Game of Thrones: Home

The most exciting show on television has returned to bring us what we’ve all been waiting for: either the return of Jon Snow or horrible scenes of violence. Okay. Okay. I kid. It brings us that amazing opening with triumphant music that makes you want to lay waste to villages and ride some dragons into your neighbor’s house for plunder. I love that music.

And so we begin where last we left, Jon’s cold body lying in the snow. Wait! Why did they just leave it there? Does anyone know what  treason looks like anymore. Obviously, not, as Sir Davos, one of my favorite GOT characters, probably because he advocates for not sacrificing children, stumbles on the body and takes him inside to warm him up. Who made marshamallows? Was sadly not heard that day.

Then we get a scene cut to Sir Allisir. Who has more chances than a cat. He manages to shout down the mutiny by appealing to the night watch’s sensibility. A questionable move and turn in the room. Everyone goes a murdering this episode though. He blends right in.

And now we get back to Ramsay. Who hasn’t missed Ramsay? The most nuanced villain this side of….well….Sauron? He enjoys killing puppies and then reanimating them to kill them again by feeding them to his dogs.

And then finally, we get to something happy, which is Lady Sansa sprinting through the woods with Theon. Or, the woman who was raped by Ramsay running with the man he made into a eunuch. In case you weren’t sure, he’s bad. Theon, in what I can only describe as questionable decision making, decides to hole up for the night at around 2:30. This doesn’t go so well, nor does his plan to ward off the dogs by standing there confused. He’s not much of a planner. As such, it takes the arrival of Brienne, riding roughshod over shoulders with Podrick to save Sansa. And then we get a true GOT oddity, a touching moment, Lady Sansa accepting Brienne’s request to watch over her with the help of Theon. Sansa has grown so much since season one when she was falling hard for the prancing prince Joffrey.

Theon then plans to go home. Nothing says going back home like a father who left you for dead and a sister who ran away when dogs chased after her. This can only end well.

We return to the incomparable Lena Headey waiting excitedly for her daughter to arrive home. The way her face changes as the whole scene dawns on her is damned fantastic. Strangely, she harkens back to the witch at the beginning of the last season who told her that all three of her children would die. For a moment, she’s broken, and then Jaime reminds her of that old immortal quote, “Fuck everyone who’s not us.” This Shakesperean sonnet brings the queen back to life and presumably, to war. We also get a brief moment of sand snake trash talk before they stab the prince in the back of the brain. This plot line seems to have sprung from another world, a clumsy one, a hasty one, one that I would find on channel 5 after a long day at school. Xena, warrior princess. Thus, the death of Prince Doran is promising only insofar as it moves us back out of Dorne, which once looked so promising. Or at least beautiful. It has always seemed as though only the prince and three other people live there. Now he’s gone.

Tyrion and Varus stroll around the city of Mereen, blending in with the natives. And by blending in with the natives I mean offering to eat their children and being the only dwarf who walks the streets. But still, no one notices…or do they because suddenly someone is roasting s’mores over in the ship yard and the whole fleet is gone and someone forgot graham crackers.

We briefly check in, (classic first episode check ins) with the two men who are riding for Dany’s heart. The problem is that one of them has a heart of stone, or body or whatever. Then we cut to the Khalasa comedy hour, where Dany is told that she’ll be raped. Welcome back to GOT, except, wait, she had it written in her contract that she’s not doing nudity anymore, so off to the first wive’s club she goes.

The episode moves into the trials and travails of Arya Stark. A rather tired plot line that has bogged down one of Thrones most lovable characters for far too long, but alas, her journey isn’t over yet, she has to be beaten while blind, which is pretty much just standard issue for Thrones.

And then the close, #allthenakedoldbodies. A tired Melisandre removes her necklace to reveal what people have suspected all along, she’s a witch. I think this means they need to burn her or she if she floats or maybe burn her while she floats The specifics escape me. Seeing the amazing Carrie Van Houten turn into game of crones was actually a wonderful touch. I love that the camera lingered on the old body as if it was the young body, the sags of flesh and passage of time that will come for us all. Too many young naked bodies on this show, too much reinforcement of death at a young age. What’s really coming for us is what has come for the red woman, age, and with it, silence. GOT, to make up for all its nudity should strictly show old naked bodies from now on. I can only hope that the show runners are up to the challenge. #allthenakedoldbodies