Game Of Thrones S05E10 – Mother’s Mercy

Game Of Thrones had large shoes to fill for the Season 5 finale as they not only had to follow Season 4’s beast of a final episode but they’ve been on a stunning run over the last few weeks after a subpar first half. Did “Mother’s Mercy” satisfy? I’d go so far as to say it was the best finale in the history of the series. Let’s go (shoutout to Mel for the picture, we all know it’s true, too)…..

-Melisandre is so happy because the ice is melting, which means Stannis and his army can continue to march towards Winterfell, so that makes burning Shireen last week all good, right? Not so much. Stannis ain’t tryna hear anything she has to say, then he learns that half of the army he’d amassed bailed because of the Shireen thing, then he gets called out to the woods because Selyse hung herself over her newfound maternal guilt. Good. I ain’t like her anyway. But Stannis decides they’re still going to march, because dammit, all these people didn’t die for nothing….or did they? Stannis is so damn stubborn, b.

-Jon is describing what he saw at Hardhome to Sam, who asks Jon if he can go study to be a maester at Oldtown with Gilly and her baby, which you get the feeling is why he really wants to leave. Jon says to Sam that the Citadel is another place where he won’t be allowed to be with women and Sam was like, too late for that, playboy and hits this smirk that might have been the most humorous moment of the episode. They both broke that fuckass “no sex” rule, and both were with wildlings. That’s why everyone is so mad up at Castle Black. Ain’t no one fuckin’.

-Stannis and his sorry army are slothing towards Winterfell with their tattered flags and like, 45 people, then we cut to Sansa picking the lock to get of her room with the corkscrew she stole a couple episodes ago while she was walking with Ramsey, then of course SHE DROPS THE CORKSCREW. Much like Sam and the dragonglass, Sansa must have figured, hey, I don’t need that anymore. Anyway, she rushes through the courtyard to the tower in which she was to light the candle. Meanwhile, Pod Da Gawd sess Stannis and ’em rolling towards Winterfell and drops his rabbits and firewood, even though he was like, 20 steps from Brienne, who is waiting to see the candle. So of course, she obviously leaves like, 14 seconds before Sansa lights the candle. Sansa might have the worst luck of anyone that is still alive on Game Of Thrones. But shoutout to her, I never thought she’d even make it up the tower.

-Stannis is formulating a plan with his army, when they see in the distance that the Boltons aren’t waiting for them; they’re taking the fight to Stannis, who is like, you GOTTA be fuckin’ kidding me. Sansa is also looking out of the tower window at this like, it’s about to go down. Now, it was said that Dany was resigning herself to death and not summoning Drogon in “Dance With Dragons“? Nah, Stannis’ look is the look of someone resigning himself to death because it’s like, 1,000 against 12 people and they’re not going to win. At all. Ever. But Stannis being Stannis, he pulls out his sword and gets to fighting.

-We see half a man crawling on the ground as the fight doesn’t last very long, I assume. Stannis is wounded, but pressing on and he takes down two Bolton soldiers, but he suffers another wound and basically lays against a tree to die. Up walks Brienne, who tells Stannis who she is and that she saw Melisandre’s vagina shadow kill Renly, but the shadow was bearing Stannis’ face, which I didn’t know. Stannis tells her to do her duty and she draws her sword and swings it, but it cuts to Ramsey killing someone before we see Stannis die….which leads me to believe he isn’t dead. After last week’s fuckery with Shireen, I just think they’d want us to see him die, dammit, we saw Ned’s head rolling on the ground, and a million other deaths in this show. Didn’t see it, didn’t happen.

-Cut to a scene of Ramsey not showing mercy on a dude, just in case you forgot he was an asshole.

-Sansa is walking back to her room, tryna sneak when she was greeted by Myranda, who has a bow and arrow, Theon/Reek is also there, being a punk and Myranda is threatening to take her apart piece by piece because she knows that Ramsey still needs an heir. I’m not even sure what she was thinking was going to happen when Ramsey came back, but she decides to shoot at Sansa, but Theon/Reek throws her up against a wall and then down into the courtyard, and I’m pretty sure she bounced. There goes Ramsey’s chance for the weirdest threesome in TV history.

-Then Theon/Reek sees the Boltons returning, and the decision is made to jump down into some snow. I’m not sure how much snow they jumped into, just how far it went up the wall, but they did it and someone had to have rolled an ankle at the very least. I watched Omar jump off the fourth floor in The Wire and he broke that shit. I can’t tell me someone doesn’t have a broken foot, at least.

-Meryn Trant is again being a scumbag with three little girls lined up, and he starts whipping them, because Game Of Thrones always has to go the extra mile to make you hate someone, and I respect that. He whips two of the girls and they start crying and one of them gets punched in the stomach, but the third doesn’t budge and you had to know what it was Arya, which I called last week. But the kicker is that she had someone else’s face, so I assume she now has unlimited access to the face pantry at the House of Black and White. So she pulls off her face and starts stabbing Meryn in the eyes and reminds him that he made the kill list, and why she is doing this.

-So she goes back to the House, where Jaqen and the Waif are waiting and he tells Arya that Meryn’s life wasn’t hers to take. Then he drinks the poison and collapses, and Arya freaks out, crying and saying he was her friend, which he absolutely wasn’t at all, but behind her, the Waif then changes into Jaqen’s face and says he is no one, while the person laying on the ground has multiple faces, which Arya keeps ripping off until she gets to her own face, then her eyes turn white and she’s now blind. Why do I get the feeling we’ll come back next season to Arya in full-fledged “Jackie Chan in The Drunken Master” mode? We better. This is getting frustrating.

-Jaime and crew are leaving Dorne and Ellaria gives Myrcella a kiss, which is strange, but okay, sure. Bronn is still tryna keep the doors open for a Sand Snake orgy, and the boat leaves. Then Myrcella and Jaime are talking, and Jaime figures this is the best time to tell Myrcella about he and Cersei, and she’s like, dude, I already know, which brought up two things in my head: one, who DOESN’T know about this already and two, she’s gon’ die. They hug, but Myrcella starts bleeding from the nose and collapses, then it cuts to Ellaria, who is also bleeding, but she takes the antidote that Bronn used. I love how the boat was like, 100 feet from the shore. And this doesn’t bode well for Trystane at all. He might not make it back to King’s Landing now. At best, he’ll be tortured.

-Tyrion, Daario and Jorah are chillin’ at Dany’s house, and it’s agreed upon that Daario and Jorah both love Dany, and Jorah betrayed her, and Grey Worm walks in to say that he shouldn’t be there, but what is he gon’ do about it? Tyrion makes a terrible attempt at speaking Valeryian, then the three argue about how to move forward. The plan that comes about is that Tyrion will stay back to run Meereen, while Grey Worm and Missandei also stay to work with the Unsullied, AKA the worst army in Game Of Thrones, while Jorah and Daario go out looking for Dany. One of those two aren’t coming back. My guess is Daario, but Jorah still has to deal with dat ‘scale. Maybe they both die? I’d be okay with that.

-But perhaps the best thing to come out of this episode happens as Varys walks up on Tyrion to be like, the fuck did you go? But the two get back on the saddle, and it looks like Varys is playing Joe Biden to Tyrion’s Obama. They’re both kinda creepy (Varys and Uncle Joe), so it works. That should be good stuff until they find Dany.

-Meanwhile, Dany is tryna get Drogon up and running so they get back to Meereen, but he took a lot of spears to the body and he’s like, Moms, I need to chill for just a little while, my shit hurts. So Dany decides it’s a good idea to go for a walk and I get that you’re hungry, but I’m not walking anywhere by myself out in these streets. So of course, she gets surrounded by a group of Dothraki and if I’m not mistaken, it’s the same group that left her at the end of Season 1 or beginning of Season 2. They didn’t part on good terms, but the game has changed now because she has dragons; it’ll be pretty interesting to see if they know this, but dammit, they’ll find out soon enough.

-Also, she dropped her ring on the ground and I’m guessing that was for someone to at least know she was there, but she dropped a ring in some grass on a hill out in the woods. I can’t wait to roll my eyes next season when they show Jorah and Daario finding that.

-Cersei has not acclimatized to jail life at all, and the Nun comes in to tell her to confess because that is the only word she knows. Cersei is like, fine, take me to the High Sparrow and while she confesses about the stuff with Lancel, she denies the Jaime/birthing two bastard kings business as well, but hey, it’s a start. Cersei thinks that all is good, she confessed, we can keep it moving, yeah? NOAP. The High Sparrow says she still has to stand trial, which entails getting stripped naked and getting her hair cut by the nun with a straight razor, which is more or less just pulling it out. Then she has to do the worst walk of shame in the history of walks of shame, and man, I don’t care, I’m now riding with Cersei all the way. Mufuckas were throwin’ cabbage at her, shaking their dicks and titties at her, one dude literally came from like, 15 feet back to yell “FUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK OFFFFFFFFFF” right in her face (not gon’ lie, this actually made me laugh, REAL hard, harder on the second watch), all the while, she has the nun behind her shaking a bell and repeating “Shame”, so she knows two words now. But she finally falls to the ground and it’s hard to watch Cersei break down like this, and yes, I get it. She did all this shit to herself, she isn’t as smart as her father and she has no one to blame and it’s kinda irrational that I fucks with her now….but I fucks with her now.

-I don’t know what the High Sparrow’s definition of a trial is, but that wasn’t a trial. Someone spit the largest loogie in Game Of Thrones history right on her cheek. How is that a trial?

-Anyway, she finally gets to the Red Keep where her uncle Kevan (the King’s Hand) there, along with Grand Maester Pycelle and Qyburn, who puts a cloak on her. But then he points at the stairs and there is the reanimated Mountain in a suit of armor, lookin’ dead as shit with a blue face and I bet he smells just awful. He picks Cersei and the last look we see from her is one of, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH”. Once she gets cleaned up and gets a couple bottles of wine up in her, and gives Qyburn to input instructions into FrankenMountain? My God. The Sparrows are so fucked. Not even the Sparrows, too. Petty as Cersei is, you know she remembers every face that threw shit on her, every dick and titty she saw, everyone who laughed. Is it wrong? Yeah. Is it stupid? Probably. But that doesn’t mean Cersei can’t and won’t get her revenge. And I’m ready for it.

-So, I thought it was over after that, but we return to Castle Black, where Davos tries to get Jon to convince the wildlings to fight for Stannis, and he obviously doesn’t know what happened. But Melisandre, who had left, came back and she doesn’t even have to say anything, and Davos looks crushed when he asks about Shireen, although he doesn’t know how that happened (and when he does, Good Lord). Later on, Jon gets a visit from Ollie, who says that there is someone downstairs who knows about his missing uncle Benjen Stark, who I’d forgot about a long time ago. They rush down, but then he is greeted with a sign that said “TRAITOR”, and you know how this is going to go. Alliser makes the first cut, followed by like, five or six more fuckboys saying, “For The Watch”, which is some bullshit by the way; they’re awfully concerned about honor and not having sex for a bunch of criminals and thieves. Anyway, Ollie has tears in his eyes as he makes the final stab, and I want a giant to have his way with him. Nope, fuck the fact that he is a kid and the wildlings killed his parents. They just killed their very best chance of surviving the White Walkers and now, I just want the wildlings to murder every last member of the Night’s Watch. Brutally. With blood and against their wills. Fuck ’em.

-But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Jon Snow, not until we see his body burn and even then…..I know you’ve seen various theories about this over the last couple of days, but my favorite is the warg theory, the joint that allows Bran to get into his direwolf, as well as into Hodor (and we’ll see them next season, I’m pretty sure). His direwolf’s name is Ghost, too, so there is that, and Melisandre can bring people back to life. Either way, we’ll see next season and if this is the last we’ve seen of Jon Snow, damn, I did not see that coming. I’ve never been the biggest Jon Snow fan, so I don’t care that much, but I was just shocked because that came outta nowhere. But at the same time, I shouldn’t have been because this is Game Of Thrones and this is what they do. At this point, Tommen’s cats might end up on the Iron Throne when it is all said and done because there are no humans left in the world.

Game Of Thrones finales used to be more about cleaning up the mess left after Episode 9, but last season we got the Tyrion/Tywin incident, then they stepped it up with this season, leaving a ton of questions to be answered. Is Stannis alive and if so, why not show him die? Will Dany be a Dothraki rape toy or will Drogon wake up pissed to find Moms gone? Will the people of Meereen even listen to Tyrion and why should they? Will Jorah and Daario fight? Can Arya see? Will Jaime start a war with Dorne (he pretty much has to, right?)? How good will Cersei’s revenge be? Where the hell are Littlefinger and Lady O with their plotting and scheming? How pissed will Ramsey be with Theon/Reek and Sansa MIA, and how quickly will he send out the search party? If they get caught, how much will Theon/Reek wish he was actually dead? And yo, will Sam gather the wildlings and go after the Night’s Watch? They packed a ton of stuff into this episode to keep us wondering until next season.

Until then, folks. Thanks for reading as always, I have no idea what I’ma do next, but something will be coming this summer. I appreciate it. In the meantime, I’ll be catching up on the books because I’m pretty sure we’re all at the same place in the story now (I think the show may have spoiled some of the sixth book, which I find HILARIOUS).

Game Of Thrones S05E09 – Dance With Dragons

Game Of Thrones‘ Episode 9 is usually the one where all hell breaks loose, and Season 5’s “Dance With Dragons” leaves you with mixed feelings. Some parts were good, some parts weren’t, but it all fell under the umbrella of “hot fiya”. Let’s go…

-We open with a shot of Stannis’ camp, and Melisandre peering into some fire, as she has been known to do, and she gets an alarmed look on her face and turns to go outside, with no coat or anything on, of course, because the cold doesn’t bother her. Just then, a number of fires go up in the camp, so that is what she must have seen in the fire, but that’s a shitty warning system from the Lord of Light, who doesn’t seem to do a whole hell of a lot besides wanting people to die. Panic spreads, although the horse on fire was pretty cool to see.

-They figure out that it was a group of 20 men (Ramsey’s 20) that did it, and the guards didn’t see anything, so Stannis wants them hanged. Davos is still on his, “yo, we need to get back to Castle Black” because Ramsey proves once again that while he is insane, he isn’t a dummy. He burned the food reserves along with the weapons, which is brilliant. But Stannis isn’t hearing it, and is staring off in the distance at Melisandre and Selyse, and Davos has this, “THIS bitch” look on his face. But hey, everyone will be eating horse meat tonight, so that’s something.

-Jon Snow and what is left of the wildling army and his people get back to the Wall, and Alliser is at the top. I get why some thought he wouldn’t let them in, but one thing Alliser is, is true to the Night’s Watch and while he doesn’t agree with Jon at all, he is the Commander and what he says, goes. There is probably a breaking point though, and he says to Jon that his good heart will get them all killed as the wildlings troop through Castle Black.

-Jon also thinks his mission was a failure, but Sam tells him to look at the people he saved and he’s right, but Jon seems like that dude in high school that got an 89 on a test and was still hard on himself. Shoutout to the dudes who looked terrified of the giant, and I forgot to say this last week, I think, but Ollie gotta die, b. He’s gon’ do something stupid and get someone killed. Hopefully, himself.

-Stannis calls in Davos while he’s moving pieces around on his big-ass game of RISK, and sends him back to Castle Black for horses, weapons and food, and when Davos says that he feels like a bad Hand for leaving the King, Stannis says it is an order. Then Davos says he should take Selyse and Shireen, at the very least, Shireen, back with him and Stannis is like, NOAP. Clue #1.

-Davos goes to say bye to Shireen, who is reading the “Dance Of Dragons”, which is the fifth book in the series, A Song of Ice And Fire, and for the second week in a row, they manage to fit a book title into the show as Ramsey said he would leave “A Feast For Crows” with his ambush of Stannis. It’s a book about the history of the Targaryens and he gives her a carved deer that he made, which comes off as difficult because he has no fingers on one hand, but it is what it is. He says goodbye to her and thanks her for teaching him to read, and she’s so happy. This is no good.

-Jaime is called by Prince Doran,who asks him why he is there, and Jaime is like, I’m here to get my daught…..er, niece, and he tells Doran about the necklace in the snake’s mouth that was sent to King’s Landing, so now everyone knows that Ellaria was behind it and she doesn’t even try to hide it. She was so petty during this meeting, when Doran proposed a toast to keeping the peace with the Throne, she poured her wine on the ground. She gives all sorts of sideeye to the Prince before storming out and he’s like, I’ll take care of her later. But he tells Jaime that he is sending him back to the capital with Myrcella and Trystane, who is to take Oberyn’s spot on some council. Then Bronn is brought in and he is going with them, but for punching Trystane in the face when they were caught, his bodyguard gets to return the favor, so all square.

-Oh, before Bronn was picked up, the Sand Snakes are having a slapfight (you know that stupid game kids play where they have to slap each other’s hands before the person moves it. Never played it. It’s fucking stupid.) in their cell and when Bronn is led out, the one that showed him the goods asked him to tell her she’s the most beautiful woman in the world again, and he does because he doesn’t want to get poisoned again. Also, her sister calls her a slut, so she must do this often. These Sand Snakes have been mad underwhelming; they ain’t got shit on the Nightcomers from Penny Dreadful (seriously, watch it, comes on Showtime right after Game Of Thrones, it’s fucking great).

-Arya is out on her hit mission and finds the gambler she is to poison, but then Mace Tyrell shows up with Meryn Trant, who is on her kill list and she throws that entire mission in the bushes. Can we talk about how terrible of a spy Arya is? She does all kinds of fuck shit during this scene. She follows them about as blatantly as you can, looking Meryn Trant in the face long enough for him to be like, I know this little girl. I don’t know how she not only gets into the brothel with a tray of seafood, but manages to get all the way to the VIP section, where Meryn is going through various prostitutes and she is eventually shooed out by the Madam, but again, he’s looking at her like he recognizes her. This was a mess from start to finish. When she gets back to the House of B&W, she tells Jaqen that the man wasn’t hungry, but he knows she’s lying. This whole “Arya as a spy” storyline should be so much better than it is.

-Meryn, Lord Jesus, how young do you want them, bruh? The prostitute he picked couldn’t have been any more than 12. And he is STILL not even close to the worst person in the episode. Because, Game Of Thrones.

-Back in Dorne, Ellaria is made to kiss Doran’s ring or else lose her life, in front of her daughters and she does it. Are we not gon’ talk about how this could have all been avoided if Oberyn wasn’t partyin’ on the Mountain? Jeez. Then she goes to see Jaime, who is tryna write left-handed, and she asks him how long he has loved…Cersei. She says that if they were in Dorne, no one would say anything about it, and I was talking to someone who pointed out that she called Oberyn “cousin” when they were in King’s Landing. Funny how having your life threatened makes you soften your stances on things a little bit. Also, this can’t look good for Cersei if random people who just showed up in King’s Landing can see that her and Jaime have a thing going.

-Shireen is telling Stannis all about the “Dance of Dragons” story and he asks her about choosing sides, and she replies that choosing sides is what got the Targaryens into this mess in the first place. He says that sometimes, you have to make choices to fulfill your destiny and Shireen is like, I wanna help and when she hits that “I AM PRINCESS SHIREEN OF HOUSE BARATHEON”, that’s when it hit the three of us watching it: he’s about to sacrifice Shireen. No. Motherfucker, NO.

-Guards are leading her outside and she’s looking around like, what is going on, until she sees Melisandre and the pyre and she’s like, FUCK THIS. So much happens in this scene, from Stannis’ soldiers looking at Melisandre like, BITCH, REALLY? to Stannis realizing just how ain’t shit this is to Selyse finally deciding to step up and be a good mother as her daughter is being burned at the stake. Everyone here can go to hell. Everyone. Stannis, you are no longer the best father on television. Bitch-ass mufucka can’t even look at the burning, but YOU DID THAT. How did you fuck up a good thing so much that I’m now cheering for Ramsey to come through and flay you and all your peoples? HOW?

-When Davos gets back? OOOOOOOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. He’ll probably die tryna kill Melisandre, but he’ll give it a go. He knew something was up when he left.

-The fighting pits are open in Meereen, and all the fighters are saying they’ll die for Dany, who is all, I don’t even want that, but she has to clap her hands to start the fighting. Loraq is tryna explain to her the customs of the pits, while Daario is tryna chime in with his two cents and Tyrion is lookin’ at both of them like, y’all mufuckas serious fighting over Dany right now? Anyway, he isn’t really feeling it, but we do get a cool beheading with the headless body slumping to the ground. So then, of course, with the next round of fighters, Jorah is brought out in front of Dany, and there is a lot going on here. Dany is like, are you fuckin’ kidding me? Daario is like, oh for fuck sakes. Tyrion is like, MY MUFUCKIN’ MAN RIGHT THERE. Dany’s eyes were big as shit, but she composes herself and starts the fighting. Jorah suffers a couple of close calls, of course, but never did I think he was going to die….not yet. Also, after watching “Hardhome” last week, the fight scenes looked kinda clunky, better than the Sand Snakes vs. Jaime and Bronn in “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken“, but not even close to “Hardhome“, but it is what it is.

-So, Jorah survives all the fights while Dany is doing a terrible job of not acting like she isn’t relieved, and then Jorah throws a spear just past her…..in the chest of a Son of the Harpy, who was about to try and assassinate her. Just then, the Sons randomly start rising up throughout the crowd, killing any and everyone in their path, although the mission is to get to Dany and Daario instructs everyone to protect the Queen. These fights actually looked better than the ones in the pits, go figure. Jorah runs up to fight with Daario, who wants to kill him so bad, but decides they should figure this out if they get out alive. I thought Loraq was leading the Sons at one point, but like, three dudes stab the shit outta him, so there goes that. Dany takes Jorah’s hand and runs to the middle of the pit, while Tyrion takes Missandei with him and even kills a Son; shoutout to Tyrion kickin’ a few asses this season.

-Our group gets surrounded in the middle of the pits, and Daario is like, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, and fights a few off, as do Jorah and the rest of the Unsullied, who have a couple of their soldiers die and they seem to be outnumbered. Then Dany takes Missandei’s hand and closes her eyes, and we hear a SQUAWK……everyone looks up and there is Drogon, big as all fucks, breathing fire. A lot of the Sons were like, YO, PEACE THE FUCK OUT. They do fight back by throwing spears at Drogon, who is biting people in half and setting fire to any Son in his path because ay yo, you fuckin’ with Moms? YOU FUCKIN’ WITH MOMS? NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Tyrion’s look was just full of, well, ain’t this some shit, she really got some mufuckin’ dragons.

-Dany sees Drogon getting hit with spears and pulls one out, and Drogon screams on her before he realizes, oh shit, sorry Moms and she’s like, that’s okay, baby. Then she looks around kinda like, lemme try this, and gets on his back, and tells him to fly in Valeryian, I would assume, and he gets a running start and gets up pretty quickly. Meanwhile, while everyone is looking on amazement, Tyrion is like, so you comin’ back for us or what?

-You know, I saw a few people talkin’ about how the dragon didn’t add much to the episode. Such foolishness. Drogon came through, saved the day, ate a buncha people, set them on fire and then Dany rode off in the sky on a fuckin’ dragon, which is something we’ve wanted to see for five seasons. People ain’t shit, bruh. Dragons can add a solid point or two to how good an episode is.

-SHE RODE OFF IN THE SKY ON A MUFUCKIN’ DRAGON. AND SHE STILL HAS TWO LEFT. WHO WANTS SOME?

All in all, in the Episode 9 pantheon, this was probably the worst because I mean, it goes up against Ned Stark in Season 1, followed by the Battle of Blackwater, the Red Wedding and the Battle at the Wall. Maybe this should have been Episode 8, and last week should have been Episode 9, but really, I don’t care. Just make good episodes and while this wasn’t the best episode of Game Of Thrones, the stuff with Shireen and Drogon pushes it over the top.

Next week, we get the finale and while I haven’t seen a preview, I assume we’re getting Cersei’s trial, and probably Margaery and Loras as well. We’ll definitely see Sansa, which probably means Ramsey and Theon/Reek, maybe a little Brienne and Pod da Gawd, and there will be at least one Dany scene, because Game Of Thrones can’t have a finale without Ms. Stormborn. But the spotlight will be on Cersei if I had to wager a guess, and I’m here for it. Let’s do this.

Game Of Thrones S05E08 – Hardhome

Season 5 of Game Of Thrones has been a tale of two halves. The first half was slow and I had resigned myself to being underwhelmed. Then the Sansa rape happened and people were ready to throw it in the bushes. Then last week happened, we got Dany and Tyrion finally meeting and Cersei biting off more than she could chew, which perked things up. Then there was “Hardhome”, and I had my phone turned off at work. I turned that joint on and there was four texts on there like, YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS NOW. Y’all were right. Let’s go…..

-We open with Tyrion and Jorah standing before a stern-faced Dany, who asks why she should have him in her circle, and Tyrion flips it like, you might not even deserve to get my advice, which is 100% correct. He doesn’t even flinch when she says he could go back to the fighting pits, nor does he step back when Dany asks why she shouldn’t kill him for what the Lannisters did to her family, but Tyrion says that he killed his mother and father and he is the best Lannister killer of the era. Dany does not want a battle of wits with Tyrion, who then tells the story of her birth, and you have to remember, his biggest weapon is his brain, so it isn’t surprising that he knows all of her history. He then says that “killing and politics aren’t the same thing” and that he was a good King’s Hand, both true statements. So Dany asks what she should do with Jorah, and Tyrion talks him up and even says, “I think he is in love with you” and Jorah shoots him a look like, YO, IXNAY ON THE OVELAY. That being said, Tyrion advises her to let Jorah go, although she wanted to kill him. That was a bit of a surprise, but that betrayal is a lot to overcome, for now anyway.

-Cersei looks WAY worse than Margaery did in her cell, and one of the Silent Sisters comes to bribe her with food, but she has to confess for her judges (I assume incest and some other shit are in there), but Cersei, being a smartass, reiterates that her face will be the last that the woman sees before she dies, and gets hit in the face with a spoon. She holds on until the Silent Sister leaves and then Cersei breaks down, and I have no idea why, but I feel bad for her, even though she isn’t deserving of it at all. Don’t even ask me to explain it. And I have the feeling it’s only gon’ get worse for Mrs. Cersei Lannister Baratheon.

-Arya is practicing her story for Jaqen, and her name is now Lana, who is going to spy on some dude who has a feenin’ for clams and cockles (whatever the hell that is). She tells Jaqen what she has to do (directions to the place), and he hits her when she screws up, which sounds about right. The man that Jaqen wants her to spy on seems mad unsavory, apparently he is a gambler and he wants Arya to poison him, which is cool with her because she’s all about killing people who deserve it. She leaves and the Waif comes in, lookin’ sour as hell, saying Arya isn’t ready for this mission, and Jaqen says that whether she is or not, doesn’t matter to the Many Faced God, so basically, he is on some “if she dies, she dies” shit. I hate this fake-deep actin’ dude, always talking in riddles. Bitch, just tell me what you want me to do, give me my black belt and lemme the fuck outta here.

-Cersei gets a visit from Qyburn, who I think I called Qybush in an earlier recap, and he hasn’t heard from Jaime (although I don’t think he knows he is locked up) and Tommen won’t see anyone, while her uncle Kevan is returning to be the Hand of the King, which isn’t good for Cersei since he left because of her. We get the charges against Cersei: fornication, incest and treason, along with the murder of Robert Baratheon, and Qyburn pleads with her to confess, but she says that he wouldn’t even be here without her, so fuck him, at which point the Silent Sister comes in and Qyburn leaves, saying the work continues. I assume he is still trying to get outta there, and that might have to do with trying to Frankenstein the Mountain back to life.

-Theon/Reek brings Sansa some food, but she isn’t really here for it, she’s pissed about him ratting her out, like, FURIOUS, which she should be. I think she finally sees just how brainwashed Ramsey has him, but she doesn’t care because she said she would do the same thing because she doesn’t have a family anymore….or does she? He confesses a buncha shit, but as Sansa continues to yell at him, Theon/Reek is like, IT WASN’T BRAN AND RICKON and Sansa is like, WOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRD? So, going into this season, Sansa thought she was the only Stark alive. Now, she knows that Bran and Rickon are still somewhere, Jon Snow is the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and Brienne told her Arya was still alive, if I’m not mistaken. So now, Sansa has some fight in her and the end goal has changed (shoutout to my homegirl Jamie for that line) and I gotta say, Sophie Turner might be in the lead for Season 5 MVP.

-Next are the Boltons and their war plans, which are to wait for them, but Ramsey, of course, is all, gimme 20 good men and I’ll get them before they get here. I don’t know if you know this, but Ramsey Bolton is a motherfucking lunatic.

-Tyrion and Dany are getting to know each other better, and Tyrion FINALLY gets his wine; honestly, I could watch an entire episode of this. Tyrion drinking and telling Dany what she has been missing on the other side of the sea. They both realize that their fathers weren’t shit, and that he needs more wine, because, Tyrion. He also doesn’t back down from Dany’s threats about killing him, which is great because Dany has never had anyone who has stood up to her like this. Dany decides to take him on as an advisor (not before taking the wine from him), as he can help her get the Iron Throne and he suggests staying in Meereen, where she could do the most good, but she wants to go home. Tyrion is like, um, the Targaryen name holds no weight there anymore, the Starks are all gone, Jaime and Cersei won’t give her any Lannister help (not that she wants it anyway), and Stannis won’t back her, either, which leaves the Tyrells. But Dany says that all the names are just spokes on a wheel, and she doesn’t want to stop the wheel: she wants to break the wheel. This reminds me of what she said in Season 4, “I will do as queens do: I will rule“. Give me one full episode of Peter Dinklage and Emilia Clarke before this is all over, and I’m good.

-Jorah shows up to see the slaver that let him fight in the pits, and offers to be his property if he lets him fight before Dany once again. He certainly doesn’t take no for an answer. Oh, and I forgot to say this earlier: when Jorah left the city again, he looked at the patch of greyscale on his wrist and looked up. I have two theories for that: one, he was looking up at Dany’s chambers. Two, he was looking up to see if he saw a dragon because there was a squawking noise immediately afterwards. Remember, dat ‘scale makes a mufucka go crazy.

-The Silent Sister comes back again with water, and Cersei again drops some bars, saying she’s going to get her in the worst way imaginable, and the woman pours the water on the floor, so of course, Cersei gets down there and starts sucking it up. She’ll probably get the cold sore from hell from that, and that’s probably the least of her worries.

-Gilly is tending to Sam, and she is scared, but Ollie comes in with some food and asks Sam if he really thinks that Jon is doing the right thing. Sam is like, I get it, but I’ve seen the White Walkers and dogg, you don’t understand how real it’ll get in these streets. The slaughter that the Thenns and wildlings put on Ollie’s village, that ain’t shit on what the White Walkers are capable of (FORESHADOWING). He also says to Ollie not to worry about Jon, as he always comes back.

-So, here we go, and I’ma try to be as brief as possible about this because it’s the last 30 minutes of the episode, and I could spend 3,000 words on this battle. Jon and Tormund roll up to Hardhome, whose leader calls Tormund a traitor for being with a crow (member of the Night’s Watch), and Tormund kills him to be like, I tried to be fucking nice, let’s talk. They all get together and Jon tells them that they aren’t friends, but if they want even a chance ot beating the White Walkers, they all have to be allies. Things almost get outta hand when Jon admits to killing Mance Rayder, but Tormund says it was out of mercy beause Stannis wanted him to burn. After a minute, they decide on going south of the Wall, but the Thenns aren’t happy about it, which sounds about right because they’re pricks.

-They start loading everyone up, including the female wilding leader who says, “I fucking hate Thenns” during the meeting, and she puts her two daughters on a boat without her, and instantly I was like, well, she’s dying. We also see a Giant named Wun Wun, who asks one of Jon’s boys, “The fuck you lookin’ at?”, which is pretty good. Then you hear the dogs barking and something going on in the distance, and man, those wights hit Hardhome fast as shit. Mufuckas are trying to hold them off and keep them outside of their wall, but it’s moot after a while as they get through and the massacre is on. Jon and his crew join the fight and Jon comes face-to-face with one of the older White Walkers, who looks like he looks at Sam at the end of Season 2 as the Army of the Dead is marching. He fucks up the main Thenn with ease and starts fuckin’ up Jon, and this is one of at least three times I genuinely though Jon was about to die, because it’s Game Of Thrones and everyone dies. But then Jon, who failed to find the dragonglass he brought as a peace offering because we know that kills White Walkers, he stabs him with his sword and he disintegrates, so now we know that Valeryian steel also kills them and Jon looks down like, well, THAT came in handy. Also, I had half a mind to think that Ghost, the direwolf, would show up to the fight because, well, do you have a reason why he couldn’t? Thought not.

-Then we go back to that female wildling, who sees a gang of wight children and she can’t bear to kill them, but they have no hesitation in fuckin’ her life up from her head to her feet. Meanwhile, Jon, Tormund, some other Night’s Watch dude and the Giant start running for a boat to peace the fuck out, and I honestly thought the Giant was gon’ get overrun, but he threw the remaining wights off him and caught up to them out in the water. But Jon notices another White Walker on a horse up on a cliff (we see him one other time during this battle), and it’s the one that turned one of Craster’s babies into a wight in Season 4. He is apparently called the Night’s King, and there are a few stories about him, we heard Old Nan tell Bran a story about him in Season 1, or it was the first book, I can’t remember, but Bran did see him in a flashback in Season 2 (the vision was of the Night’s King picking up that baby).

-Anyway, Jon and the Night’s King stare at each and the Night’s King starts to raise his arms….and all of the dead wildlings they slaughtered came back to life with blue eyes. Jon is like, OH FOR FUCK SAKES, as they’re sailing away. It is eerily quiet as the episode ends. So yeah, just a friendly reminder that all this battling for the Iron Throne and whatever, all that shit is relevant if the Army of the Dead can get down there.

-So, I have a few questions, really, only two: can wights/White Walkers swim? Do they need water wings? They stopped pretty quickly when Jon and ’em got in the water. Two, how does it work for them going south? I suppose they still have to get past, you know, the giant fucking Wall that the Night’s Watch will be behind, but I mean, the wildlings almost did it. Will they melt as it gets warmer? SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WHITE WALKERS.

Episode 9 is usually where shit gets real in Game Of Thrones, but I can’t see them going the major-battle route after this episode, which is probably in the top ten of the series so far, and I’ve seen many say it was the best, which I’ll hold off on, but even after watching it a second time, it was pretty fuckin’ good. The Dany/Tyrion stuff was as excellent as I expected, Cersei and Sansa were beasts, even Arya is coming along with the samurai training and she’s about to fuck people up. And yet, all we’re talking about is White Walker Fest 2015, which is fair because we’ve waited a smooth five seasons to be able to see what they can really do.

But I would like to make a few suggestions on people dying: Theon/Reek is my favorite at +150 (bet $100, win $150) to help Sansa get outta there, followed by Pod Da Gawd at +175 after Brienne rushes in because she ain’t seen that candle and fuck it, I’m going in anyway. I can’t see Cersei dying, but I can’t imagine things getting much better for her. I’ll put Loras (Margaery’s brother) at +300 because all these people in cells, SOMEONE gotta die. Shireen (Stannis’ daughter) is at a cautious +900 because Melisandre needs a king’s blood, dammit. I still don’t know why she needs to kill someone; get on that Penny Dreadful shit and just get a sample, good grief.

Anyway, Episode 9 is on the horizon, friends. Strap yourself in.