Game of Thrones is back! In this exciting âmusical episode,â Queen Bey denounces Ser Carterâs cheating ways, and goes on a rampage with her trusty club (named âSluggerâ), smashing up chariots and horseless carriages andâshoot. Iâm confused. That was the other thing on HBO this weekend.
Letâs try this again⊠Game of Thrones is back! Itâs the long-awaited return of everyone's favorite characters: Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, Catelyn Stark, Jon Snow, Robb Stark, Khal Drogo, Tywin Lannister, Talisa Maegyr, Joffrey Baratheon, Sandor Clegane, Stannis Baratheon, and many more!
OH WAIT, all those characters are dead :(
Letâs take a look at the map of Westeros and see whoâs still kicking. Spoilery spoils ahead!
Episode one of the sixth season was⊠kind of a snooze, right? After all of Season Five's excitement, particularly in its final episodes, maybe it was inevitable that Season Six begins in a relative lull, as the characters get re-situated and the various plot threads slowly ramp up to more hot action, which is hopefully coming down the pike. Whatâs significant now, though, is that Game of Thrones: The TV Show has officially lapped A Song of Ice and Fire: The Needlessly Long Book Series, with author George R.R. Martin still to deliver the final two tomes that wrap up his increasingly convoluted story. This means the show is entirely out on its own, although reportedly Martin has closely advised show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss about how he intends to wrap up this very, very, very lengthy saga. (Spoiler: Ewoks!)
So letâs take a look at what happened this weekânot much, but one or two important things all the same. The general theme of this episode seems to revolve around the corpses of people that died in Season Five, and the still-alive people in Season Six looking upon them.
First corpse! Bastard-turned-lord-commander Jon Snow, who is 100 percent definitely still NOT alive, for real, no seriously he is really very dead I swear. However, everything suggests this is not a permanent state of being. Unlike with the other two corpses (more on those in a sec), nobody says anything along the lines of: âDrat, heâs completely dead, his corporeal body is entirely lifeless, and heâs never ever ever coming back.â Instead, the general mood seems to be: âHeâs dead, drag. But this is only a temporary setback! Bring us mutton!" Meanwhile, Jon's direwolf Ghost has not been harmed, which seems like a very significant oversight on the part of Jon Snow's assassins. Davos Seaworth and Jon's closest allies are now trapped in a storeroom with the corpse (just like in Goonies!) and Dolorous Edd is evidently hatching a plan of some sort.
Second corpse! The kennel girl Myranda, on whom psychopath Ramsey Snow/Bolton seems a little sweet. Well, until he orders her body to be fed to the hounds. Doesnât he know that thereâs a nice lady in red up at the wall who can bring people back to life?ânope, dogs gotta eat. Ramsey's wife, Sansa Stark, and his plaything, Reek (the artist formerly known as Theon Greyjoy), jumped off the top of a very tall wall at the end of Season Five. We were dying to know how the show runners solved this nail-biting cliffhanger! And they... just ignored it. (I'm guessing an off-camera bouncy castle of some sort.) And by another miraculous turn of fate, Brienne of Tarth finds them at the exact same time as Ramseyâs men do, saving Sansa and Theon from grim fatesâin Theonâs case, double castration? I would actually like to know what part Ramsey wouldâve cut off next. A buttcheek? (Side note: I hope we see more of the Boltons' maester. He seems like a solid dude.)
Third corpse! The innocent and pure Myrcella Baratheon, whose mom, Cersei, is really not having a good week, although her new kicky 'do looks divine. By this point, Cersei seems resigned to watching each of her children die; after all, a witch told her it would happen. (Tommen, your days are numbered! Flashback Witch said so.) Cersei seems disturbed by the notion of putting her daughter in a crypt for maggots to eatâagain, someone should really let her know about the Lord of Lightâs resurrecting capabilities. Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister, Cerseiâs brotherlover (and Myrcellaâs uncle-dad!), doesnât seem quite so willing to submit to prophecy (a recurring theme on this show). âFuck prophecy,â says potty-mouth Jaime. âFuck fate. Fuck everyone who isnât us.â Here, Jaime exhibits the emotional maturity of a 14-year-old, which might say something about his relationship with his sister. It does seem these star-crossed lovers (or monstrous criminals of nature, depending on who you ask) have some sort of revenge plot brewing. Elsewhere in Kingâs Landing, Queen Margaery languishes in the dungeon, and seems to be receptive to what the High Sparrow is throwing downâbut again, this is wheel spinning, without any real developments.
Thatâs it for the old corpses, but Game of Thrones being what it is, some new corpses are not far off. Like the one of Doran Martell, the prince of Dorne, whose gout is neatly cured by Ellaria (she helps him with a few other symptoms too, like being alive). His boat-loving son Trystane is pretty screwed, too, and seems to have forgotten the time-true adage: Never turn your back on a Sand Snake unless you have eyes in the back of your head. Trystane, alas, does not have eyes in the back of his head, although he now possesses a fetching spear in that general vicinity.
Meanwhile, Tyrion and Varys are picking up the pieces in Meereen, a city that seems relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things now that Daenerys isnât in it. Women crouch in fear of their babies being eaten by foreign dwarfs, revolution is fomenting, and innocent boats are being torched. Tyrionâs insightful conclusion? âItâs a problem.â For her part, Daenerys is back with a Dothraki horde, although these Dothraki donât seem to like her as much as the one she used to be married to. Theyâre going to send her to the Dothraki widow house, where all widowed Khaleesi are sent. I assume these aged ex-Khaleesi spend their days playing bingo and doing macramĂ©. It actually sounds quite pleasant. Luckily, eagle-eye Jorah just HAPPENS to stumble upon Daenerys' earring in the middle of a gigantic grassy field that is miles away from anywhere, so he and Daario are now poised to stage some sort of rescue mission. More wheel spinning!
Arya is now totally without sight and has become a beggar on the streets of Braavos, a city that evidently doesnât bat an eye when a young blind girl is beaten to a pulp by a stranger with a long stick. Can we fast-forward to the part where Arya becomes Zatoichi? We know this is going to happen, so spare us the inevitable montages. OR call up the Lord of Light and bring Braavosi swordsman Syrio Forel back from the dead to help her with her training! I still miss that curly-haired dude.
Back at Castle Black, Davos proclaims his love of mutton in what seems to be an unusual negotiating tactic, and the red woman Melisandre undergoes her nightly beauty regimen. (When the little HBO pre-show advisory warning popped up before this episode, I bet this wasnât the kind of ânudity" you were hoping for.) I donât think Melisandreâs true appearance came as a surprise to anyoneâalthough it was an interesting reversal of the reveal in Season One, in which Grand Maester Pycelle is shown to be a lot more strapping and vigorous than he appears. That particular plot point didnât really seem to lead anywhere, though. Will this one?
By my reckoning, only two significant things actually happened in this episode: Brienne and Sansa are finally together, and Dorne has undergone a violent regime shift. The rest is place-setting, something Game of Thrones has relied far too heavily on in recent seasons. Weâve been waiting way too long for Martin's baggy story to take coherent narrative shapeâand the world-changing battle between dragons and white walkers seems a foregone conclusion now. So letâs get to it, Benioff and Weiss!