This episode felt familiar as a type on GoT: let’s get some emotional stuff worked out and set up the next battles – physical and political – to come. It certainly was not a mere placeholder, as at least two major events occur, with lots of stage-setting for the last 2 episodes to come.
As I don’t really want to do ‘recaps’ so much as express my own reactions, this is not going to be, well, a recap. Nonetheless, SPOILERS follow.
We Are Really Sad Until We Get Drunk. After wondering, perhaps unkindly, how the mass of dead bodies at Winterfell would get cleaned up (and who among the few still living got stuck with the job), I was happy to see that we just skipped the dreary, plebian work and went to a moving mass funeral. And, it was moving. Ok, Jon’s speech was lame, at least in delivery, but there were lots of tears – mostly Dany’s over Ser Jorah - and lots of solemn faces. Also, lots of smoke. Honestly, haven’t these people had enough of burning bodies and clouds of smoke?
Happily, if somewhat abruptly, we move to the after-party, where everyone is getting smashed, including the rather abstemious, newly-knighted Brienne. She plays a kind of ‘You Get Owned, You Drink’ game with Jaime, Podrick, and Tyrion. Seriously, she did not see that a game like this with Tyrion might get ...sticky? Interesting consequences of said game will be discussed, below.
Up at the high table, the irrepressible Tormund tries to persuade Jon into gulping down a giant horn’s of wine in one take. No, no: I am not saying the horn was from a giant (do they have horns? Tormund would know), just that it was larger than Jon’s head. This leads into Tormund’s regaling those around him with stories of Jon’s fabulousness: getting murdered and coming back to life (courtesy of the now-forgotten Melisandre); fighting and fighting and fighting; and riding a dragon, because who does that, right?
Daenerys and Sansa. I have to say, that while Dany has seemed increasingly megalomaniac, Sansa is not coming off all that well, either. I rather felt some sympathy for Dany watching Jon get accolades from everyone, including for riding a dragon. ‘Cause, you know, she never did anything cool like that. Ser Jorah is dead, and Tyrion is off boozing with his brother. I don’t know why Grey Worm and Missandei seemed to be absent at the party, but I do see that Varys-in-the-corner is cold comfort.
The rivalry between these two ambitious women is becoming a bit of a strain on everyone else. Tyrion tells Sansa that she does not have to like Dany, just not provoke her. Dany begs Jon to not reveal His Big Secret to Sansa and Arya. Naturally, Jon, being the gormless dope he is, does just that under the least bit of pressure from his erstwhile sisters. Bran helps out by telling Jon it is Jon’s choice to explode the fragile alliance. Jon, aside, the amount of side-eyeing is getting pretty wearisome.
So, coming up on the next – admittedly less existential – war, we have states’ rights Sansa and unitary executive Dany at odds while going up against the evermore demented, I don’t do policy, Cersei. For a feminist such as myself, this is not a good look.
Arya, My Queen. A girl missed the wake/after-party, because she was downstairs shooting arrows into wood pillars, duh. She missed hearing Dany, of all people, toasting her as the hero of the Human vs. Undead war. While she is not averse to drinking, that does not seem to be to her thing as an in-itself; she has become a rather tightly controlled killing machine. She is not opposed to pleasure; she just puts it in its place.
This was, in my opinion, borne out by her hot kiss dismissal of Gendry’s, [now Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End] proposal. Did he really think she would want to be any man’s lady? But, to me, it was her kindness in rejecting his proposal that showed she can still be human and distinguish between good, if unenlightened people, and those who know well enough what they are doing. Gendry isn’t a virulent sexist; he just assumes that the Arya he loves could somehow survive/continue as ‘his lady’. To be sure, he really has no idea who Arya is, however much he admires her ferocity and intelligence. Poor dude.
So, Arya is off to King’s Landing to, uh, finish some old business, happily falling in with The Hound who has a similar plan with a different victim in mind. Long live assassins!
Jaime. First, a brief “eww” from me. Look, I have loved the Jaime-Brienne arc, and I long ago guessed that their becoming lovers would be the standard narrative. Nonetheless, it just felt forced and false. That’s me, I guess. I wanted him to continue to love her for her integrity, as a stark contrast to his evil lover/sister. But, really, why do all such female-male relationships have to end up as sexual relationships in most of our cultural forms?
Moving on. Of course, Jaime has to have a yet another come to moment about his horrible love-hate/obsession with his evil sister. At this point – post coital love with Brienne and post Bronn revealing sister-lover’s plan to have himself and Tyrion murdered - I have no clue as to what Jaime is up to. Is he going to protect Evil Sis-Love and/or her supposed newest baby, or is he going to put an end to her? I am really unsure. And, perhaps, that is what we must have come to expect from the King Slayer at this point in his seriously f-ed up life. I suppose we can be happy that he only listed three of the many evil deeds he has done on Cersei’s behalf; otherwise, there wouldn’t be time for much else in the episode.
Cersei Plays On. I know some of my DK friends don’t love Lena Headey’s acting, but it does seem a shame that her role is now distilled to moving between resting bitch face and smirking bitch face. Cersei does get the satisfaction of taking out another dragon – Rhaegal, poor thing – and one of Dany’s remaining pals, Missandei, in pretty quick order right in Dany’s face. Whether it is a clever move to infuriate an equally ferocious queen who still has one dragon and an army remains to be seen. Fear of what will happen to Cersei and King’s Landing might be the reason Jaime hies it back home.
At any rate, Tyrion accurately notes that Cersei hates her people as much as they hate her. Her willingness to see them all burnt up (jeesh, again with the burning bodies?) might be matched by Dany, who is ever closer to abandoning her messianic goals for the personal aim of torching the world to satisfy her sense of being wronged. Just the kind of thing Cersei would understand. I do have to say that Tyrion’s effort to convince Cersei that she is not a monster because she loves her children was…um, weak. The fact that Cersei now, purportedly, has a new child on the way is all the more reason for her to defend herself and her crown at any cost.
I continue to try not to think about Cersei’s ‘relationship’ [shudder] with the appallingly smarmy Euron beyond the fact that it demonstrates how much she is willing to endure to get her way. Ugh.
The Hell with Humans. I am taking my cue, here, from Tyrion. He assures Ser Davos that being happy is not a likely prospect given that, having defeated the inhuman Them, the remaining people now have to face the Us – other humans. I have a great deal of sympathy with this perspective, in light of how badly the leading humans are behaving. Sansa is plotting; Varys is plotting; Cersei does nothing but plot; and Dany is close to losing the plot. Jon and Jaime mostly just respond to external stimuli, but said stimuli are the plots of others. At least Bronn’s plot is direct: what’s in it for me?
All that and the future plotting of the series aside, let’s reflect on the non-human animals. Rhaegal, as noted, gets killed by one of creepy Euron’s monster crossbows (as do quite a few humans, but forget them). This is heart breaking to those of us who love the dragons. Honestly, if Drogon also falls in battle, I will be forever bereft.
And, then there is Ghost. Recall that he made a very brief appearance in, I think, Episode 2. He then ran along with Ser Jorah and the Dothraki as they charged into the night against the wights. Why? Who knows. Having returned somewhat worse for wear, he is now sent off by Jon (that dope) to accompany Tormund back to the north of the North. Why? Because Jon is a dope who thinks the weather in King’s Landing will not suit his dire wolf. Good grief.
Mean people online argue that the CGI costs of having both an active dire wolf and dragons on screen have pushed the dire wolf off-screen. But, come on: there is only one dragon left [sob]; can’t they squeeze in a dire wolf for a few scenes? I suppose I should be happy that Ghost is, arguably, safe in the far North, while Drogon might very well be not-safe in King’s Landing.
At any rate, let’s have a poll.