*Note: This review contains spoilers for the episode and light references to the books.
Soooooo, yeah. We now live in a world where Robb’s death is no longer the worst Stark death. That sucks. And there are plenty of theories out there for how Jon will turn out to not actually be dead, mostly based on Melisandre being at Castle Black and the Lord of Light clearly having the power to bring people back to life (as seen with Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr a few seasons ago), but for now, let’s assume Jon is dead. We can theorize later.
Jon has been making tough decisions since the beginning of the show, decisions for himself, people he loves, and the realm as a whole. His decisions haven’t always been correct, but his heart has always been in the right place. And as we saw with Ned Stark oh so long ago, good intentions and honor get you nowhere in Westeros. But let’s analyze Jon’s decisions here for a minute. The wildlings are people too, and they probably don’t deserve to die by the hands of the White Walkers. But most of the Night’s Watch (and most people in Westeros overall) wouldn’t necessarily agree with that; there’s just too much history and hatred there. So Jon took a smart tack and made the Night’s Watch realize that IF the wildlings all die, they’re just going to end up joining the army of the White Walkers, and that would be bad news bears. And most of the men seemed to be behind him on that, it was definitely the lesser of two evils. The problem is, a lot of the Night’s Watch men aren’t just men, they don’t want what’s best for the realm. They want what’s best for themselves. Most of them are criminals, after all. So instead of seeing the good that they’re saving innocent lives and helping build an army, they instead see people they’ve grown up hating now sleeping next to them, eating their food and taking their land. Plus there was Ser Alliser pulling the strings; I knew keeping him around was going to bite Jon in the butt.
This was a weird episode overall. It moved extremely quickly, but lots of things were left open. There wasn’t much of a feeling of finality, as many characters reached the end of their season story line only to have the future story line immediately set up. Arya, for example, jumped right into murdering Ser Meryn (which was super brutal, by the way). She’s a complete badass, and you want to root for her to get her revenge on the people that have hurt her family, but she seems to take a little too much pleasure in killing people. It’s pretty terrifying. And then as soon as she got back the the House of Black and White, she quickly got her comeuppance in the form of blindness. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays into her further training next season. And I love the touches of magic that seem to pervade the faceless men. That moment with the dead, fake Jaqen was incredibly creepy.
For Stannis, he finally met his just end for all of the atrocities he’s committed for the sake of power. It was so sad to see the two sides of him fight one another. On one side, the honorable heir to the throne. On the other, the man manipulated into committing perverse acts in service of reaching that throne. But I don’t think anyone could argue, especially after last episode, that he didn’t deserve to die. And who better to do it that Brienne, who’s been laying low for most of the season. And of course she had to choose at just the wrong time whether to keep her promise to Sansa or get revenge for Renly. Nothing comes easy in this world. Though I will say this: it’s a good rule of thumb that on a TV show, unless you see the person actually die, chances are good that they aren’t actually dead. And on Game of Thrones, even characters that you do see die don’t usually end up dead. So is the case with Stannis. We’ll see if Brienne followed through on that slice, or spared Stannis to use in the future.
Still in the north, Reek finally reverted to Theon and saved Sansa from inevitable torture by Ramsay. Now that awful rape scene actually payed off, thank the lord. Everything that’s been happening to Sansa at Winterfell was all for the sake of bringing him back, but we’ll see how that turns out. They’re definitely far from out of the woods, especially with no real allies.
Now let’s jump over to Dorne with the wrap-up of Jaime’s story line. I’ve been saying it all season, Dorne and all of those characters were completely wasted. Myrcella’s rescue never really had any stakes to it, and the three Sand Snakes were pretty one dimensional characters overall. Myrcella was a spoiled, annoying teenage girl the whole time too, so it was hard to care for her when she died. On the other hand, my heart broke for Jaime. Now two of his children are dead, and this one actually knew the truth of her parentage. It’s probably safe to say that the Lannisters will be sending their regards to Dorne next season.
Really quickly to Meereen, I was kind of right about the Tyrion, King of Meereen bit, huh? I can’t wait to see how he handles the fallout of the fighting pits, and I’m so excited to see Varys come back as well. Their dynamic has been missed this season. As for Dany, she seems to be back at square one, kidnapped by a new Khal. But we’ll see how that plays out, if they recognize her, they might end up worshipping her. Or killing her. And it’ll be fun to see a new buddy cop dynamic in Daario and Ser Jorah, those two couldn’t be more different.
Finally, in King’s Landing we got what I found to be the most affecting scene of the episode, Cersei’s walk of shame. That was horrible to watch. Not because she didn’t deserve it, because in the world of the show, she definitely did. But it was so long, we were with her pretty much the entire time, just from different angles. Cersei is far from a rootable character, but she definitely is all about keeping her kids safe. I can’t imagine she’ll take the news about her daughter all that well, assuming Jaime doesn’t just turn that boat around and get himself killed trying to be noble.
Wow, a lot of people died this episode, huh? And a lot of plot lines did get wrapped up, but I’m surprised by some of the omissions, too. Most notably, I’m disappointed that we didn’t get an update on Bran at the end of the season. With the White Walkers becoming a major point again, it would have made sense to dive back into the more supernatural aspect of the show. And Bran seems to constantly be left out of the conversation when it comes to the White Walkers. Dany has her dragons, Sam is headed to the Citadel to hopefully learn more about how to stop them, Jon has (or had) the Night’s Watch and wildlings on the front lines, but magic is the oldest and most powerful thing in Westeros. Hopefully we get to see more of that next season.
The biggest questions now seem to be: Are Jon and Stannis dead? What’s going to happen to the wildlings now? How is Tyrion going to adapt to his new role? How crazy are things going to get between the Lannisters and the Martels? Basically, there’s a lot to look forward to in season six. It’s going to be a long wait.