0
1
‘Book of the Stranger’ may contain two of the most satisfying moments in Game of Thrones to date, but like a massage parlour with a happy ending, it starts with great promise, gets a bit mundane in the middle and finishes with a bang.
We start our episode at The Wall where, surprisingly, Sansa actually arrives before Jon leaves, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t grin like a goof watching this reunion. There must be something about Jon that gingers can just home in on. I almost began to lose hope that any of the Starks would ever see each other again, and after having to deal with a tyrant, a paedophile and a slobbering psychopath it’s nice to have Sansa finally get away from all that.
But it’s not for long as she’s right on Jon’s case about marching his new friends down to Winterfell and taking it back. Unfortunately he’s a little bit sick of fighting after the whole murder thing. This was a great little reversal of characters that created a good dynamic between the siblings. Sansa is out for revenge and ready to take back her home after being powerless for so long, and Jon is just so weary he’s almost ready to just lay down and be swallowed by the snow. Not soon after Ramsay sends Jon some mail and it’s not a Christmas card. “Give me back my wife or I’ll rape and kill the lot of you – Love Ramsay P.S. I found your brother Rickon. Completely forgot he existed LOL! But yeah, he’s probably going to get flayed” is the gist of the letter . Sansa tells Jon they could rally the Northern Lords to their side and defeat Ramsay.
At the Vale Littlefinger rocked up like an absentee father, gave the young Robyn Arryn a new pet and had him eating out of his hand. Bronze Yohn Royce played the part of concerned mother who tries to teach the son discipline but can’t compete with the carefree rock and roll lifestyle of Littlefinger. The father then convinces the child to have his mother thrown out of their execution hole because they live on a big mountain and their relationship crumbles like this analogy. I guess Littlefingers plan is to take the North for Sansa? Did he know Sansa would escape? I don’t bloody know. I’ll have to wait until this pans out to tell how genius/ridiculous his scheme is (this is also how I feel about his accent).
In Meereen, Tyrion plays politics with the masters of Slavers Bay and it is nowhere near as beguiling or clever as I hoped. The masters want to keep their slaves, and Tyrion offer is that he’ll give them 7 years to transition away from slavery and they’ll be compensated for their losses. Throw in a few prostitutes and they’re willing to agree. That’s it? There’s no bite in that settlement, no compromising of morales (despite what the whining Grey Worm would have you believe, but who cares what Grey Worm thinks?). The masters whose entire lively-hood is rooted in the slave-trade are just going to give it up like that? Hell the entire economy of Slavers Bay is based on the slave trade. I was expecting that Tyrion would have to play ball, maybe in allowing them to continue a kind of indentured-servitude or would have to sacrifice something substantial. If not then perhaps a cunning power-play? This is an incredibly underwhelming solution to the Sons of the Harpy (if this is the conclusion).
In King’s Landing the High Sparrow prattles on about religion and sin and blah blah blah. But this time it’s to Margaery and it’s about his backstory! Why do I give a crap that the High Sparrow used to make shoes, had an orgy with all his mates and felt so disgusted with himself he became an ascetic. Afterwards we get a solid scene of Margaery trying to console a shattered Loras. Cersei and Jaime then make a truce with Uncle Kevan and The Queen of Thorns based on their mutual hatred of the poverty pontiff. They decide they’ll raise an army and march them to the sept before Margaery can be forced to preform the same walk of shame Cersei was subjected too. A decent few scenes but nothing incredible. I’m kind of surprised it took them this long to get to “Lets get all our dudes together and fuck up the other dudes”. On an unrelated note has Jaime’s character regressed? He just follows Cersei around these days talking about family and likes. I thought his arc was heading towards him splitting from Cersei and realising her toxic influence? Seemed that way in both the show and the books. He’s gone from asshole prince charming to complex character to just kind of being there.
In the worst scene of the week we got a chance to see what Ramsay is up to. He brings in Osha, she tries to seduce him and kill him, but he stabs her instead. I’d hazard a guess to say most of us knew where this scene was going from the beginning. I don’t care about Osha I haven’t seen her in three seasons, but bringing her back for two scenes is so disappointing. I’m so indifferent to this scene I’m angry about it. This was cheap and lazy, which has become the modus operandi of Ramsay. Iwan Rheon is fantastic and has been since his introduction, but the stick is getting old, especially when we’re meant to be shocked and dismayed that he killed Osha of all people. This carries no weight, it’s just another “look at how evil Ramsay is!” and we don’t need any more of those scenes.
In other news the-prince-formerly-known-as-Reek made his way to the Iron Isles. Good scene here with Yara berating Theon for choosing Ramsay over her. But now he wants to make things right and wants to support her for Queen of the Iron Isles. Also good mirroring here from when Theon first returned and his father wasn’t very Iron Nice to him.
In Essoss we caught up with Jorah and Daario palling around still trying to save Dany. They sneak into Vaes Dothrak as merchants, but predictably some Dothraki figure out they’re not really merchants, because the script demanded drama. I remember when each fight scene in Thrones was tense because any character could be killed and they all meant something. This felt perfunctory. “Well in scenes like this the protagonists usually get exposed briefly so I guess we’ll have something like that too”. I never felt that Jorah or Daario were going to be foiled in their attempt to save Dany, so there was simply no tension.
Whatever, the real meat of the Essos stuff came in Dany finally decided to be rid of oily tanned dudes and burned them all to death. The Mother of Dragons likes to spend an awful amount of time whining about slavery and being an ineffectual queen, but when she does cool shit holy fuck is it cool. Again from the flames emerged the Khaleesi, purified of her sin of deciding to stay in Slavers Bay for so bloody long (but only if she decides to leave). Fantastic scene and an amazing call back to season 1. Maybe now with Daenerys at the head of a Dothraki horde we can finally go to Westeros? Please? It’s been so long.
Overall a solid episode, but probably my least favourite of the season so far. Two great bookends but without the substance to keep me engrossed all the way through as I usually am in a Game of Thrones episode. Not bad, just not particularly incredible either.
– Words by Brandon Collins
Comment(1)
Comments are closed.
There needs to be a mention of Tormund x Brienne in this episode. Was the highlight for me.