Well, the best show on TV has been back on the air for 3 episodes now, and MAN has it been a ride. A beloved character rose from the dead. A whole bunch of other characters have been rather unceremoniously (or with lots of ceremony) killed off. There are subplots spinning all over Westeros, so many that it's often hard to keep up with, and it feels like they're all slowly but surely hurtling toward some inevitable conclusion that will seem obvious once it happens, but which I couldn't possibly guess now.
So far this season, everything is a bit backwards. I have always been a huge fan of almost all the scenes in King's Landing, particularly if they revolve around Olenna Tyrell, Cersei, or Tyrion, but this season, all of those characters seem to have shifted to less substantial plot. Dany's isolation from the rest of the plot is keenly felt, possibly more keenly felt than ever before, and it's honestly hard to imagine where she's going from here. And BRAN, of all people, is currently in the subplot that is most likely to revolutionize the series. (BRAN. Yes, really!) Let's take a look at where our characters are, and what that may mean, shall we?
In King's Landing:
As much as I was hoping for Jaime to return sheepishly from Dorne with his dead daughter/niece in tow, rightly fearing Cersei's wrath and vengeance ("YOU HAD ONE JOB, JAIME"), Cersei's SlutWalk of Shame seems to have defeated her just a bit. She greeted her daughter's corpse with heartbreak and oddly un-Cersei-ish self reflection, and she and Jaime seem to have reunited stronger than ever. Both of them are feeling pretty powerless. Technically Cersei is not the queen anymore, and therefore is nothing more than Lady Cersei of House Lannister, despite how desperately she clings to the idea of queen-ship. (Grandma Tyrell gets her first saucy one-liner of the season in while pointing this out, saying, "You are not the queen. You are not married to the king. I know these things get confused in your family.") The Faith Militant are all but running King's Landing, with Cersei still facing trial, Margaery and Loras still locked up, and the High Sparrow still holding the reigns as Most Passive Aggressive Person in Westeros. Last night's scene of Tommen mustering his courage to exert his kingly authority in the sept was beautifully executed. Tommen marches up on the Sparrow while he prays, and the camera holds on the old man's face. We see him deliberately deciding how to handle this, and then when he rises, he has a plan that completely bowls the boy king over. Tommen, though remarkably good natured, is easy enough to manipulate, and this whole thing may end up with Tommen turning on his own family for this seemingly-snuggly grandfather figure.
The lingering plot thread in King's Landing is Cersei's trial, which she plans to do as a trial-by-combat with the help of her new FrankenMountain. (Thus far, the FrankenMountain exists to stare people down, smash shit-talkers' heads in, and generally be funny and enjoyable. We haven't seen his horrific face so far, but I'm sure that grisly helmet will come off at some point.) It has been highly speculated that someone will resurrect the Hound (if he was ever dead in the first place) and there will be a great battle between Sandor and Gregor Clegane, which sounds just amazing. Let's have that happen, mkay?
What will become of Margaery, Loras, and Cersei? Will Tommen turn on his own family to support the Sparrow? Will Tommen make it out of this season alive? (I'm thinking.... no.) Time will tell.
The Wall:
Unlike every other season so far, the Wall has been a fascinating place. Jon Snow was last seen in Season 5 lying dead in the snow, but is promptly resurrected by the Red Woman in episode 2 of this season. Last night, we got to see how death (and subsequent life) has effected Jon. The shot of him literally rising from the dead, breathing with difficulty, was wonderfully done. Jon remembers what happened to him, and also remembers that when he died, there was nothing. No heaven, no hell, no nothing, just darkness. This more than anything seems to profoundly alter him. He did what he felt was right and was killed for it, and after his death, was faced with nothingness. Last night, he completed his business with the Watch once and for all. He executed his murderers, and then handed his cloak off to Dolorous Edd and basically said, "Fuck this, I'm out."
Technically, Jon has fulfilled his vow. The Night's Watch's vows only extend until one dies, and Jon has died. (Something tells me that the Watch's lawyers will be frantically adding Resurrection Clauses this morning.) So where does he go now? What does this mean for the Wall, which has not only the straggling few members of the Watch left, but a hoard of Wildlings that Jon saved from certain death? Plus, THE WHITE WALKERS ARE COMING. We know this to be true. Does the task of saving the seven kingdoms now fall to Dolorous Edd? (We're doomed.)
The Woods Near the Wall:
So guess who is headed toward the Wall? Sansa, Brienne, and Podrick! They're all going to the Wall, having narrowly escaped the Boltons, and are hoping to reunite with Jon Snow. It's unclear at this point whether or not Sansa and Jon will actually reunite (Thrones wouldn't be that kind to us, I'm afraid.) Perhaps Sansa will recruit the Wildlings to help her run the Boltons out of Winterfell? Maybe she and Jon both will run the Wildlings out of Winterfell? (We can still hope!) The Wildlings do owe Jon a significant debt, and he's the type of guy who would allow them to live on the North's lands free and in peace if they did this for him and helped he and Sansa reclaim their childhood home. (The Red Woman did say that she "saw Jon at Winterfell" in the flames, and we know she's at least partially right about things now!) Plus, someone has to get smug, douchey Ramsay Bolton out of there. And speaking of Ramsay....
Winterfell:
Ramsay is now singlehandedly running Winterfell, having stabbed his father in the chest upon learning that Lady Walda's baby was in fact a boy. (RIP Roose Bolton. For all that he was an awful guy, he was a great character, and I personally feel he deserved a more climactic death.) Ramsay has never been a subtle guy, and decided to dispatch his family quickly and without much forethought. Something tells me that Roose Bolton survived so long by being patient and calculating as well as evil, whereas Ramsay's impetuous, insecure type of evil won't keep him around too much longer. But bnow, Ramsay has a bonus: Rickon Stark! Apparently the members of House Umber got tired of babysitting Rickon for the last however many years (last time we saw Rickon he looked like he was about 6- now he looks like he's about 16) and just decided to dump him off at the Boltons. Is this some sort of setup? Has House Umber truly turned on the Starks, or does the North truly remember, and they're planning to take down House Bolton from the inside out? Also, if Rickon, Sansa, and Jon all end up reuniting, I will literally cry for joy. For his part, Ramsay also really wants to get Sansa back, since having a child with her is the key to keeping the North with some real legitimacy, so if Sansa and a Wildling army decide to attack Winterfell, it will be a great personal risk. My, the stakes are high here.
Braavos:
Thus far, Arya's storyline this season has involved her being blind and getting knocked around a lot. Apparently when you steal from the Hall of Faces (as Arya did last season) the penalty is to have your eyesight removed and a mean blonde girl beat the shit out of you for a few hours every day. They are still relentlessly trying to transform her into No One, and last night we had something akin to a Rocky Training Montage of Arya playing the Game of Faces, losing, getting knocked around, and then winning and proving equal to, if not victorious over, the Waif. So what does Arya being No One mean? What kind of bearing will it have on the plot as a whole? One can hope that she's sent to murder someone on her list, like Cersei or Walder Frey, but so far, it's hard to tell where her plot- so disconnected from everything else going on- is taking her. I'm encouraged by having her become No One so early in the season. Maybe that will mean that we'll be treated to another glorious Arya Revenge Kill by the end of the season. (RIP Meryn Trant.) And speaking of weirdly disconnected plots...
Vaes Dothrak:
Dany's subplot has taken her to Vaes Dothrak, where she dropped off at the Dosh Khaleen, a sort of eternal knitting circle for wives of dead khals. Most of them go there immediately after the death of their spouse, but Dany has defied this tradition by going out and becoming Queen of Meereen and Mother of Dragons and all of those other things. Here, Dany's many self-imposed titles make her seem nothing short of "too big for her britches," as we say in the deep south, and the only thing that may hold this plot together would be for her to be legitimately humbled in some way. After all, her reign as a slave-freeing conqueror hasn't gone well so far. (More on that in a bit.) Now, she has to prove herself worthy to be part of the Dosh Khaleen through some sort of ceremony wherein all the Dothraki hoardes come together and have a meeting about Where to Attack Next. Ser Jorah and Daario NeHaris are out there looking for her, so maybe they'll find her and rescue her and that will be that, but that would render this subplot all but useless. For all Thrones' general excellence, it does have a tendency to do dead-end plot cul-de-sacs just to keep the actors around for a little while longer until the real plot picks up (examples: Craster's rape hut. Dorne. Dany's adventures in the Place Where her Dragons Where Stolen.) This would be a huge waste of a Daenerys plot, unless the showrunners have some sort of brilliant key in their pocket we don't know about. We'll see. (Also: Ser Jorah has greyscale. I guess that will matter somewhere along the way.)
Oldtown:
Just last night, we learned that Samwell Tarly is sailing to Oldtowne to be a maester, but he wasn't exactly honest with Gilly about where she would be staying in the interim. Apparently, Gilly and Baby Sam are bound for Horn Hill, Sam's childhood home, where she'll be staying with his kind mother and sister and his not-so-kind father Randyll Tarly. We haven't yet met Randyll Tarly, but I've heard he's a ruthless military commander with a strong presence in the books, so we'll see if that comes to play in any way here. I read that House Tarly is sworn to House Tyrell... perhaps Gilly will have a first hand view of Margaery's trial? Is Gilly going to King's Landing?
The Pyke:
The Greyjoys seem to pop in and out of the story at random moments, and this is one of their moments in. I frankly had forgotten that Balon Greyjoy was even a part of the War of Five Kings, much less that he was one of the presumptive kings, and he met a pretty anticlimactic end in episode 2. His brother Euron showed up and flung him off a rickety bridge to his death, in a scene that left me more wishing that all the Greyjoys would just go away more than anything. Apparently Euron is going to be central to this plot now, for all that he appeared out of nowhere, and apparently he and Yara Greyjoy will be forced into a semi-democratic campaign to determine who will be King in the Iron Islands and ruler of the Pyke. Also, Theon is headed that way for some reason. The Greyjoys suck.
Meereen:
Remember how we were talking about Daenerys and how generally fail-tastic her attempt at free Slaver's Bay has been? Well, last night we found just more proof that conquering is easier than ruling. The Sons of the Harpy, rebels who have been attempting to overthrow Dany and return all former slaves of Meereen to chains, are being funded by cities she's previously overthrown: Yunkai and Astapor. Apparently, the masters of those cities didn't take to being tossed around by Dany's dragons and Unsullied, and not only have regained their power as slaveowners, but have been sending money to the Harpies as well. So now Tyrion is left trying to figure out how to fight the Harpies, with the aid of his trusty spymaster Lord Varys (as silkily manipulative as ever) and the odd couple duo of Missandei and Grey Worm. Almost every scene Tyrion has been in this season has been one of the worst of the episode, and last night's scene of him trying to engage these two strictly-business individuals in a conversation was the worst of them all. It's not because of Peter Dinklage. He's great. It's just hard to see how any of this will benefit Tyrion in the long run, or what it will mean to the overall plot. Plus, frankly, it's hard to care about Meereen.
