Picking up right where we left off last year, we come in on the be-stabbed corpse of our favorite Snow. Lying in the dead in the cold, unbeknownst to his friends. We grieve and wonder if this is it for our hero.
As far as Jon goes (and the season opener) I don't know that we could have expected an opening different than this. They know discussion of this has been in the zeitgeist for the past 9 months so showing it first thing was almost a given, but no less impactful for that. Kit Harrington has easily been one of the most recognized faces from the show and seeing him with the color drained from his face, bleeding and deserted, lying in the frigid cold remains gut wrenching even a year later. Knowing that he's lying inside the walls of a place where he'd once made his very best friends and discovered who he was as a man makes it all the more galling.
Ghost beats against the door of his cell, creating enough ruckus that Davos and soon the other men not involved with the plot come out and find, to their horror, their Lord Commander treasonously slain. Bringing him inside, they tensely discuss who they can trust. Among those grieving for the fallen Snow are also good ol' Dolorous Edd Tollett and the Red Woman herself, Melisandre. Carise van Houten nails it here, as you can see that her world, just as she'd thought it had fallen apart, still crumbles yet. Dialog from her wasn't even unnecessary, her face spoke volumes.
Cut to Thorne in the mess hall with the Black Brothers. He readily speaks of what was done and the involvement of the other ranking officers. You have to give it to Thorne, at least he's drinking his own Kool-Aid. He freely acknowledges that he and the brothers involved committed treason by killing their Lord Commander. Yet he stands behind the decision, truly believing that had he not done it, it would have been the end of the Watch.
Having said all that, you would have thought that the instant he approached The Wall with a massive contingent of Wildlings, he would have just kept the gate closed. Thorne has always had a bad feeling about Jon, but perhaps his sense of protocol won out over his inner sense of duty, and he reached some kind of internal breaking point that night. I think it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when he was trying to convince the other officers that this was the needed course of action.
Back to Jon's Corpse and the Holdouts (good band name?), Davos talks with Edd and the others. They determine that they're in a tight spot and need help. Edd lights out, saying he'll be back; clearly distraught. Where he's off to, The Seven only know...
Jump south a ways and we see everyone's most reviled psychopath, Ramsay Bolton. Iwan Rheon seriously owns this maniac, and that's to his credit as an actor. Ramsay's presence on screen and the gut-level sensations that are conjured are uncomfortable in the extreme. I feel like at this point, it's been burned into our subconscious that he is the embodiment of the true evil a human can embody. The Others (or White Walkers for show-only folks) are evil, yes, but they're almost like a force of nature; dispassionate, unflagging and glacial. Ramsay is just one man and shouldn't be able to inspire that level of horror, yet he does.
Ramsay grieves for the recently be-splatted Miranda. Seeing him sad is one of the strangest things I've seen so far. Then he stands up and says "Feed her to the dogs." I guess that's the best someone he had affection for could hope for.
He spends time with Roose (who has this weird way of constantly giving backhanded compliments and then following it up with criticism). It's made clear that because of Ramsay's proclivities, Sansa and Reek took off like bats out of icy hell. At this point, we see Ramsay actually visibly scared possibly for the first time ever with Roose mentioning Lady Walda being pregnant with what might be a boy.
From here, we jump further south to Sansa and Theon booking it through the woods. They both look incredibly shabby, haggard and cold... and then they reach the river. I have to say, when they got in the water, I think I almost felt the cold. It looked positively frigid and I have to imagine filming that must have been something else, given the conditions in which the show has filmed in the past.
They continue their flight but are eventually caught by the Boltons and our collective hearts drop. We thought they were finally free; that they'd finally made it and they're cornered by the lackeys of some of the most despicable bastards in Westeros (and that's saying something).
Just when it seems like they're toast, Brienne-of-freakin'-Tarth shows up and goes to work! I seriously was cheering in my seat, fist pumping and whooping as she took the entire squad apart. After all the struggle, all the pain, all the crushed hopes, she blasts out of the snow like a beacon of righteous fury to smite the minions of Evil like a genuine Hero and True Knight. She and Pod had been ever vigilant and tracked their flight from Winterfell. After wiping the floor with the hapless Bolton crew (Theon even got one!) she once again offers her sword and service to Lady Sansa Stark, who finally accepts. After all they've all been through, Brienne's quest has been achieved, a new milestone struck. It brought tears to my eyes.
In King's Landing, Jamie returns with the body of Princess Myrcella Baratheon, draped under the prophesied golden shroud. Cersei runs to the beach where she saw her bright young daughter off, the giant Ser Robert Strong in tow, only to be greeted with a second child gone. You can see the heartbreak on her face. She grieves with Jamie, expressing her now full belief in prophecy. Jamie declares "She's not suffering, she's gone." In this moment, Lena Heady has this wonderful moment for Cersei, saying that she felt that if she made Myrcella, someone so pure, beautiful and good, that maybe that meant she wasn't a monster... It speaks to Cersei's tortured soul and how she may see herself.
We then go to Lady and Queen Margaery Tyrell, wearing burlap, cowering under the withering rhetoric of Septa Unella. The High Sparrow enters, doing something resembling "Good Cop", relieving her momentarily. She asks after her brother, but to no avail. King Tommen has been asking after her, but the High Sparrow needs confession if she's to leave. She can't bring herself to confess and he leaves her to her cold cell.
Down in Dorne we see Doran Martell walking (!). Apparently his gout isn't as bad as in the books. Turns out whether his gout was bad or not, that was the least of his problems. In summary fashion, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes make short work of Doran, Areo Hotah and the poor messenger who brought Doran news of Myrcella's poisoning. Following this, we jump to Prince Trystaine who is faced with two of the Sand Snakes. They offer him a challenge: the one with the whip or the one with the spear. For some reason, he idiotically thinks that it's a legit deal and he picks the one with the whip. When that spear came out through his face, it simply felt like he should have seen it coming.
It did seem odd that this felt like the most dramatic Dornish scene thus far. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It was exciting for a moment and I had no idea that was coming, but all the same, everything Dornish has felt like such an afterthought that the impact was small at best. Areo Hotah was possibly one of the biggest wastes of this whole show. Check him out in the books; that's all I'm saying.
Jump across to Meereen. Tyrion and Varys walk the streets, taking in the situation. Here we have a wonderful bit of humor. Tyrion, who we're used to being brilliant constantly, flubs his High Valyrian when talking to a homeless woman. In an act of kindness, offering her coin to help feed her baby, she recoils in terror. Varys then helpfully jumps in saying she thought he was offering her coin for her baby so he could eat it. Hi-larious.
Tyrion and Varys continue on, coming across a Red Priest speaking to a group on onlookers. He encourages them to carry the flame of the Mother of Dragons and fight for themselves. Tyrion notes that it's a problem.
They continue their walk through Meereen, discussing that there appear to be assassins of some form everywhere (which seems a reasonable expectation at this point). Varys mentions that his "Little Birds" are already at work, ferreting out info they need. Interrupting their musings are screams, alarm bells and running people. A-la Bruce Wayne in Batman V. Superman, Varys and Tyrion move towards the danger, wading into a billowing cloud of smoke. We find that they're on the docks and the Mother of Dragon's entire fleet has been set ablaze. It is this point where Tyrion vocalizes the audiences worst, deep-seated fear... That Dany won't be sailing to Westeros any time soon.
We now cut to Jorah and Dario (incidentally on that hill from Season 1 Episode 1, where we saw Ned behead that wayward brother of the Night's Watch). They're tracking Dany and find a huge muddy circle worn in the grass from where the Dothraki Horde surrounded Dany at the end of last season. Jorah (whose Greyscale is progressing in terrifying fashion) finds her ring and realizes that the horse-lords have her.
Sure enough, Dany is being walked along by what appear to be two Bloodriders belonging to Khal Moro (a new Khal we've not met before). These two come as barbaric, crass, sexist and racist and I find myself just hoping Drogon would, just for convenience, show up, roast and eat them and leave. Even if he didn't take Dany with, them being dead would be an improvement. It's like listening to Dothraki versions of our favorite Astapori slaver from Season 3.
The next scene has us meeting Khal Moro, them learning Dany was Drogo's Khaleesi and that tradition demands she be untouched and delivered to the Dosh Khaleen (the coven of crones we saw in Season 1 when Dany ate the stallion heart in Vaes Dothrak). This scene is also one of the funniest of the series, with Thrones channeling Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch. What's better than seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time? Well, turns out those things are:
- Killing another Khal,
- Conquering a city and taking the people as slaves,
- Taking city's idols to Vaes Dothrak, and
- Breaking a wild horse
So, "Amongst the best things in life are such diverse elements such as: killing a Khal, sacking a city, taking slaves, taking their idols, breaking a horse and seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time." The exasperated look on Moro's face during this exchange was priceless.
We find Arya now blind, on the streets of Braavos, begging for coin. She's approached by the gleefully sadistic Waif who gives her a staff and starts beating eight shades of hell out of her, all while asking her the typical "No one" questions. As many have said, Arya needs to have Daredevil give her some lessons.
Finally we return to Castle Black. Thorne gives Snow's Corpse and the Holdouts (tm) terms. Davos (being a pretty good diplomat) politely asks for mutton (just in case) and says they'll think about it and get back to him with an answer. Once Thorne leaves, they discuss their options (or lack thereof). One fellow has a great line, throwing in "It's a sad statement if Dolorous Edd is our only chance..."
Davos surprisingly mentions one other possible option: The Red Woman. We find her alone, quiet in her room. Not radiating her usual confidence, she seems to be in crisis. Unsure of her path, purpose, skills and faith, she seems to shrink before us. She then walks to her mirror and begins to disrobe. At first it seems to be her usual routine sort of undress, but it changes. We see her remove her massive-ruby-bearing necklace and place it on the table.
The camera pans up and we see a Melisandre that is utterly different from anything we've known of her. It seems that she has been maintaining an incredibly powerful glamour (like a magical disguise) and she is truly ancient. This begs many questions, from "How powerful must she be to be able to do all she's done, all while maintaining such a convincing image." to "If she is that old, how long has she been at this? How did she get here? Where did she really come from? What's her end-game?" An incredible and thought provoking reveal to be sure.
All said, this was a great first episode that had a nice smattering of the things we've come to love about Game of Thrones. Things progress, characters move, change, feel and are challenged. The world grows, gets richer and the stakes get higher. As I'm sure you'd all agree, we can't wait to see what comes next.
Thanks for reading and look for Episode 2 coming very soon! See below for links to the reviews from the awesome guys over at The Boiled Leather Audio Hour!
Find Sean T Collin's Review over at Rolling Stone.
Find Stefan Sasse's Review over at The Nerdstream Era.
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