingsguard Ever
A drunk man makes some lewd comments about Cersei, so Ser Frankenmountain tracks him down and smashes his head like a grape against a wall. Later, Tommen and Jaime view Myrcella's body in the great sept. The High Sparrow shows up to jaw a bit, and Jaime sends Tommen to talk to his mother while he has a chat with the old man. He's fully willing to chop his head off, but the twenty or so members of the Faith Militant who show up to intimidate him prevent that.


Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
Podrick tries to start a fire. Theon says goodbye to Sansa, then takes a horse and rides home.


Hey, remember the Ironborn?
Yara informs her father that the Ironborn have lost their last foothold on the mainland. He wants to invade some more towns, but she doesn't think it's a good idea. He's the king, though, so he doesn't have to listen to her, and he storms off... into a storm. While crossing a rope bridge, he runs into his brother Euron, newly returned from somewhere. After a brief, unkind conversation, Euron tosses his brother over the edge, thus bringing an end to The War of the Five Kings. Time for a kingsmoot.


Ramsay, Shitlord of Winterfell
Walda gives birth to a son, so Ramsay gives his father a big, congratulatory hug, then shanks him while Lord Karstark looks on. Ramsay then summons his stepmother and baby brother, leads them to the kennel and has the dogs tear them apart.


Jon is Dead, Jon is Dead, I am the Walrus
It's night, and with Davos and the loyalists refusing to surrender, Ser Alliser orders a brother to break down the door to the room holding Jon's body. Before they break through, someone bigger smashes down an even bigger door. Wun Wun charges through the gate of Castle Black, followed by Edd, Tormund, and enough wildlings to slaughter what's left of the Night's Watch. A few of the brothers want to fight, but when one of them shoots an arrow into the giant's shoulder, Wun Wun smashes him against the wall, and they quickly lose the will to fight. Edd has the conspirators locked up in the cells beneath the castle.

Afterwards, Davos asks Melisandre if she has the power to resurrect Jon. She met Thoros of Myr a few seasons back, so she knows it's technically possible, but she's never done it before. Davos convinces her to try, so she gives Jon a haircut while she chants over him. It doesn't seem to work, so everyone leaves the room a little bummed out. But, then Jon pops back to life as soon as he's alone.


What I Liked
-They only spent two episodes beating up Arya on the street. It would've gotten really old if they'd pushed it any further than that.
-Wun Wun smash! It's a very enjoyable moment.

What I Hated
-Tyrion confirms that the dragons know Missandei and consider her a friend, then doesn't take her with him when he goes to unchain them. What the hell was the point of that?
-The long, drawn out murder of Walda and the baby. That was a completely unnecessary scene. Immediately after he kills Roose, Ramsay says "Send for Lady Walda and the baby." We already know what he's going to do, and not showing it would save us three minutes of us waiting to see how he does it.
-Tormund doesn't kill Olly when he charges at him with a sword. Seriously, fuck Olly.
-Roose Bolton, evil genius, lets his son stab him to death. There's no particular reason why he would let his psychotic son hug him. Nor does there seem to be any reason why the Karstarks would support a sadistic killer over his more level-headed father. But the plot demands it, so Roose is dead.

Final Thoughts
The child of the forest's makeup has changed so much that I'm honestly not sure it's the same character. At the end of season four, she barely looked non-human, but now her skin seems to be a different colour.

I thought they were going to completely ignore all the stuff from the books related to the Greyjoys, but I guess they need some way to get Daenerys over to Westeros, and she's certainly not using the boats she had docked in Meereen.

There's no particular reason why Harald Karstark shouldn't immediately betray Ramsay and kill him. Almost everyone hates the Boltons, and most of their men follow Ramsay out of fear, not respect. There's no living heir, nor is there any way to produce one while Sansa is missing, and the Lannisters will march up and wipe them out as soon as winter ends. Granted, that could be several years, but spring will come eventually. And without any Starks around, the Karstarks have a pretty good claim to being the legitimate lords of Winterfell, anyway. A quick knife to Ramsay's back would get Harald a lot of goodwill, and a decent chunk of land. Which, of course, means that it won't happen. For whatever reason, the writers have decided that Ramsay is more or less completely invincible, even going so far as two of the greatest tacticians in Westeros (Stannis and Roose) into complete morons so he can defeat them. Everyone will believe his story about his father and stepmother being poisoned, and no one will rat him out to the Freys, even though it would be relatively easy to do without getting caught.

Ser Davos asking Melisandre to resurrect Jon doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. While he's seen her perform some pretty amazing magic in the past, he has no reason to believe that she has the power to bring someone back from the dead. He asks her because the plot needs Jon to come back, and the writers decided she wouldn't make the attempt of her own volition.

A lot of the stuff that goes against character or makes no sense seems to be happening because the writers know where they're trying to go, but they don't know how they're supposed to get there. Now that they diverged from and overtaken the books, the paths they need to take aren't spelled out for them, so they're moving the plot along in a really ham-handed way.

Petyr Baelish, brilliant mastermind, and proximate cause of a great deal of the current strife south of the Wall is still missing. He's probably hanging out with Gendry.

It doesn't matter how much walking around in his underwear he does in the next episode, Jon Snow is still dead to me, dammit.

Now that I've gone back over it, it doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot happened in this episode, either. Everything just moves really slowly and eats up a lot of time. Tyrion telling a story while he unchains the dragons is a nice character moment, but it doesn't really advance the plot all that much. Saying goodbye to Theon eats up a couple minutes, killing Walda takes three minutes, and resurrecting Jon takes five. Again, interesting character bits, but there's a lot to cover if the show's going to have any kind of satisfying conclusion. It was somewhat less stupid than the previous episode, though, and didn't include anything Dorne-related, so it's definitely a bit of an improvement. Plus it gets a bonus for Wun Wun smashing that guy against the wall.

Game of Thrones 6x01: The Red Woman

After ten months, it's back... and Jon Snow is still dead.

Lots of plot lines this week. Probably too many.

Dornish Coup
Ellaria and Doran reminisce fondly about Oberyn until they receive a raven message saying Myrcella has been killed. Then Ellaria shanks the prince while Tyene stabs Areo in the spine. The prince was a weakling, and his people hate him for not avenging his brother's death, so mama Sand and the Snakes are taking over. Meanwhile, in King's Landing, Obara and Nymeria stroll into Trystane's room and murder him, so he can't return and assert his claim to the throne.


The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
Meereen is pretty fucked up after the Sons of the Harpy attacked everyone at the games, and it's going to take Tyrion and Varys a while to clean things up. Tyrion accidentally tries to buy a woman's baby so he can eat it, then all the ships in the harbour catch fire, since guards aren't a thing in the Game of Thrones world.


Temporary Blindness
Arya is now a blind beggar on the streets of Braavos. The girl from the House of Black and White shows up to beat her up with a stick. It's going to be some kind of a training thing. I hope there's a montage.


The Widow Drogo
The Dothraki who picked up Daenerys all want to fuck her, but you're not allowed to bang a Khal's widow. It is known. So Khal Moro vows to take her back to Vaes Dothrak to live in a sort of Khaleesi retirement home.

Elsewhere, Daario and Jorah had no trouble at all tracking where Drogon went, even though he hid from everyone quite successfully last season. They'll probably catch up to the khalasar in the next episode.


Worst Kingsguard Ever
Jaime returns with Myrcella's body. Cersei is sad, but the old witch told her that her kids would die, so she's not surprised.


Prisoner of the Faith
Margaery is still in prison, where the septa apparently whomps her ass with regularity. The High Sparrow drops by for a visit, but won't give out any information on Loras.


Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
Myranda's dead and Ramsay's a little upset. Roose is rightly pissed that Ramsay has lost Sansa, since she's the key to controlling the North. Fortunately for them, some of House Bolton's best hounds are on the trail. Sansa and Theon are on foot and not really dressed for the weather, so the dogs catch up to them pretty quickly. Theon tries to throw them off the trail, but as he is a miserable failure, he fails miserably. When all seems lost, Brienne and Podrick ride out of nowhere to save the day. Brienne kills four or five guys, Podrick gets one, and even Theon manages to stab a guy in the back. The worst knight ever then swears fealty to Sansa, which probably means she's going to die soon.


Jon is Dead, Jon is Dead, I am the Walrus
Ghost is whining, so Ser Davos steps outside to see what the trouble is and finds Jon's corpse lying in the snow. He, Edd, and some loyal members of the Night's Watch take the body into a secure room and try to figure out what to do next. They're hopelessly outnumbered, so Edd is dispatched to try to bring back some wildling reinforcements.

In the meantime, Ser Alliser and the rest of the conspirators hold a meeting and explain their actions. Everyone seems to more or less forgive them. Alliser then tries to negotiate the surrender of the remaining Snow loyalists, but Davos is fairly certain that the offer of amnesty is a lie and they'll all be murdered if they surrender, so they resolve to hold out as long as they can.

Melisandre is despondent because all her visions are apparently false. It turns out that she's also really an old lady. It probably won't be terribly important to the plot.


What I Liked
-Davos asks for mutton. I hope he makes more demands in the next episode.
-"What is best in life? 1. Crush your enemies. 2. See them driven before you. 3. Hear the lamentation of the women. 4. Mutton. 5. Seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time."


What I Hated
-Trystane is apparently travelling without guards. Because that's something princes totally do all the time.
-They had no idea where Drogon went, but Daario and Jorah find the spot where he landed and let Daenarys off in like 20 minutes. Half the previous season was spent wondering where the fuck that dragon was, and they tracked him without issue.
-The Night's Watch seems to be mainly composed of idiots. Alliser wants to be Lord Commander, even though the previous two have been murdered by their own men, and no one really seems concerned about the giant army of dead people that's coming to kill everything.
-The episode ended with a "twist". It's Game of Thrones, not fucking Lost.


Final Thoughts
Davos could've remained neutral in the whole Jon Snow thing and saved himself a lot of trouble. He's not a member of the Watch, and it's not like he and Jon knew each other for a long time or anything like that. Of course, if he had simply buggered off, that would've been the last we'd ever see of him, since there's not a whole heck of a lot for him to do with Stannis dead. Although, we don't really have confirmation that Stannis is dead. He's probably dead, but until we see his head on a pike, we won't know for sure.

Olly had a real shit-eating look on his face. I hope someone kills him soon.

Littlefinger's been missing for four episodes. When he comes back, he'd better have some explanation as to what the hell his plan is. At the moment, leaving Sansa with the Boltons hasn't actually accomplished much of anything.

Apparently, the concept of guarding things hasn't yet reached maturity in the GoT world. Every guard on the show seems to be completely ineffective at actually protecting anything, and important people, places, and things seem to be left unguarded with alarming regularity. Lords and Ladies are killed with such frequency that it's surprising that there are any left at all.

The whole Dorne plot makes no sense, and I hope they drop it without explanation. The fact that Jaime continued on to King's Landing after Myrcella was murdered is reason enough to dump the whole plot line. There's no reason at all why he wouldn't have immediately had the ship turn around so Ellaria and the Sand Snakes could be arrested. Or sent a row boat back to the dock to tell everyone that Myrcella died. Or stabbed Trystane himself in a murderous rage. And, what's the endgame for Ellaria and her daughters? They've essentially declared war against a vastly superior force. At best they'll completely destabilize the seven kingdoms, leaving a power vacuum that'll kill pretty much everyone who's not already dead, including a fair number of Dornish.

Ultimately, this wasn't a good episode. Six minutes per plot line is not nearly enough, so although all the plots advanced, they moved forward so little that it seemed like almost nothing happened. The writers still seem a bit lost now that they've more or less exhausted the story from the books. Character motivations are often unclear and their actions are frequently nonsensical. Of course, the finale from last season won Emmys for writing and directing, so what do I know?

Game of Thrones 5x10: Mother's Mercy

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."

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I guess they don't have Sicilians in Westeros.

-"You want a good girl, but you need a bad pussy." That's a line so bad it hurts me to read it.
-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.

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

-The weird body-double/cgi thing they did with naked Cersei. It made her head and neck look quite odd. Also, the merkin the body double was wearing was ridiculous.

Lena Headey and Lena Headonsomeoneelsesbodyey

-The walk of shame takes forever. It takes 4 minutes 45 seconds from the time she's stripped naked until the time the door closes behind her at the Red Keep. For comparison, it only takes 5:35 for the Boltons to wipe out Stannis' army, and that includes Brienne taking a swing at Stannis' head and Ramsay executing an injured soldier on the battlefield. It would be fine if it were at all interesting, but it's boring as all hell. To me, she got her comeuppance when she was arrested.
-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.

Game of Thrones 5x09: The Dance of Dragons

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.

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.

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.

Bronn's not too happy about it.

Later, the Sand Snakes are freed, and Ellaria tearfully pledges her allegiance to Doran and ends the rebellion... such as it was.

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.

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.

Also, burning it. See, 'cause their butts are on fire.

The vast majority of the Sons are either killed or frightened off, but the few who remain start to launch spears at Drogon, who is tough, but not invincible, so Daenerys climbs onto his back, and the two of them fly off into episode 10.

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:

Heh... now he's even littler.

-Just before the battle starts, a bug crawls across Iain Glen's upper lip. He didn't flinch or brush it away or anything, though. That's the sign of a real actor.

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.

Seriously, who lit all those fires?

-Selyse, who despised her daughter and had the utmost devotion to the Lord of Light, suddenly can't stand to see the former sacrificed to the latter. Riiiiiiight.
-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.