Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 1: The Red Woman
Holy shit, how long has it been since season five ended? Before I started this blog, I think. To those who don't know, I am a big fan of Game of Thrones, or rather, if you prefer the series by its full name, A Song of Fire and Ice. Because while I have watched all five seasons of the TV show, I'm also reading the novels, around partway through book two now... and Game of Thrones is one of those good adaptations where they changed a good chunk of things from page to screen, yet tries to economize and improve on the source material.
And because, well, they ran out of novels to adapt, with the writer's blessing, season 6 is going on with uncharted theory unknown to both book and TV readers. Now season five left us with nothing but a barrage of cliffhangers, in probably one of the biggest cockteases in all of television. We got (to recap), Brienne about to execute Stannis, Myrcella apparently bleeding from her nose possibly being poisoned by the Sand Snakes, Daenerys surrounded by an army of Dothraki, Daenerys's court going off to search for her, Sansa and Theon jumping off the walls of Winterfell before the Boltons return, Arya blinded by the Faceless Men as part of their insane cult initiation, and also Jon being stabbed for the Watch.
To some extent, we visit all of our main players bar Littlefinger, Sam and Bran, the latter who's absent last season as well if I recall. Some of our characters we just get some acknowledgement what happened to them, and it's really nothing more than just seeing, well, that they exist.
The shortest and least interesting scene this time around is Arya Stark, who's reduced to a blind beggar thanks to her being blinded by the insane assassin cult of the Faceless Men. She gets confronted and beaten up by the Waif, and, well, it's definitely some training from hell so she can develop Daredevil powers and be the Devil of Winterfell or something like that. There's really nothing much to this part until they decide to advance it, really.
Likewise, King's Landing also only got a short scene, as we get full confirmation that, yes, Myrcella bleeding from her nose right after her heartwarming confession that she acknowledges Jaime as a father figure... was in fact the last thing Myrcella will ever do in her life as yet another innocent young girl is claimed by the Game of Thrones. Cersei's humiliating quasi-triumphant return last season is immediately rewarded with this scene. Her expression and her grief is palpable as she realizes that Jaime is returning with a coffin instead of her most beloved daughter. If there is one redeeming quality about Cersei it's her love towards her children, and seeing her so heartbroken as she just sobs about the futility of going against the prophecy, sobbing about how Myrcella was the only good thing she has ever made, how Myrcella was so different from her... Cersei breathes pride and self-loathing in the same breath, but rarely does the latter show without a hint of the former, and Myrcella's death well and truly broke her. She's not even thinking of revenge against the Dornishmen. She is just heartbroken as she refuses to not grieve, and keeps describing in morbid detail how the body of her beautiful daughter will decompose.
Jaime is more than willing to pick up the slack of waging revenge, however, and Jaime swears revenge against all who have wronged the incest twins. That means striking out against Dorne, something that is exacerbated by, well, the Dorne scenes which I'll talk about later. Granted, as Roose Bolton later notes in the Winterfell scenes, there's also that particular rebellion to quash. And I highly doubt a grief-enraged Cersei Lannister will stand for that stupid Faith Militant.
We also get to see Margaery Tyrell, who doesn't look like she's been abused quite as much as Cersei has. She adamantly refuses to confess, though the High Sparrow and Septa "Confess" Unella is trying to goad a confession out of her by playing good cop bad cop. Notably, we don't see any sign of either Loras Tyrell or King Tommen, despite Margaery asking for both. I highly doubt Cersei would be so calm if anything happens to Tommen, but at the same time being alive doesn't mean he's all right. With the show being so shy of showing King Tommen for the later half of season five and this episode, I think they're hiding... something.
Loras, too. Maybe they already extracted a confession from him? Or are they doing something more... brutal to the poor dude? I mean, Loras is a proven homosexual and these dudes don't look like they tolerate that thing quite well. I don't think he'll die offscreen, but I wouldn't be surprised if they broke him physically or mentally, especially if they took other people's confessions as 'evidence'.
Meanwhile, in Dorne! We're definitely setting up a big war between King's Landing and Dorne. See, Prince Doran Martell is a gigantic idiot for sparing Ellaria and the Sand Snakes despite being proven assassins. News of Myrcella's death reaches Doran, and, well, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes (whose I can never really tell apart) murder Doran and his bodyguard Areo Hotah. I mean, well, Doran is suing for peace, and he definitely has a point -- yes, Elia Targaryen-Martell was raped and killed, while Oberyn Martell had his head squeezed like a tomato... but both were done by the Mountain. Kill the dude and be done with it. But apparently Ellaria and, well, apparently everyone else in Dorne's higher ruling class sees it as weakness for them not to avenge members of the royal family.
...so they kill the remaining members of the royal family. Doy, Ellaria, your logic makes no sense!
Well, at least the Sand Snakes carry Oberyn's bastard blood. Despite Doran begging for them to spare Prince Trystane, he gets killed too. So at least he goes off to join Myrcella in death, poor starcrossed lovers that they are. Though I must admit Trystane's death was nothing short of hilarious. Areo's was shocking, Doran's was tragic. Trystane trying to be all badass while the two Sand Snakes (Nymeria and Obra, I think?) corner him, and Trystane is fooled into thinking that they were going to fight him one-on-one before Game of Thrones logic sinks in and the other Sand Snake just spear-stabbed him through the face... that was so sudden. And so darkly funny.
Meanwhile, in Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys is captured by a big-ass Dothraki Horde. We get a bunch of random riders talking about raping Daenerys, but thankfully it does not come to that. She is brought in front of Khal Mogo, who, after a hilariously long discussion about whether seeing a naked woman would rank on the 'top five lists of best experiences' with his bloodriders and wives, is about to claim Daenerys as his own... until Daenerys drops the bombshell that she can speak Dothraki. And when her long titles mean nothing, she drops the Khal Drogo name. Six seasons in, and Khal Drogo's still looking out for her from beyond. Yeah, Khals are forbidden to lie with another Khal's widow... so Daenerys is safe from being raped.
Problem is (and it's something foreshadowed from the very first book) is that all Khal widows are supposed to join with the Dothraki crones, widows of fallen Khals, like in a sacred monastery or something, and the Mother of Dragons don't want that. She can't really say anything about it, though. Her only real hopes of rescue are her two knights, Ser Jorah "Friendzone" Mormont and Daario Naharis, who manages to track down the remains of Drogon's last lunch and the big footsteps of the Dothraki horde. They somehow manage to find Daenerys's earring in that giant clearing, and Daario seem to be more interested in discussing Jorah's friendzoning more than anything. Also Jorah has that rock-skin disease thing, which he reminds the audience about.
Man, all we need is Drogon to come down and scare the shit of the Dothraki.
Tyrion and Varys are just hanging out in Meereen, being awesome and trading great lines of dialogue. I would watch a show just starring these two. There was a fun moment where Tyrion's bad Valyrian language skills caused a beggar woman to think he's going to eat her baby, and it's fun. The Sons of the Harpy are still a big problem, though, and where Varys is content to gather information, the Sons of the Harpy are going around burning Daenerys's fleet. So much for invading Westeros, then.
In Winterfell, Theon and Sansa... escape as well as you think two people jumping off the side of a castle would be. Theon's more or less crippled, and Ramsay's hounds and knights catch up to them pretty quickly. Theon tries his best to draw away the hunters, but that goes as well as you'd expect it to go in real life -- which is not at all. It would be dumb to have them escape just to be captured and tortured for an entire season again, though, so Brienne and Pod come in to the rescue and just lay waste to the Bolton knights with great soundtrack and awesome fighting skills. Pod tries his darnedest, but in the end Theon (who grew some figurative balls to replace his missing ones) stabs Pod's foe from behind with a spear. Good on you, Theon!
Sansa finally accepts Brienne as her knight, and it's clear that she's really, really glad for the woman knight's rescue, as well as finally accepting Theon Greyjoy as her ally. I mean, Sansa's spent a good chunk of the series being helpless, and somewhat failing whenever she tries to do anything, but with allies like Brienne and Theon, as unlikely as the latter would be, maybe she can mount an offensive against the Boltons? Roose does mention that none of the Northern Houses really support the Boltons, especially if they don't have Sansa Stark. Plus there's the fact that Theon might rally Yara and the rest of the Iron Islands or something like that. I doubt this would be the focus of the season, though.
The show is also vague regarding Stannis Baratheon's fate. Brienne mentions nothing about it to Sansa, and both Roose and Ramsay mention that he's dead, but we don't see a body and we do know that the Boltons really like displaying the bodies, so it's a bit of a conspicuous absence that makes me think Stannis is... not dead? Maybe? I dunno. Maybe that's just because I like the dude.
Ramsay actually shows some emotion about Miranda's death, mourning her in his own twisted way... before telling her body to be fed to the hounds because it's good meat. Oh, Ramsay, you over-the-top twisted motherfucking piece of shit, I hope you die horribly. Roose notes that what Ramsay did was to ambush and use hit-and-run tactics on a weather-beaten Baratheon Army, and it wasn't so much a victory as a rout. Roose notes that without support from the Northern forces and the Iron Islands, they won't stand against a proper Lannsiter army from King's Landing. Though considering said army's probably far more concerned about exacting revenge on Dorne...
Roose threatens Ramsay in no uncertain terms that if he doesn't manage to re-obtain Sansa and Theon, then he's no good to produce an heir and his new son with Lady Wanda would be the heir instead. ...noooot your smartest idea there Roose, because Ramsay would definitely kill a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Poor Wanda! She seemed like such a pleasant woman.
The A-plot here really is in the Night's Watch, bookending the episode, though even that really didn't amount to much. We have confirmation that Jon Snow is dead, as if last episode's final scene wasn't final enough. We get to see that, well, Alliser Thorne's supporters kind of number few, and a good chunk of the Night's Watch mooks are still pissed as all hell. Thorne manages to deliver a speech where he's thinking of the Watch as a whole, and how he's loyal to the Watch and he never disobeys an order, and it's Jon Snow that's disrespecting the Watch... but really, that's the kind of logic you would make to cover your sins. Thorne, you shit. And I thought you were actually cool when you fought the Wildlings back in the climax of season four! Thorne's basically put himself in charge, although in a more diplomatic way than most, and tells Jon Snow's few supporters to stand down.
Jon's few supporters number Dolorous Edd, Ser Davos Seaworth... and a bunch of others I don't recognize. Edd buggers off to try and recruit wildlings or something, which will totally not end well and will possibly fracture the Night's Watch, while Ser Davos tries to stall things with fake diplomacy. And mutton. Davos is ready to ask Melisandre for help, which is something considering how much he hates the Red Woman...
But Melisandre is all shell-shocked at realizing her predictions regarding Jon Snow and Stannis Baratheon have both been utterly mistaken. Of course that doesn't discount some crazy black necromantic magic or whatever, but we saw what happened to Khal Drogo last time someone tried to bring a dead person to life.
And, well, Melisandre's big secret is revealed, as she strips down in your obligatory fanservice scene... and then she takes off her bracelet and reveals herself to be a naked, old, wrinkled hag. Oh kay that whiplashed so hard. Yeah, Melisandre's a super-old witch lady who's using Rhllor's magic to look hot and sexy. Which means, um, yeah, Stannis totally fucked this old decrepit lady. That's certainly a big revelation, and it also is a nice metaphor to just how defeated the previously always-proud and confident Melisandre is.
Overall it's a somber episode, just setting up all the things that's going to happen. It looks like we're going to have confrontations at the Night's Watch and against Dorne, though I'm also quite interested to see what's going to happen in Meereen and Vaes Dothrak. I don't really think the Winterfell bits will extend that much, but who knows? This is uncharted territory, and I'm just happy to have my weekly/monthly dose of Westerosi politics.
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