Sorry for the lateness of my recap this week--I've been pumping my fist and screaming "Jaqen H'ghar!" non-stop for the last four days. It's been really disruptive at work. Letters have been filed with HR. Whatever. Worth it.
Anyway, this was a great episode! Arya arrives in Braavos, and we got some long, lingering, beautiful images. Which is not a thing we normally get on this show! It was nice to have a moment to breathe. Just think, I mean--those precious seconds could have easily been wasted on a Theon story!
She's initially thwarted in her attempt to enter the ominously-named "House Of Black And White"--apparently her coin was a Wonka-like Golden Ticket to this place but they're under new management and aren't honoring old coupons. But she hangs around anyway, and it turns out that "three days of waiting around and muttering the names of people you'd like to kill" is the password!
In Westeros, Cersei has a real murderers row of shitheads for her new Small Council. There's Maester Old Fuck, Maester Evil, and The Lorax Tyrell, plus Kevan Lannister, who is somehow even haughtier than his dead brother. Where do they grow these motherfuckers?
On the wall, Stannis tries to tempt Jon Snow with a new title: Jon... STARK! Wha!?!?!!?!? Yeah, apparently kings can do that kind of thing, even kings presiding over basically nothing. A thing like that! But it's pretty lousy methadone for a recovering Daddy Issues addict such as our boy, and Jon doesn't even seem to consider it. Not that it matters for long! (It kind of seems like putting a week's space between these storylines would have been more effective, right? Oh well.) An election is held for the Lord Commander, and Sam stages a write-in campaign for Jon. Everyone who wasn't hiding in a closet during the battle with the Wildlings rushes forward to reward Jon for his bravery by giving him LITERALLY the worst job in all of Westeros. So uh, thanks, guys!
Elsewhere on the wall, Cassie from
Skins is finally getting to have a little fun. I could watch her sass Sam from across a room all day long; they make a great two-man comedy team (and I guess we'll see how they do as political advisors--suddenly this show's placement next to
Veep on Sunday nights makes a little sense). As for our
original Abbott and Costello, this week brings Brienne and Podrick into Sansa's orbit yet again. Closer this time--close enough to buy her her first drink! (Goth Teen Sansa is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed with beer. "Does this place have any Bath Salts?"-Goth Teen Sansa) But when our girl B makes a direct appeal, Sansa is just like, "Nah." Boy, this vow is proving pretty hard to fulfill. Maybe it would be easier if Podrick wasn't busy trying to fulfill every waitress in the greater metropolitan area?
We might have an even cooler tag team to reckon with in the weeks to come, gang. Get this: Jaime Lannister enlists Bro(nn) to accompany him on a mission to recover Babygirl Lannister from Dorne, land of sand and revenge. Man, so many cool plot threads are getting set up that I almost wish I could jump five or six episodes ahead! But I won't, especially since HBO is finally getting litigious with this shit. (Now is as good a time as any to note that all of my screencaps are used in good faith and with no intent to profit off of Game Of Thrones, LLC or any of its subsidiaries and that I totally pay for my own HBONow account, in that my sister pays for it and I use her login.)
Mereenwhile, Dany teaches herself a hard lesson about the virtue of justice and the complicated nature of leadership and the utter futility of attempting foreign occupation, but you know, we all kind of know the score on this one by now. We're totally fucking
up to speed on the themes at play here. No use wasting your time with that. But her dragon Drogon does stop by to say hello, so at least there's that.
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