Season 7, Episode 5
After last weeks show stopper we all needed to take a breather in preparation for the next big battle. GOT has struggled with these kinds of episodes in recent seasons but everything was handled nicely here as the chess pieces were once again pushed further towards their final destination.
Any episode that opens with, the thankfully still alive, Jamie and Bronn is fine by me. Jamie is becoming more and more disillusioned with a war that looks impossible to win and happily Bronn is still Bronn. At Winterfell we see Sansa and Arya resume their sibling rivalry, mostly due to Arya being a bit of a brat. Littlefinger encourages this conflict by planting the letter that Sansa sent following the death of King Robert, urging her family to swear fealty to Joffrey. It will be interesting to see what Arya does with this information.
At Oldtown, Samwell Tarly interrupts a meeting of the Archmaesters to implore them to help Jon Snow at the wall. The Archmaesters look and act like they are at a Tory party meeting and practically laugh Tarly out of the room. His response is to steal a bunch of shit from the library and leave, not before a curious scene in which Gilly stumbles on a passage about Prince Rhaeger buried amongst trivial facts about a previous Septons bowel movements. The fact that neither character realised the potential importance of this passage struck me as a little false and clumsy but hey ho.
This weeks best action took place at King’s Landing where Ser Davos retrieved Gendry from Fleabottom only for Robert Baratheon’s bastard to start smashing Goldcloak faces in with a warhammer. Like father like son. As with the re-emergence of Nymeria, this is another example of a moment that has been robbed of all its shock value by the endless rumours and theories that abound about the worlds most popular TV show. Not to mention the fact that they kind of spoiled it themselves by having Joe Dempsey’s name right there in the goddamn credits. HBO will be desperately hoping that the ending doesn’t become obvious before the show actually reaches its conclusion.
This weeks episode was entitled Eastwatch but we didn’t glimpse the eponymous castle until the very final scene. It is wonderful to finally see the return of The Hound. He was responsible for the funniest line of the hour, delivered with glorious impatience by Rory McCann. The Hound is fast becoming the shows MVP and the promise of a small group of soldiers featuring The Hound, Jon Snow, Ser Davos, Gendry and Tormund is a genuinely exciting one. The only problem is the death of any of those characters would be keenly felt. I’d like to see Jorah Mormont go but Tormund appears to be the most vulnerable…
Stray Observations
- How will Jon Snow reconcile his relationship with Daenerys and his friendship with Sam Tarly when the latter finds out that the Queen of Dragons burnt his father and brother alive?
- On that subject it is a shame that Dickon went out as he did as he was a promising character. At least he has his honour though. Although that was probably scant consolation as his flesh was seared from his bones.
- Was their brutal deaths a sign that Dany has a darker side after all? It didn’t really feel like it to me although Varys and Tyrion seemed to have strong misgivings about it.
- I really love The Brotherhood Without Banners partnership with The Hound. It’s a bit like when Kane joined DX in the attitude era of WWF. It just feels I can actually imagine The Hound tombstoning Gendry while Beric Dondarrion delivers The Peoples’ Elbow to Ser Davos…
- Why doesn’t Dany send one of her dragons with Jon Snow to fight the army of the dead? She’s got three of em’. Strikes me as a little selfish.
- It was really enjoyable to see Jamie and Tyrion interact again but it’s a shame Bronn couldn’t have stuck around. I hope we get to see Bronn and Tyrion reunite properly at some point.
- I don’t like Qyburn. I don’t like his face.