It seems like every break between seasons of Game Of Thrones is far too long, or the seasons are too short. But here we are and the best show on television returned triumphantly to the small screen, although a ton of people (like, damn near half the internet) got up on those leaks early. Good on ya, but I’m not doing it. I’m tryna make this season last as long as possible. Let’s go….
-We open with two little girls walking through a forest that obviously looks creepy, and come up on a hut that they just walk into like they own the place. The lead little girl is in search of a witch and she has a nasty attitude, which she punctuates with a threat to the witch as this is her father’s land, which means it’s her land. She asks the witch, who can see the future, if she’ll be queen, and if she’ll have children and the witch says she will be queen and she’ll have three children, but her husband, the king will have 20; which makes me laugh that Robb tried to marry for love and well, “The Red Wedding” happened. Anyway, we realize by the end of this scene that it is a young Cersei before jumping to the present and shoutout to Nell Williams, the young lady who played young Cersei, because she channeled Lena Headey’s cold entitlement extremely well. And also, I see that her friend’s name is Melara Heatherspoon. I wonder if we ever see her again?
-Cersei rolls up to her father’s funeral and gets a moment alone with Jaime, who is guarding Tywin’s body, and Cersei goes off on him for letting Tyrion free, which ended up getting Tywin killed. Now, she says, the Lannisters’ enemies are going to have a field day and what’s worse, Tywin loved Jaime more than anyone. And Jaime just stood there and took it because while it was mean (because Cersei doesn’t know any other way), it was all true. Cersei stays treating Jaime like dogshit, but much of it, he brought on himself because incest doesn’t pay, kids.
-Next, we’re inside of a box that is being carried, so we know we’re with Tyrion now and he spills out of the box in front of Varys, looking like he smells like actual feces (which he says he had to push out through small holes on the side of the box). Varys says that they’re in Pentos, where they are hiding out as the plan to get the Targaryens (via Daenerys) back in power completely backfired. Tyrion isn’t really tryna hear anything that Varys is saying right now, and drinks until he throws up. Yet, he keeps going. I have friends like that, I’m not a puke-and-rally guy, I puke and go straight to bed.
-Next, we’re in Meereen where the giant statue is being pulled off the Great Pyramid by the Unsullied. The soldier overseeing this, named White Rat, then goes to a brothel and it’s about 13 minutes before the first sign of nudity, which is a sign of maturity for Game Of Thrones. Then you wonder, hey, why does a guy with no private parts need to go to a brothel? Sometimes, a fella just wants his head (the one on the shoulders) stroked as you’re hummed to sleep….but sometimes, that ends in you getting your throat slit, which is what happens to White Rat. The person was masked and he was a part of the Sons of the Harpy, a group who isn’t happy with the way Dany has been doing things in Slaver’s Bay (getting rid of the slaves is probably a big part of it). She orders a public burial for White Rat, which will piss the Sons off and draw them out, and Dany is still tryna figure out how to rule, which is what she said she would do at the end of last season. Everything is so black and white with her.
-Grey Worm and Missandei have a brief chat about why an Unsullied would be at a brothel, and Grey Worm looks ashamed and scurries away. Their little relationship is cute and all, but let’s keep this way, like, one minute per episode.
-Jon Snow is at the Wall, training people that have no business fighting, while Sam and Gilly are there as well. Melisandre summons Jon to go to the top of the Wall to see Stannis, taking that same rickety-ass elevator that looks like a death trap waiting to happen. Anyway, Stannis tells him that he has to persuade Mance Rayder, leader of the Wildlings and self-professed King of the North, to bow to him and have the Wildlings join his army, or be burned at the stake. Stannis is the worst out of all the kings because he isn’t going to bully Mance into doing what he wants, and he won’t listen to anyone but Melisandre, the most dangerous sidechick in the history of television.
-Sansa and Littlefinger are watching Robin spar with another boy, who almost looks ashamed be kicking Robin’s ass so thoroughly as Robin, says Lord Yohn Royce, swings his sword like a girl with palsy. DAMN. Royce says he’ll take Robin as his ward, hence the training, but he isn’t promising anything, while Littlefinger gets a note that he hides from Sansa, who looks sadder than usual and wondering what the hell she has gotten herself into.
-At the same time, Brienne and Pod da Gawd are still wandering around, and Brienne is feeling sorry for herself because Arya didn’t wanna roll with her and when Pod tries to encourage her, she snaps at him. She gotta go easier on the Gawd. He’s just tryna help and Brienne tells him he is free to go, but where in the fuck is he going to go? Anyway, they notice a caravan of carriages roll by that just happen to have Sansa and Littlefinger inside, and he tells her he is taking her to a place where the Lannisters will never find her. Remember, Cersei thinks she was in on the plot to kill Joffrey, so Sansa ain’t safe in these streets.
-Cersei is at the after-funeral party, getting drunk of course, so you know this will end well. People are tryna offer their condolences and she can’t be bothered to even fake like she cares, just wandering through the crowd, grabbing glasses of whatever it is they drink in King’s Landing, might be Stark Blood for all we know. Anyway, she is approached by her cousin Lancel, who we haven’t seen for a couple of seasons now, and his father (Kevan) says he is a part of the Sparrows, which is basically a religious cult. She sneaks away and Lancel finds her to apologize as he was a squire for Robert Baratheon, Cersei’s late husband and even though Robert was kind of a dick to him, he kept feeding him wine, which slowed Robert down enough to be killed by a boar (Varys thinks this was on purpose). Also, he and Cersei had a mini-affair because why the hell not? Keep it in the family, I guess. But he has found God now, so he’s all good. Cersei is like, whatever, gimme another glass of the good stuff. Something tells me we’ll see him again.
-Loras Tyrell is in bed with another guy as he has been known to do, even though he was supposed to be married to Cersei at some point. Margaery walks in because fuck knocking, and tries to hurry him up as they’re supposed to meet Tommen, Cersei’s son and the new king. She also warns him to be discreet about his sexuality, but he’s like, everyone is talking anyway, what’s the point? And he doesn’t think he has to even marry Cersei anymore because Tywin isn’t around, while Margaery is stuck with Cersei as her mother-in-law if she marries Tommen. However, Margaery says, “perhaps” and nothing else. Is she plotting to kill Cersei? She’s plotting to do something, her and her grandmother, Lady Olenna, who I’m waiting to see. She’s great.
-Back to Tyrion and Varys, and Tyrion is still drinking. Varys gives Tyrion an option: either drink himself here in Pentos, or go with him to continue his mission to give Westeros their best chance of survival, which is a new ruler. That ruler? Daenerys Stormborn. Can you imagine Dany and Tyrion on the same team? He can talk to people reasonably and be rather witty when he wants to be, and if mufuckas don’t get in line, they can talk to her giant army and, oh yeah, the dragons…..well, if she can get them in line (more on that in a minute). Anyway, he says he’ll go, but only if he can drink along the way. All these Lannisters need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.
-In Meereen, this guy is tryna explain to Dany that the people of Yunkai have at least agreed to have a council of sorts to run the city so she doesn’t have to keep going back there, but they want the fighting pits to be re-opened. The fighting pits are where slaves used to fight each other to the death, so Dany obviously isn’t ready to do that. But she gets persuaded by Daario as the two are now lovers in the worst-kept secret in Meereen, if it’s even a secret. He says that the pits are where he learned to fight, which led him to the Second Sons, which led him to her, and it would respect their traditions. He also says to her that she has to get those dragons in line because if she is the mother of dragons, but has no dragons, people will run right over her and he’s right.
-So Dany goes down into the basement where she locked up the two dragons she can even find while the other one is still out wildin’ out in the streets. She goes down into the dark with no torch or nothing, but she eventually hears the clinking of the chain and then these dragons appear, and they’re PISSED. This was the equivalent of a kid throwing a tantrum, only these kids can breathe fire and fuck up your entire life; you could see the words “FUCK YOU MOM” in the fire (which would never happen if Dany was a Black mother, but that’s another post altogether). Dany is like, NOAP, and runs out of the basement. They’re setting this up well. We’ve had three-plus seasons of hearing that Dany is the Mother of Dragons, I have confidence that she’ll sort it out. I think if she finds Drogon, the biggest one, and gets him in line, the other two will. But like Jorah said before he was exiled, they ARE dragons and listening isn’t their strong suit.
-Back at the Wall, Jon Snow goes to talk to Mance, who is still be stubborn, but he won’t kneel to Stannis, even if it means burning to death. There are a couple of times during the speech where Mance is seriously thinking about it, but he’s like, nah, I’m good. Jon is like, what about your people and Mance is like, I’m doing this for them because they respect me. Jon answers back with, what about when the White Walkers come and kill everyone that respected you, and Mance won’t back down. So what are ya gon’ do?
-Mance is led out to the pyre, where he is given one final chance by Stannis to bend his knee, but he reneges and wishes him good luck. Melisandre gives some speech about Mance being the king of lies, and she can’t wait to burn a mufucka. They tie Mance to the stake and we see Stannis’ wife and daughter watching from a balcony like it is the opera, and the burning starts. Sam and Gilly turn away, even the Wildlings are like, DAMN and you can kinda see Mance thinking, do I REALLY wanna do this? But it’s too late and shit is starting to get hot, but before it gets too much and his people see him in agony, Jon shoots him through the heart with an arrow to put him out of his misery, which will surely piss off Stannis and friends. However, Jon is one of the best fighters they have, so he’ll be fine.
That was a fantastic way to return to the Game Of Thrones world. We still need to catch up with Arya, who I think was the only major character we didn’t see. We need a little more from Jaime as he struggles with Tywin’s death and Cersei hating him. I wanna see Cersei drunkenly cuss someone out, and see what Margaery is up to. And of course, we’re just killin’ time until the incredible tag team of Dany and Tyrion get it poppin’. I’m sure there is stuff that I’m forgetting like the Theon/Ramsey stuff, too. Dem Thrones back, y’all.
The Box 