Game of Thrones S05 E08 – I’ll be right back.

Previously: Cersei went to jail to mock Margaery and then got arrested for being a murderer and family-banger.

Hardhome

Marines: We start in Meereen. Dany is in her magically white dress, on her throne, looking down on Jorah and Tyrion in icy silence. Jorah breaks the silence, but Dany promptly tells him to shut up. She asks how she’s supposed to know Tyrion is who he says he is and why she shouldn’t kill him if he is. Tyrion says that if she wants revenge on the Lannisters, he’s a a pro at killing them.

Dany dryly asks if she should welcome him into her service based on his mother-and-father killing ways. Tyrion says they’ve only just met and he doesn’t know if she deserves his services. Dany replies that if he prefers the fighting pits, he can just say the word. Tyrion sighs. He launches into a story about once upon a time he heard a story about one badass female who had no wealth, lands or army. She got sold off into a marriage and I mean, sure, some white savior complex played in here and some questionable falling in love with your rapist and even eating a horse heart happened but the point is that this woman acquired wealth, lands and an army. Tyrion thought that woman was at least worth meeting.

Dany asks what makes Tyrion worth meeting. He tells her that she has no idea about the land she wants to rule or the strengths and weakness of the houses who will either join or oppose her. Dany wrings her hands a bit but her reply is all, “SO? DRAGONS.” Bless her. Tyrion says that politics isn’t just about killing, you know? And he did a good job as Hand when Joffrey was the king. He would do an even better job advising a ruler worth the name.

Democracy Diva: Tyrion’s argument is basically, “I managed to keep King’s Landing from exploding even when Early 2014-Era Justin Bieber was on the Iron Throne, so I can do pretty much anything.” And you know what? He’s got a point.

Mari: Many a stupider platforms have existed.

Also, I always find it interesting when someone points out that Dany wants to rule a place she knows nothing about and has never really lived in. I more or less root for Dany but you gotta admit that it would suck for all of the people in Westeros to have another person fly in to claim the throne and this one doesn’t even go here.

Diva: So true. Of all the potential kings/queens we’ve met on the show, Dany’s certainly got the best claim, but also the least actual knowledge of the realm that is supposedly hers. I actually like this dynamic – it would be too easy to root for Dany if she was both the rightful heir to the throne AND had Tyrion-level knowledge of Westeros and its people.

Mari: Anyway, Dany says if Tyrion wants to advise her, he can start now: what should she do with Jorah? She swore to kill him if she ever saw him again. Tyrion steps closer the throne and says Jorah is a changed man. He’s willing to kill and die for Dany. Still, he did betray her. Tyrion asks if Jorah had an opportunity to confess his double-crossing. Dany says he did and her usually emotionless face is a little more clenched so you can tell she’s feeling things.

Tyrion tells her that Jorah worships her and is probably in love with her. Killing people who are devoted to you is not a good way to inspire devotion. She’s going to need to inspire devotion when she reaches King’s Landing, but she cannot have Jorah at her side. The music picks up, all sad-like and defeated, as Dany tells two nearby Unsullied to remove Jorah from the city. Tyrion looks sadly back as Jorah’s escorted out. Dany has tears in her eyes as she see him go.

Outside, Jorah looks down at his arm where the greyscale is spreading. He looks around but if it’s at something specific, I can’t tell.

 
 
Diva: Question: how emotional am I supposed to be about all of this? You can get me to care about Jorah selling Dany’s secrets to her enemies, and her banishing him for that crime – but you can really only make me care about it once. Am I supposed to be devastated by Dany sending Jorah away AGAIN? Cuz… uh… I’m not.

Also, Jorah, you double-crossed a QUEEN. Are you really surprised she can’t walk around all buddy-buddy with you anymore? Ugh, this is all dumb, can we just go back to when the Hound and Arya were on their Odd Couple Comedy Tour of Killing Folks and Talking about Chickens, please?

Mari: Excellently pointed out. I knew I didn’t have any feelings about this but didn’t really connect it to the fact that it’s because BEEN HERE, DONE THIS.

Cersei’s cell. I hate this storyline because it makes me feel icky. (D: I love this storyline for the same reason.) A septa comes in to give her water and demand that she confess. Cersei asks to speak to the High Sparrow, but she gets whacked across the face for her trouble. She tries to repeat her threat to this particular septa (“my face will be the last thing you see before you die”) and gets whacked across the face again. As soon as the septa is gone, Cersei starts sobbing and screaming.

Hogwarts School of Assassins. Arya is telling A Man some assassin lies, or something. The story is that her name is Lanna and she’s an orphan who got real good at selling oysters. This takes us into a made-up memory (??) and we see “Lanna” pushing around her oyster cart. She trips up on a detail, the name of a street, so A Man hits her hand with a stick. Arya calmly adjusts the detail in her story. A Man says that Lanna is very industrious and a fine servant for the Many-Faced God. Arya asks how Lanna will serve him. A Man tells her to go to the harbor and she’ll see what she needs to do there.

   
Diva: Lanna’s Fishmonger Hairdo is suuuuper cute. Sorry, we’ve just seen her in the same boy’s haircut and unwashed rags for so many years that I really needed to talk about how awesome her braids are.

Mari: We cut to the harbor so we realize that what we were seeing, Lanna with the cute braids, wasn’t a made-up memory but Arya actually dressed up and pushing around an oyster cart, on her errand for the Many-Faced God. A man sitting at a stand stops her and asks if her oysters are fresh. She looks at him appraisingly before saying they are the best in the city and handing over a free sample. The man (we’ll call him Oyster Lover) likes it and orders four more. Meanwhile, a customer walks up to the stand and hands over some papers. Customer says that this is his 18th trip and he’s returned from all of them without a scratch. Oyster Lover quickly looks at this paperwork and says he can’t do anything for Customer.

Arya is preparing the oysters but paying attention to everything.

Customer starts begging because he has 3 kids to take care of. Oyster Lover doesn’t care and has Customer dragged away.

Back at Assassin School, A Man explains:

The man is a gambler. He wages that a sailor’s ship will make it to its destination. It is a strange wager for the captain. He only wins if he loses his life.” 

Arya asks why a captain would gamble this way then. A Man makes her answer her own question: if the captain dies, Oyster Lover pays the money to his family. So, it’s like an insurance policy basically. Except, what happens to a destitute wife and child if Oyster Lover decides not to pay out the money? Who can they turn to for help? A Man looks pointedly at a man nearby rocking and praying. Arya answers: the Many-Faced God. A Man sends Arya back to the docks and gives her a little bottle of clear liquid he calls a gift for Oyster Lover. Arya grabs it and walks away. She looks uncertain at first but after a few steps, we can see she’s smiling. What up, murder! Exciting times.

Diva: This is the most excited anyone has ever been after a conversation about how insurance works.

Mari: I guess if you are going to talk about insurance, poison helps.

Nameless Cunt appears to tell A Man that Arya is not ready. A Man says it’s whatever to the Many-Faced God.

Cersei’s cell. Someone comes to visit Cersei. Diva, I’m hoping you can fill in who because I don’t recognize this person AT ALL.

Diva: It’s Qyburn, but I believe our name for him is Dr. Frankenmaester.

Mari: OF COURSE IT IS, because that’s hilarious and now I know exactly who this is. Great.

Dr. Frankenmaester inform Cersei that her trial is set for soon. The High Sparrow will be charging her with treason, incest and the murder of King Robert. Cersei says it’s all lies and Dr. Frankenmaester has the good grace to say that of course it is.

He tells her that Grand Maester Pyelle has called Uncle Kevan back from Casterly Rock, and he’s now serving as Hand. Kevans’s also refused to come and see Cersei. She asks after King Tommen, but Dr. Frankenmaester says he’s taken the arrest of his wife and mother very hard and keeps to his chambers. He won’t see anyone. (D: Tweens, amirite?) Cersei says she can’t stay in this cell and Frakenmaester reminds her that there is a way out: confess to the High Sparrow. Cersei refuses to. She made the High Sparrow and refuses to kneel before him.

Diva: It’s a little late for that, Cersei. You MADE this entire army of religious zealots, and now they’ve got you locked up in a cell. You’re already kneeling before them, whether you admit it or not.

Mari: Winterfell. Theon enters a room and Sansa is sitting there looking like she may just murder him. She asks him why. “Why, Theon?” Theon says there is no Theon, only Reek. Sansa repeats her question: why did you tell him, Reek? Theon says he was trying to help Sansa, because she was trying to escape and there is no escape.

Sansa says that if she could do what Ramsay did to Theon, she would. Theon says he deserved it. He deserves to be Reek because he did terrible things, including turn on Robb, capture Winterfell and kill those boys. Sansa starts yelling that they weren’t “those boys.” They were Bran and Rickon, Theon’s brothers. Theon starts stuttering, stuck between confessing what he didn’t do and saying too much. Sansa grabs his face and keeps yelling that Bran and Rickon were Theon’s brothers and finally he spits it out: they weren’t Bran and Rickon. He couldn’t find them so he just killed two farm boys. Sansa is taking big breaths and I just want to squeeze her. She asks Theon where her brothers went but Theon won’t say. He yells at her for calling him Theon again and runs out.

Diva: I truly didn’t think Theon would ever tell Sansa the truth about her brothers, at least not while Ramsay is still alive. And god, the look on Sansa’s face – it’s been so many years since she’s heard any news about her family that wasn’t utter tragedy. She doesn’t even know how to process the idea that her baby brothers might still be alive. Also, I’m pretty sure I say this during literally every Sansa scene, but ten thousand Emmys to Sophie Turner for her performance here.

Mari: Elsewhere, one of Bolton’s men is reporting that Stannis has 6,000 men and more than half of them are mounted. Bolton says it’s no sweat because they have high walls and lots of food. All they have to do is wait for the other army to freeze because winter is the worst. Ramsay disagrees with this sit-and-wait plan. He thinks that Roose should show everyone how Northerners treat Southern invaders. They should hit first, hit hard and leave… A FEAST FOR THE CROWS.

Sorry, we get excited around here when people say the thing. (D: Truth. I got way too psyched about this.)

Roose says that a smart commander doesn’t abandon a good defensive position. Plus, the snow is so deep they couldn’t get an army out there anyway. Ramsay says he doesn’t need an army. He needs 20 good men.

Tyrion and Dany are now sitting together, drinking. (D: T-D shippers: control your boners.) She asks if he’s decided yet whether she’s worthy of his service. He asks if she’s decided yet if she’s going to kill him. Dany says killing him’s the safest option and Tyrion replies that that’s what her father would’ve done. There’s bad fathers here enough for all, though, and Dany asks what Tywin would’ve done. That’s basically a matter of public record, though, because Tywin sentenced Tyrion to die. Dany asks if that’s why Tyrion killed his father. He says he’ll tell her that story someday and on that day, they’ll need all of the wine.

So, here they are. Two terrible children of two terrible fathers. Dany’s all, “I’M terrible?” Tyrion says he’s heard stories and came all this way to see if she is the right kind of terrible. Also known as the kind of terrible that prevents people from being more so. Dany says she did reopen the fighting pits. Plus, she’s marrying someone she loathes and those were all smart moves. Tyrion kind of gets lost for a second as he mentions that his sister married someone she loathed too, but then she had him killed.

Diva: Question: does Dany really know how terrible her father was? I feel like even her boldest advisers (read: Ser Barristan) would not have had the balls to tell Dany the details of what went down in King’s Landing before she was born. I know she knows her dad was called the Mad King, and she’s started to figure out that he deserved that name, but is she aware he literally burned people alive for funzies, and was going to kill all his own people in King’s Landing so that Robert would have no one to rule over but corpses? Does she know how horrifically he tortured Ned Stark’s father and oldest brother to death? I don’t think the show has talked about that since Season 1, but Dany reeeaaallly needs to know the real history of her father’s reign, especially since she’s trying to take over a country she’s never lived in before solely on the basis of her name. She needs to know that her claim stems from a sociopathic killer, and she needs to know this before she tries to waltz into King’s Landing and be all, “OMG remember how much you guys loved Targaryens? Well, we’re BAAA-AAACK!”

Mari: A+

Tyrion says Varys was right about Dany after all. Dany recognizes the spymaster’s name and says that for 20 years, Varys was searching for Dany, probably to kill her. Tyrion says that Varys did what he had to do to survive and probably did a lot of other things too.

After that reminder, Dany says maybe she should kill Tyrion. He says that’s her queenly prerogative. He’d basically given up on life anyway when Varys convinced him that Dany might be living for. If she kills him, well, then at least his final days were interesting. Dany says she’s not going to kill or banish him. He’s going to advise her, if/while he’s sober at least. She wants the Iron Throne.

Diva: There’s a lot of misery coming up in this episode, and it weighs on a recapper, so let me point out literally anything enjoyable to watch: I still love watching Tyrion talk his way out of death armed with nothing more than his brains. It’s as fun here as it was in Season 1, when he was trying to GTFO of the Eyrie via any option except the moon door. Tyrion’s brain hard at work in self-preservation is my favorite Tyrion, especially since he spent the first half of this season too drunk to do any thinking at all.

Mari: Tyrion tells her to want something else and he’s not entirely joking. Maybe she should just stay here where she can do the most good. Dany says that she’ll continue her work freeing all the ethnic people (D: A+) but this isn’t her home. Tyrion asks who is going to support her when she gets home. Dany easily answers, “the common people.” (D: LOL, good luck with that.) Tyrion says that, supposing that’s true, she now knows what it’s like to rule without the support of the rich. The Targaryens are gone, the Starks are gone (sob), the Lannisters won’t support her, Stannis Baratheon won’t support her, maybe House Tyrell would (OMG. #SQUADGOALS) but that’s not enough. Dany says all those great family are just spokes on a wheel, taking turns being on top and crushing the people on the ground. Dany’s not interested in stopping that wheel. She’s going to break it.

Diva: I hate this wheel metaphor. I think it makes absolutely no sense. First of all, there was no “wheel” until 20 years ago when the Kingslayer was all, “k bye Mad Aerys, *stabstabstab*.” For like 300 years before that, it was just Targaryens crushing the people on the ground. And secondly, unless your plan is to eliminate the royal/feudal system entirely, you’re not “breaking” that wheel. And someone who’s been as proud to call herself a queen (and like 75 other titles) for as long as Dany ain’t about to say, “fuck it, let’s just have a democracy instead.” Dany taking back the Iron Throne is not breaking the wheel. It’s stopping it at the place that benefits her the most. 

TL;DR: this metaphor is dumb.

Mari: And says a lot about the perception/reality of what Dany thinks she’s doing and what she’s actually doing.

Jorah returns to the slaver who bought him for the fighting pits. He’s come back because he still wants to fight in front of Queen Dany. Okay, bro. You are dying. This would be the right time to take a vacation and let it go.

Cersei’s cell. The Septa comes in again with her water bucket. Cersei will only get water if she confesses. Cersei instead says that she is going to get out of this cell and she could either make the septa very rich or find a horrible way for her to die. And she’s just sitting here thinking of horrible ways for the septa to die. The septa pours out the water onto the floor and leaves. Cersei crawls over and starts slurping at the muddy floor. Cersei is going to kill you all.

Wall. Gilly is taking care of Sam’s face wounds as they talk about how they are okay but things pretty much suck right now. Olly comes to bring them food because he heard what happened, with all the face punching and body kicking. He’s also got something he wants to talk to Sam about. Gilly sees herself out.

Olly asks how the Lord Commander (Snow) can go and save the Wildlings when they were the ones who raided his village and killed his parents. Sam says that there are good and bad people everywhere. Olly’s like NOPE because he specifically saw Ginger Not!Mance leading the raid on his village and that’s who Jon Snow is traveling with. Sam says that he’s seen the army of the dead and when they come, they are going to need every man they can get to fend them off. Olly asks what happens if they let the Wildlings through and then they kill everyone in their sleep. Sam says that’s the risk they are taking. Maybe the Wildlings will kill them but the White Walkers will for sure kill them. It’s a right choice that looks wrong but will be for the best in the long run. Olly remains unconvinced.

Then Sam breaks all the rules of TV and says not to worry about Jon Snow because he *always* comes back. Olly looks like Jon Snow coming back is the worst thing ever.

Diva: Rookie mistake, Samwell. Hasn’t he seen Scream?

Mari: Cut to Jon Snow. He’s standing dramatically at the front of a boat, a little bit of wind rustling his luscious locks. They have arrived at Hardhome.



Diva: 1) This weekend I dressed as Jon Snow for Halloween and discovered that if I part my hair on the opposite side, Jon and I have literally the same exact hairstyle. Like, fully identical. I felt you all deserved to know this. b) I still ship Ginger Not!Mance and Jon so hard it’s weird. cat) We’ve arrived at the titular location and there are 36 minutes left in this episode. I think we all know that means we’re in for some epic terror, right?

Mari: Grab a drink if you’ve got one handy.

Ginger leads the way as all the gathered Wildlings look on silently. They are met by a man covered in bones, aptly called the Lord of Bones. He says that the last time he saw Ginger Not!Mance, the crow was his prisoner. Now it’s the other way around. He asks what happened. “War,” Ginger practically growls. He wants to gather the elders and go someplace quiet to talk.

Diva: The Lord of Bones is supposed to be the scariest Wildling in the universe, but I’m sorry, he looks fucking HILARIOUS wearing some dude’s skull over his face like a helm. I know it’s supposed to be real human bones, but he looks like he’s wearing a kid’s Halloween costume, and so I will never be able to find him as intimidating as we’re supposed to. (Luckily, this won’t matter for much longer.)

Mari: Bones asks why Ginger isn’t in chains and Snow pipes up saying that Ginger isn’t his prisoner. They are allies. Lord of Bones calls Ginger a traitor for fighting with the crows. Snow again makes matters worse when he says that they aren’t here to fight, just talk. Lord of Bones asks if Ginger sucks Jon’s cock after they talk (D: Lord of Bones ships Ginger/Jon as much as I do). Ginger grabs the Lord of Bones’s staff out of his hand and literally beats the life out of him. Everyone just kind of looks on as Ginger says again to gather the elders for a nice chat.

Nice Chat Hut. Jon Snow flexes his speech-giving muscles and basically says that the Night’s Watch and Free Folk have never been friends and that isn’t going to change but this is about survival. They can join forces and beat the White Walkers. A lady in the crowd is all PFFT yeah right.

Diva: Not just any lady – it’s that super-hot evil Das Sound Machine lady from Pitch Perfect 2!

Sorry, it just makes me SUPER DUPER HAPPY that this is the same woman. I have a crush on her now.

Mari: I didn’t notice this until further down in the recap, but this is indeed the gorgeous and nearly unrecognizable mainly because of the lack of lighting Birgitte Hjort Sørensen. Also, her character name is Karsi, so thanks IMDB.

Jon’s got a bag full of dragon glass and tells them that it can kill White Walkers.

So, the proposal. The Night’s Watch will let the Free Folk through to the other side of the Wall, if they promise to join up when the real war begins. Jon name drops Mance Rayder and one of the guys is like, “hey, where is Mance,” so probably that wasn’t the best strategy? And then Jon gives like half a story when he says that he put an arrow through Mance’s heart. (D: Uh, maybe lead with the “he was burning to death and I helped a brother out” part, and not the part that will make everyone around you want to murder your fucking face off, Jon. #youknownothing)

Everyone gets all worked up so Ginger Not!Mance has to calm them down and explain that Stannis Baratheon tried to burn Mance alive and Jon mercy-killed him. Karsi says she’s lost family fighting the crows. Jon says he isn’t asking them to forget their dead.

Jon says he lost 50 brothers the night Mance attacked the wall. He’s asking them, though, to put that aside and think of the children and their futures. No one can stop the White Walkers on their own but maybe together they stand a chance. Karsi asks Ginger if he vouches for Jon. Ginger says that Jon may be prettier than both his daughters (calling Jon pretty should be an entry into the GoT drinking game, if there were a drinking game outside of nudity shots) (D: cosigned) but he can fight. He’s also young, but he can lead. Jon didn’t have to come to Hardhome, but he did because he needs the Wildlings and the Wildlings need him.

One guy who has been naysaying this whole time, a Thenn judging by his scarred head and body, says that his ancestors would spit on him if he broke bread with a crow. Lady Wildling says hers too, but fuck them because they are dead. I really like this woman. (D: Back off, Mari. She’s mine.) Karsi walks up to Jon and says she’ll never trust a man in black. She turns to Ginger and says she does trust him. And if he says this is the thing to do, she’s with him.

Another elder says he’s with Snow/Ginger 2015. (D: 1430. Can I get that on a bumper sticker?) The giant in attendance growls, “Tormund” as his vote. The Thenn Naysayer says that “King Crow” can keep his new life and dragon glass. They are enemies and always will be. Half of those gathered walk out with Thenn Naysayer. Karsi  watches them go and then says to Ginger, “I fucking hate Thenns.” Ginger just nods and it’s hilarious.

Diva: Things everyone on either side of the Wall knows to be true: Jon Snow is pretty, and Thenns are the worst.

Mari: We cut to a group of the Free Folk getting in boats. Jon thinks they have about 5,000 with them, but they are leaving too many behind. Ginger says they are stubborn people. It took Mance 20 years just to get them to band together. As it is, though, they have nothing to hunt and are running out of food. They’ll come around.

We watch Karsi put her two daughters on a boat. The little one wants to go with Karsi, but she says she has to help the old folk get on boats. She kisses them and sends them on their way. I’m starting to worry about Karsi.

Diva: I think anyone who’s ever seen Titanic is worried right now. This is some “I swear, there’s another lifeboat coming for the mommies soon” bullshit right here. It’s just the boat version of “I’ll be right back!”

Mari: Dammit, Karsi.

All of a sudden, the dogs start barking like crazy and it sounds like thunder is rumbling. It looks like an avalanche is coming toward them. The people who were all waiting to board boats start running back to their compound but Naysayer Thenn orders the gates shut on them. They pound on the gates and yell but as the creepy snow reaches them, things are suddenly quiet.

This is really freakin’ creepy and I’m sorry that I’m not going to do it justice but MY GOD. So, Naysayer Thenn walks closer to the gate like an idiot and looks out through a hole. Everything is quiet for a few seconds (D: everyone else was holding their breath during this part too, right?) and then a White Walker comes running toward him. A bunch of other White Walkers reach the gate and start trying to break it down. All hell breaks loose.

Free Folk are running into the water, trying to escape the Walkers. It’s pure panic and mayhem. Jon is trying to yell them into order but no one is listening. The White Walkers are climbing over shit and under shit and busting into everything.

Karsi is still helping people onto boats. Another Night’s Watchman calls for Jon to get on a boat, but he won’t. He’s going to stay and fight. Jon tells Karsi she should be on a boat and she says he should be on one too.

Diva:

Mari: Karsi says her daughters have gone already. Are they going to be let through at the Wall if Jon isn’t there? He says he’s given his orders but Karsi knows what’s up. Will his orders still be followed if he isn’t there to enforce them? (D: Not if Olly is manning the gate, that’s for damn sure.)

Ginger comes over to yell that if the White Walkers get through, everyone dies. Jon draws Longclaw and yells for the Night’s Watch to come with him. They charge as Wildlings keep diving into the water, fighting over boats.

Violence. It’s very fast moving and hard to really tell who is killing who but lots of killing is going on. Jon, Tormund and Karsi join the fray and Karsi is a totally BAMF.

Diva: My notes just read, “Pitch Perfect 2 fights like a motherfucker,” so I would have to say I agree.

Mari: Jon looks up and sees that on the mountain there are White Walkers on horses. (D: Four horsemen, if I remember correctly. Definitely not at all an apocalyptic sign, right?) He has a moment of “oh shit” before he sees the Nice Chat Hut and remembers the dragon glass. Naysayer Thenn says he’ll go with Jon and OH-HO-HO. NOOOOW YOU WANNA BE ALL, “YOU AND ME,” RIGHT?

The giant busts out of the hut and starts ripping up and stomping on White Walkers. The hut is on fire and from the back of it comes this real put together, big daddy of White Walkers. These other ones they’ve been fighting have been skeletal, so I’m not even sure if they ARE White Walkers or some other breed of Walker? IDK.

 
 
Diva: Ok, so I think the big daddy dudes are the White Walkers (or, in the books, the Others), and the smaller skeletal ones are the wights, their servants/reanimated corpses of people they’ve murdered. But this distinction has really never been very clear to me, so I could be totally wrong. Either way, I know nothing, Snow-style.

Mari: We’ll go with it, though, because it’s a nice distinction.

Naysayer Thenn tells Jon to get the glass and decides he’ll take on Professional White Walker (D: nickname highly approved). Naysayer Thenn goes down in like two swings.

Jon finds the dragon glass but can’t get to it before he’s flung aside by Professional White Walker. He gets up and starts dodging blows, climbs up to grab a sword, but that gets destroyed by PWW’s sweet-ass icicle spear. PWW sends Jon crashing back down to the ground. He’s not doing well, but he manages to get up and stumble out of the Nice Chat Hut. On the way, he finds Longclaw again and picks it up, only to stumble and fall. PWW comes out and makes to strike, but Jon grabs Longclaw and blocks the blow. The sweet-ass icicle spear doesn’t destroy this sword BECAUSE VALYRIAN STEEL BABY. I hope, or else my outburst will be real embarrassing.

Diva: I’ll again just quote my notes, which read, “VALYRIAN STEEEEEEEEEEEL LONGCLAW FTW.” I don’t have any secret book!knowledge, because this scene does not exist in the books, but yeah, my money’s on the Valyrian steel making all the difference here. Also, what a goddamn shame, that Lord Commander Mormont never knew that his own sword was a Professional White Walker mutilating machine!

Mari: I honestly cheered for Valyrian steel. It’s awesome that they’ve made a low-key deal about it across five seasons and BOOM. It means something here, in this moment.

Jon swings Longclaw at PWW and he explodes into ice chips.

Jon falls to his knees as a Senior Professional White Walker looks at him. (D: Senior Professional White Walker, CPA, Esq.) (M: He even looks like he has an ice crown.)

Tormund and Karsi are still fighting and the music is swelling so this cannot bode well. Sure enough, Karsi is face to face with a whole group of White Walker children and she is shaken because you can face all the White Walkers in the world but creepy children are the creepiest. She’s over taken by the children and they eat her face off. This is horrible and the worst. I only got to like her for like 3 scenes before they killed her OF COURSE.

Diva: Karsi really gives up the moment she sees the baby-Walkers. She just kind of resigns herself to her fate and lets them swarm around her and it’s fucking devastating.

Mari: Jon is busy coughing up blood and kind of dying when one of the Vaguely Recognizable Night’s Watchmen find him. (D: It’s probably Dolorous Edd. If he’s been on the Wall awhile, and you’re not really sure who he is, it’s basically always Edd.) Jon wants to go get the dragon glass but Probably Edd’s like EFF THE DRAGON GLASS because they are about to die. And sure enough a fresh wave of wights pitch themselves over the mountain, crash to the ground, get up and charge.

Everyone who is left runs for the sea. (D: I guess White Walkers can’t swim?) (M: If they could that would be just the MOST unfair. Too powerful, too terrible.) Jon, a couple of his bros, and Tormund make it into a boat with a suspiciously hooded figure at the front just waiting to row them. I don’t think anything comes of this but when I saw the hooded guy I was like, “WHAT NOW?” This show messes you up.

We watch the giant be totally fed up with these wights for a bit and then he makes into the sea as well.

Jon looks at the madness on the shore. There is still yelling and dying happening and it is legitimately awful.

Senior Professional White Walker walks to the end of the dock and stares Jon down. He raises his arms dramatically.

Diva: And launched a thousand memes in the process.

Mari: All of the dead Wilding start twitching. They all rise as wights and we focus on Karsi just so it’s an extra blow, you know.

Fade to black.

Diva: And then just the sounds of water moving play over the credits. Music comes in slowly, but that initial quiet gave me that soul-deadening feeling I had during the credits of the Red Wedding episode, where you expect music and instead there’s just existential silence and your own sobs.

Mari: On that note, we’ll be right back with the next recap y’all. Don’t worry.

 

Next time on Game of Thrones: Stannis’s camp is sabotaged and he takes drastic measures in S05 E09 – The Dance of Dragons.

 

Marines (all posts)

I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.





DemocracyDiva (all posts)

I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.





Did you like this? Share it: