Last night's Game of Thrones kept us in the North and the East, where Dany and Jon are struggling with some tough leadership decisions, Tyrion and Jorah are struggling with some nasty crustier versions of the monsters from The Descent, and Sansa is just plain struggling, period, same as always, jesus christ, someone please fucking help Sansa Stark.
MEEREEN:
We kick things off in Essos, where Grey Worm is recuperating from the Sons of the Harpy attack that killed Ser Barristan. Missandei sits by his side for three days and Westeros's Actual Best Couple (ahem, SNL) share their first kiss. They're a tiny, tiny pinpoint of light in this dark, dark world, and if anything happens to either of them, I'll take my revenge on this show with fire and blood. Let's at least have one nice thing, alright? Speaking of not being able to have nice things, Daenerys is still struggling to handle this rebellion. Daario suggests she just straight murder each of the heads of house of the families that used to run the city, but Dany isn't sure she wants to be that extreme just yet. Instead, she takes them all down to see the dragons, which seems like quite a gamble given how shaky that relationship was the last time she was down there, but the dragons play it perfectly. I guess it helps that she chucks them one of the Masters like a damn Beggin Strip. Daenerys goes into a Mother's Day appropriate speech about her maternal philosophy. As Mother of Dragons and Myssa to the former slaves of Essos, the main thing her mothering styles seems to have in common between the two is that she's totally lost control of her charges.
Despite all that, the demonstration certainly scares the Masters, but it doesn't solve the problem long-term. Daenerys, in a rare moment of insight, asks Missandei for advice. Missandei is resistant at first, but Dany points out that, as a former slave and a longtime resident of Essos, Missandei's opinion here is vital. In return, Missandei gives her a pep talk, basically telling her to create a third option. Daenerys decides to compromise: she'll open the fighting pits, but for free men only. To further prove her commitment to preserve the customs of Meereen, she'll marry Hizdahr.
It's a good start, but I'm not sure marrying Hizdahr is a good plan. Part of her strength as a leader is her status as a mythic figure. Marrying seems to bring her down to earth a bit. As usual, the Meereen stuff continues to drag on, and I still have trouble buying that Dany learned no lessons from her time among the Dothraki, where she won the people over by embracing their culture, even when she personally found it distasteful. Hopefully, Tyrion will get there soon to talk some sense into her and speed up the plot. Or, better yet, Varys could show up. As someone who grew up in Essos, I have a feeling his advice will be just as valuable as Tyrion's, if not more so, and it's clear that Daenerys needs all the help she can get.
THE WALL:
Up at Castle Black, Jon is also struggling with some tough leadership choices. He asks Aemon for advice, the gist of which gives the episode its title: kill the boy, let the man be born. (Basically: nut up.) This scene is interesting if the show is really going full R+L=J, since that makes Aemon one of Jon's only living relatives, not that either of them would know. In fact, my main concern with the theory is who would even be able to confirm it? Littlefinger's smile from last episode suggests he knows something, but none of the principals are still living, so it doesn't appear possible to have a first hand account. Of course, it's still possible that Benioff and Weiss were just messing with people. But whether or not Jon's got the right lineage is irrelevant for the moment, since, like Dany, he seems to have dug into his current location.
Jon's first big move as Commander of the Night's Watch is one he knows won't be super popular, but it's the logical thing to do. He takes on Stannis's plan of uniting the Watch and the Free Folk, but doesn't insist on anyone bending a knee. It's an easy concession for Jon to make, as he's never cared about it, even though Stannis obviously cares about little else (with the exception of his daughter and, apparently, the difference between "less" and "fewer"). Jon convinces Tormund to round up the Wildlings who are still north of The Wall. He'll make sure they have land and protection in exchange for their help fighting the White Walkers when the time comes. Tormund's condition is that Jon comes along to prove his offer is for real. Jon sells the plan to the Watch as best he can, pointing out that either they join with the Free Folk now or fight their zombified corpses later, but he still seems to have a lot of resistance, particularly from Olly, who reminds Jon that he watched the Wildlings burn and slaughter his whole village. Jon goes full Stark on the kid, reminding him that everyone he's ever loved is dead and also, ps, Winter Is Coming. Never get involved in a sob-story contest with a Stark, basically.
Stannis seems impressed by Jon's skills as a leader, but I have my doubts. For one thing, who is he going to leave in charge at Castle Black? One of the many dudes who hates him? The buddies of the dude he just beheaded? He's not real popular at the moment, and his plan relies on somebody letting him back in when he shows up with a bunch of Wildlings. His biggest supporters seem to be Aemon and Sam, but I wouldn't place bets on either of them surviving long enough to still be around when he returns, or to be effective enough to make a mutinous Night's Watch let him back in.
Stannis certainly seems to think the Watch is untrustworthy; he'd rather take Shireen and Selyse into battle with him than leave them at The Wall with a bunch of rapists and murderers. He and his massive army make their exit, but not before he gives Jon some stoic encouragement and reminds him he'd like his ships back. I thought the ships Tormund and Jon talked about before were a metaphor, but apparently they're literally going to put a bunch of Wildlings on a boat and sail them back down to The Wall? I'm not sure what's going on up there, geographically speaking, but sure, whatever.
Stannis also takes the time to check in with Sam before he leaves. Sam and Gilly are talking books and education (apparently Sam wanted to be a maester before he wound up on the Watch, probably would have been a better career path) when Stannis pops by to remind him that his dad was a badass (the only battle Robert ever lost, apparently), and pump him for information on the White Walker he killed. Sam reminds us about the dragonglass and name drops the Children, just in case we forgot Bran's still under a tree somewhere learning magic from a root person, which is, frankly, a plot I don't miss. Stannis tells Sam to keep reading, which hints that maybe there's something more to the dragonglass that we'll find out later. Whether there is or not, Stannis is not sticking around to find out. He's off to take the North while he still has the element of surprise, but the Boltons are already prepping for his arrival.
WINTERFELL:
First of all, thank all the old gods and the new that Brienne is not a dummy and has a good sense of when a dude is Not To Be Trusted. She and Pod are still trailing Sansa, and she is still just telling whoever about their mission, regardless of the fact that Sansa is still (presumably) wanted for regicide. The good news is Brienne's in The North now and The North remembers. There's a whole network of Kindly Old Servants who are as adamantly #TeamSansa as I am, and, with Brienne's help, they set up an alert system in case things with the Boltons get nasty (as I am 100% sure they will). They tell Sansa to put a candle in the window of the tallest tower if she needs help, which basically means that BRIENNE IS SANSA'S PERSONAL BATMAN. PODRICK IS ROBIN. THIS IS AMAZING.
It's the only good thing going in Winterfell at the moment though, because, as was foreshadowed, Myranda is not feeling this arranged marriage. She makes it clear to Ramsay that she's jealous and he makes it equally clear that she's not allowed to be jealous, or marry anyone else, or basically have any opinions on the matter. If anyone was naive enough to think his no longer being a literal bastard would make him less of a metaphorical bastard, this episode cleared things up pretty freakin' quick. Ramsay seems to think the matter is settled, but Myranda decides to Regina George it up a bit. (Sansa is still making her own clothes by the way, and to be honest, I'm impressed with the new, dark direction her winter line is taking. Kudos.) Myranda takes the opportunity to reunite Sansa and Theon/Reek, though I'm not entirely sure what her play is here. Does she think this will make Sansa back out of the marriage? Because Sansa's not the one with the choices here. Is she trying to keep Sansa from getting too close to Ramsay? Because, girl, I guarantee you no one's gonna fight you for him, especially after he spends dinner going full Joffrey on Sansa.
He's upfront about the fact that he's tortured the Theon right out of Reek. He then makes Reek apologize to Sansa for murdering her brothers, then decides that, as Sansa's closest living relative, he should be the one to walk her down the aisle. If Sansa wasn't wary of the Boltons before, she certainly is now. Ramsay's also feeling a little nervous about the security of his position, after Roose and his wife Walda announce that another Bolton is on the way, and this one is going to be fully legitimate. In their post-dinner strategy meeting, Ramsay makes his fears known by making a bunch of fat jokes (ugh), which Roose is not having. He's also not having any of Ramsay's nonsense at dinner, and just when you think maybe Roose isn't the worst person in Westeros, he tells Ramsay the story of how he met Ramsay's mother. It's predictably grim, full of rape and murder, so everyone here continues to be a literal monster and no one in surprised.
Against all evidence to the contrary, I flat out refuse to believe that something terrible is going to happen to Sansa here. The only question I will entertain about this plot is who's going to kill Ramsay and get her out of there. Brienne seems like a solid choice, but there has to be a reason that we've sat through whole seasons of this terrible Theon/Reek arc, right? It would seem fitting for him to redeem himself by making amends to the Starks and simultaneously taking his revenge on Ramsay and the Boltons. At this point though, I'm not picky. Just murder everybody, get Sansa out of there, enough is e-goddamn-nough.
SOMEWHERE NEAR VALYRIA:
Meanwhile, Tyrion is still slowly but surely making his way back to the main action, except now he's the one with the downer road trip buddy, because I guess he's being punished for bumming out Varys for three episodes. Jorah and Tyrion bond pretty quickly though. In fact, it's practically a Nicholas Sparks set-up: an unlikely pair brought together by circumstance, bonding through poetry recitation and peril... They've even got the tragic, undisclosed illness going for them now, because during their fight with the (super creepy! infinitely more creepy than the White Walkers!) Stone Men, Jorah contracts Greyscale, the disease that has been brought up ominously all throughout the season. Here's the payoff: Jorah's staring down the barrel of full-blown Westerosi leprosy-rabies, unless he gets whatever combination of treatments saved Shireen.
So what are the odds on Jorah repeating her miracle recovery? Killing off Ser Barristan was a departure from the books, from what I understand, and seems to have been in service of opening up a power vacancy for Tyrion to step into. It makes sense to prevent Jorah from taking that spot either, if Benioff and Weiss are as set on the Tyrion-Daenerys alliance as they seem to be. I don't think anyone would argue that it's a beneficial match up for both, anyway, and personally I would not be the least bit sorry to see the end of Jorah. Unpopular opinion here, but the dude creeps me out.
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