Review: Game of Thrones - S06E07 - The Broken Man

Spoiler Alert: These reviews contain spoilers for the titled episode. They may also contain spoilers for any previous episodes and published book content. If you are not caught up, this is your warning.

So I finally got to sit down and check out our most recent episode, "The Broken Man", late Sunday evening. I watched it again Monday evening to really wrap my head around it. What an incredible piece of work (albeit different from what I was expecting from the adapted content, but I'll touch on that later). Let's talk about it.

We get a cold open! Immediately when I queued up the show on my DVR I was like "Wait... this is an actual scene and the credits haven't rolled yet... what?" Within this, I finally got to see who they got Ian McShane to play. While it wasn't Septon Meribald, it was his show analog and was awesome to watch. He really seems to be one of those actors that you forget about. He isn't big in the press, tends to play odd roles or is just off the beaten path a bit, but when he does take a role, he adds something excellent to it (see Al Swerengen from HBO's Deadwood).

With the show opening, we see that a small Sept is being built and it's a really happy little place! Everyone is helping, happy, doing their part. We also see teams bringing in timbers. We also see a piece of timber that would take four men being carried by one.

Part of me thought, for a moment, this was some kind of flashback to Ser Duncan The Tall, but it turns out that our dearly departed Hound ain't so dead after all.  He turns that burned face around for us and the credits hit.

My jaw dropped, honestly. I fully support the theory that Sandor Clegane is alive in the books and that he's the Grave Digger on The Quiet Isle, but I thought the show was done with him. Seeing that burnt face made me cheer. I'm going to close the article talking about him and the events around him this episode, so hang tight on that one. For now, let's hit some other stuff.

How about Margaery Tyrell, huh? She and the High Sparrow are something else. I think it's more than clear now that they're both playing the game but it makes me wonder if either of them believes the other. Marg certainly is running her game, as evidenced by the simple rose drawing passed to Olenna, which seems to say "Don't worry, I've got a plan.  Trust me, I'm still your grand daughter." Dianna Rigg's face when she looked at the paper was fantastic. Just the slightest facial expression change said "Ah, I understand and feel much better. Go get 'em."

Cersei's moment with Olenna was excellent. Seeing The Queen of Thorns just rip Cersei a new one in her trademark "old-folks-can-say-what-they-please" manner was just priceless. Cersei is realizing she's in an increasingly tight spot and it's looking like it's all she can do to keep her head above water.

What do you guys think Margaery's plan is? The High Sparrow doesn't seem afraid to die, he has the masses on his side, he's tied directly to the king now and the Faith is growing ever more prominent. She thinks many steps ahead, so I'm sure it'll be good, but I wonder if we're even supposed to guess yet. Interested to hear your thoughts.

Jon, Sansa and Davos are having a rough go of it up North, but the scene on Bear Island was awesome! The girl they got to play Lady Lyanna Mormont was freakin' brilliant. Kudos to GoT casting department!

Having said that, I love how, despite all the sworn loyalties and oaths and whatnot, we're seeing more and more houses rejecting those loyalties (or at least questioning loyalties) that have stood for centuries as unspoken rule. Lady Mormont poses this great question of "Why?!" and, though Davos presents a great answer, it's still an excellent question.

What I'm having a little trouble understanding is exemplified with what happens when they meet the Glovers (I kept waiting for Danny to show up, but maybe the casting budget was low...). The current Lord Glover listens to the pitch from the trio and winds up rejecting them, saying House Glover has done enough, bled enough and that House Stark is dead.  The whole time I was thinking "but... Sansa Stark is RIGHT THERE and on top of that, they just said Rickon is being held prisoner by Ramsay!"  Lord Glover said they wept to hear about Ned.  Everyone in the North talks about Northern loyalty and how everyone loved Ned and that they would support him and his family all the time. I could understand if it was just Jon, but why is it such a hard sell when there is 100% Stark blood right there, and also reason to believe a true-born male heir is alive as well? This feels like a slightly contrived obstacle to me.

Now I need to rant. I was checking out the io9 review (you can read it here). Rob Bricken wrote this in his notes and I want to quote him because he nails it:

"We do get a brief check-in with Yara and Theon, who have taken their boats and pirates to a Westerosi equivalent of Hooters. I mean, I’m sure it’s yet another whorehouse, but like EVERY SINGLE WOMAN is just hanging out topless, and it seems to be primarily a place where people eat and drink. To be fair, the nudity does serve a purpose in that it all emphasizes how vastly uncomfortable and ashamed Theon is. It doesn’t help that even his sister keeps mocking him for having his penis cut off by a madman.

Yara also gives her brother a bit of a pep talk, which basically involves 1) forcing him to chug ale and 2) telling him if he going to keep moping about all those months of torture and being castrated, he should go ahead and kill himself. Theon manages to look her in the eye by the end, but it’s worth noting that this is pretty much Yara—and probably most of the Iron Islanders—at her most compassionate. They are a terrible people."

I am really hating that even the "most" redeemable of the Iron Islanders is seriously just another scumbag.  Asha, in the books, is sexually liberated, sure, but she never seemed the type to go for a brothel (and I'm not sure where her being into other women came from, or why it was at all necessary...).  She is also forward thinking and has some humanity to her.  She actually seems like she grieves and feels for her brother.

Yara, on the other hand, essentially might as well be male. There is nothing distinguishing her here. She is supposed to represent a new way; a better way and she fails. The Ironborn are vile and absolutely the Dothraki of Westeros and I'm going to be severely disappointed if Dany throws her lot in with them. I seriously could go the rest of the series without seeing anything else having to do with them. They might as well get axed just like Dorne seems to be so some screentime can go to a storyline that deserves it.

*Deep Breath*  Ooooook.

Arya. What-the-actual-eff?!  Now I've gotten that out of my system, what did you guys think of all this? I know there are some theories out there but I pointedly tried to avoid them (though I did see one that was very intriguing). Initially, before she went for a swim, I do recall feeling like the scene was weird, but couldn't put my finger on why.  Arya comes up to this sailor, dressed very nicely (and SUPER clean) and hands him two sacks of hard coin to get the hell out of there, ASAP.  She then goes to the bridge and looks out at the Titan wistfully. This old crone comes up to her and you immediately know it's the Waif, but I thought Arya would catch her! Nope. Slash, stabby-stab, splash. She stays down and this really well done, no-cutaway shot of the water lingers juuuust too long to be uncomfortable and up comes this hazy cloud of blood.

Arya scrambles (VERY convincingly) out of the water, bleeding like a stuck pig. Her skin color as she staggers through the streets was incredible and it seriously looks like she's dying.  The way they did her bleeding was also striking, like the drop hitting the cobbles.  Now here's the theory that turned my head around:

What if it isn't Arya?

To my understanding, the theory goes that for some reason, "Jaquen", whether out of fondness or a sense of debt or duty, disguises himself as Arya and we're actually watching him this whole time. He knows where the Waif is going to be, so he goes there, gets himself stabbed to get her off the hook or buy her time or something. The really trippy thing is, if that's remotely true, we just watched an Arya scene without Arya actually being there! I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this because it didn't even occur to me that it might not really be her, but like I said, I did get a weird feeling about how she looked / acted...

Finally I return to Brother Ray and The Hound. I loved this little story. True Brother Ray wasn't Septon Meribald, but was great all the same.  His message was fantastic. War is terrible and can make monsters out of us all. In war, we're given orders, told to do the work whether we like it or not. Life takes us places where we may or may not like ourselves afterwards. At the end of the day, though, it's never too late to change. It's never too late to be better, no matter what. If you want to be different, you can be.

This is all based off of a speech from a character named Septon Maribald in A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 4, A Feast For Crows.  Septon Meribald's "Broken Men" monologue is one of the best things in the series and you can find it here  (if you haven't read it, you must).  I wish they had included it in the show, as it is wonderful and extremely poignant.

The Hound is a perfect target for this. He's been through hell in his life and what he constantly goes back to is "look at all the awful things I've done." He says to Brother Ray "If the Gods are real, why haven't I been punished?" to which Brother Ray replies "Who says you haven't?" He hears this and is stunned speechless.

It's a profound moment for a character so covered in anger, hatred and even fear. He's been through hell. He's been through a meat grinder of a life. Who's to say that he hasn't been being punished this whole time as was just too blind to see the better path?

It's also sad, because of course he comes back from his zealous wood chopping to find the group murdered, and by men from The Brotherhood no less. He grabs his axe and we are pretty sure he's done chopping wood.

I'm wondering what's in store for him. I think Sandor Clegane, in the books, is at peace. I think he's done and that his old life and The Hound are behind him. The Hound of the show, I think, now just wants vengeance for something that was good. Where this takes him, I know not. Whether this is the road to his death at the hands of the Brotherhood or to Clegane-Bowl, who can say?  I pray there is peace for him in the end, though...

Thanks, as always for reading and please do write down in the comments.  The most fun thing about being a part of this fandom is the conversations we get to have with each other.  Any back-n-forth makes for a great time and it's always awesome to hear a fan's thoughts, no matter who.  As Brother Ray would say, it's never too late for the first comment. :)

Last, but certainly not least, please check out the dynamic Boiled Leather duo, Sean T. Collins and Steffan Sasse with their reviews over at Rolling Stone and The Nerdstream Era.  These guys are wellsprings of knowledge and insight and are well worth reading!