Shea Reviews – Game of Thrones S06E05 – The Door

WARNING: This episode contains spoilers for Game of Thrones.

After several weeks of waiting, we finally got it: an unequivocally amazing episode of Game of Thrones. It sucks that half of this season has been made up of mostly average episodes with some standout moments, but hopefully The Door serves as a great jumping off point to what will undoubtedly be some insane stories throughout the rest of the season. I do have some minor quibbles about this episode, though. The Robert/Ned play was too long and kind of pointless, I’m still not sure why Sansa didn’t tell Jon about her meeting with Littlefinger, and I don’t believe for one second that any Ironborn would care about Theon’s opinion after everything that’s happened to him. I also had some small problems with how the Three Eyed Raven stuff played out, but we’ll get to that later. First, let’s talk highlights.

I could not be more excited about the future of Jon and Sansa’s storyline. When the episode was going through the “previously on,” I was mostly like “ok, yeah, yeah, ok,” but when it got to Jon and Sansa I was like “oh right, I am so freaking pumped to see more of this.” And this episode did not disappoint. I seriously love the transformation that Sansa has made. When she went to The Vale with Littlefinger, it seemed like she was going to become a stronger character, only to have those hopes dashed by Ramsay. I’m glad the writers are finally following through, and here’s hoping that she doesn’t revert to the scared, crying victim we’ve seen in earlier versions. Jon and Sansa did seem to take their time leaving Castle Black, but that’s just part of the pace of this show. Things happen extremely slowly until they don’t.

I like the idea of Jon and Sansa going from northern house to northern house, gaining followers. It’s interesting that the Umbers, Karstarks, and Manderlys were mentioned yet again. I’m still holding onto hope that the Umbers are loyal to the Starks and are plotting against Ramsay, but there isn’t much evidence to support that, especially after Osha’s untimely demise. Book readers will remember Wyman Manderly pretending to be working for the Boltons and Freys, secretly plotting to betray them. The character hasn’t been introduced yet on the show, but it’s safe to assume this story will happen at some point. There have been too many hints dropped for it not to happen. I’m also hoping to see Maege and Alysane Mormont, two great characters from the books. Jon references the Mormonts by name as a northern house worth pursuing, so we’ll see how that plays out.

The scene on the Iron Islands was pretty damn intense, too. We didn’t really get to see much of Euron Greyjoy when he killed his brother Balon, but he definitely got his share of screen time this episode. While I personally find the Greyjoys interesting, it’s still hard to see the greater impact that these characters will have on the show. Obviously, Euron plans on teaming up with Dany to take over Westeros, but if he knew anything about Dany, he’d know there was no way she’d partner with someone like him. I like Yara and I’m still kind of invested in Theon, but nothing going on with them really seems to matter. We’ll see where Yara and Theon take their ships, maybe they’ll end up teaming up with someone else.

I’m still not quite sure what was happening in the scene between Tyrion, Varys, and the Red Priestess Kinvara. I guess they need the followers of the Red God to spread the good word about Dany around Meereen, but it just wasn’t all that clear. Is this priestess another new character we need to learn about? Or is she just another smoking hot follower of R’hllor? Regardless, she is wearing a similar necklace as Melisandre, so something could be going on there. We also didn’t get any King’s Landing or Ramsay Bolton this episode, which was weird. It’s safe to assume the attempted rescue of Margaery Tyrell will be a focal point of next week’s episode, and Ramsay will have to interact with poor Rickon Stark at some point.

One other small scene to note was the farewell between Dany and Ser Jorah. He’s been a stalwart character throughout the series, and it would have been sad to see him go forever. Instead, Dany sends him on a journey to cure Greyscale, the affliction that leads to the afflicted basically becoming a mindless zombie, as seen during Jorah and Tyrion’s journey through Old Valyria. This is a pretty “out there” theory, but I at least wanted to write it down, just in case it comes true. What if Jorah ends up going back to Old Valyria and ends up meeting Griff and Young Griff? For non-book readers, I’ll give you a quick breakdown without spoiling anything. In the books, when Tyrion escapes from King’s Landing after killing his father, he isn’t captured by Ser Jorah and taken to Dany. Instead, he ends up with a man named Griff and his son, known as Young Griff. Together they sail through Old Valyria before Tyrion is separated from them and captured as a slave, thus reuniting his story with the show. Griff and Young Griff are not who they seem, and their true nature completely changed the overarching story of the books. Those characters haven’t been introduced on the show, and while it’s most likely they’re being written out completely, it’s possible they were being saved for a later date.

It makes sense for Jorah to head to Old Valyria, and it’s possible for him to take Tyrion’s place for that bit of story. The only other evidence I can give is that while Jorah is a compelling character, he lacks personality, and I can’t imagine the writers would have him off on his own for an extended period of time. The character works best when paired with a foil like Tyrion or Daario. It’s also possible that the writers will shelve him for a while, bringing him back next season to help Dany conquer Westeros. But here’s hoping that my crackpot theory ends up being true.

Now, let’s finally talk about the insanity that was Bran in this episode. Seriously, holy shit. So much to unpack. Overall, I have to admit that I’m kind of disappointed with this turn of events. I’m not talking about Hodor’s reveal, which was amazing and handled perfectly. It was enough of a gut punch to lose Bran’s direwolf Summer, they didn’t have to take Hodor too! At least he went out like a freaking champ. Instead, my issues are with the Children of the Forest and the Three Eyed Raven.

First, we found out that it was the Children of the Forest that created the White Walkers, and they did it to protect themselves from the First Men. That was a pretty huge reveal, even for book readers, but I don’t think it was given proper context on the show. We know basically nothing about the Children of the Forest, other than that they say they were around long before the First Men came. They created the Weirwood trees that the northerners worship, and clearly have some tie to the Old Gods. Still, I wish we could have learned more about them before they were all apparently wiped out.

Second, the Three Eyed Raven is killed by the Night’s King, presumably removing him from the future plot of the show. My issue here is just that the character and story were never fully realized. Bran went north to learn the nature of his warging, and the figure out a way to stop the White Walkers. As an audience, we were led to believe that this was going to impact things in a huge way. While Bran is still clearly going to play a big part in the show moving forwards, he didn’t accomplish what he set out to when they first went north of The Wall. Sure, he experienced some dreams and learned that he could change the “future” by changing the past, but this happened incidentally. Instead, Bran’s dreams really only served as a storytelling device, giving us more info on Hodor, Ned, the Children of the Forest, etc. I feel like Bran never really learned anything. The Three Eyed Raven says to Bran before their final dream together, “The time has come for you to become me.” What does that even mean? We aren’t given any context for that character. Why does he exist? Why does that central Weirdwood tree allow people to travel through dreams? Can Bran do that anywhere now? Presumably everything will be made clear by the end of the show, but for now, it left me a little unsatisfied.

Now let’s do some quick speculation, since that’s always fun. The biggest thing that jumps out is that final scene with little Hodor. Bran wargs into Hodor, and it’s revealed that Bran is the real reason behind why Wylis is now Hodor. The most obvious implication is that now we know for sure that Bran can affect the past through these dreams. We got a taste of it at the Tower of Joy when Ned turned around after hearing Bran’s voice, and even more when the Night King reached out and grabbed Bran during a dream, but this one clinches it. And it begs the question, what other things were actually caused by Bran? I’ve already given my theory on it being Bran’s fault that King Aerys became the Mad King and burned his uncle and grandfather. My other point is actually about Rickard and Brandon Stark. In this dream, we get a glimpse of Ned’s father Rickard bidding farewell to his eldest son, Brandon, before sending him to The Vale. This serves as mostly background noise to Hodor’s reveal, but the writers of this show never have anything happen without a reason. Why would the Three Eyed Raven take Bran to this particular moment? He could have affected Hodor at any time in his life, why this one?

Even with some complaints, this was far and away the best episode of the season, and it’s great to see so many story points from earlier seasons finally paying off. There’s no such thing as a perfect episode, but The Door was about as close as any Game of Thrones episode has come. Unfortunately, I had to deduct a tenth of a point because of that nasty close-up dick shot. Gross.

9.9/10