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Not as much time as I'd like to do a deep dive on this most recent episode (which as a big step up from the Ramsay awfulness the week before), but wanted to highlight a few developments and see what everyone else thinks or is thinking....SPOILERS follow:
The Wall - Jon Snow makes good on his word to travel with Giantsbane to the wildling holdout to help persuade them to travel south of the Wall for winter (this seems like a pretty bad idea). Sam is getting nervous because with Jon's departure and the (shocking!) death of Maester Aemon (anyone else on this show died of old age??), as noted, he doesn't have many friends left at the Wall. Thankfully, one of them is Ghost and he helps Sam fend off a couple of rape-minded Nightswatchmen who had their sights set on Gilly. Gilly shows her appreciation by popping Sam's cherry, so good for Sam! Also, getting more and more obvious that Sam and Gilly need to get the hell out of dodge and soon.
Winterfell - Things seem to be worse for Sansa (as if that's possible) as she's looking beaten and bruised while being kept locked up all day by Ramsey (what a liar that guy is!). Reek brings her food and she tries to get him to help her by having him light a candle in the tower (the Brienne Batsignal as it were). Some clever misdirection here by the directors have us think he's going to do it, only to have him spill her secret to Ramsay. Ramsay responds by having Sansa join him on a nice little walk where she gets in a dig about Ramsay's bastard lineage and soon to be highborn little brother and how that could mess up Ramsay's Warden of the North dreams before he shows Sansa the flayed body of her kind old lady friend. Sansa's tune changes pretty quick here. Thankfully, the old lady held out and Ramsay is unaware that Brienne sits but miles away...
Stannis' Camp - Stannis and his army march south to Winterfell but, WINTER IS COMING! FOR REALS!, and the weather is making for a bad situation - horses are dying and sellswords are deserting. Ser Davos suggests returning to The Wall to wait things out, but given winters in Westeros last for years, Stannis is having none of that - he's moving forward win or lose. Davos takes off and Stannis goes to Melisandre for advice (and maybe some loving), but her plan isn't well received - she wants to sacrifice Stannis's daughter to the Lord of Light to ensure victory. He tells her to bugger off. Unfortunately, Melisandre is almost always right about things - will Stannis change his mind?
Dorne - Jaime Lannister is in the nicest prison ever and gets a visit from his niece/daughter Mrycella. She's in typical angsty teenager mode here, though is mostly right - she was shipped off and didn't want to be, and now that she's there and happy, they want to ship her off again. She says she's marrying Trystan and that is that. Jaime goes back to looking out the window. Meanwhile, we get to hear the rest of Bronn's Dornish Woman song (and it's awesome) while the Sand Snakes look on in an adjacent cell. Some snappy comments between the two happen and Tyenne Sand, the gorgeous short haired one, asks Bronn how he's feeling. He says fine, but it becomes obvious, and then super obvious, after Tyenne tells him her daggers were laced with poison and that he's in for a pretty slow death. She speeds things up by getting his blood to rush while showing off her, um, Dornish goods. Turns out she thinks he's pretty cute and a decent singer and offers him the antidote around her neck (after she forces him to admit she's the most beautiful woman in the world - and he probably wasn't lying). The Sand Snakes in this scene, especially Tyenne, more than make up for their somewhat sloppy first appearances. They seem funny and better developed. Maybe they have a future as Bronn's back up singers??
Mereen - Those wondering how long it would take Tyrion to get to Mereen to meet Danaerys found out this week - not very long! We see Jorah and Tyrion sold into slavery (Tyrion's beat down of the slaver was hilarious) and headed off to Mereen. Meanwhile, after some no nude (in her contract!) loving from Daario, Dany gets a bit of advice from him - kill all the remaining masters. She's shocked and isn't having any of it but like Melisandre, Daario is usually spot on with his recommendations. We next see Dany and her future husband to be taking in a pretty disorganized lower circuit pit fight. She's sort of disgusted and ready to go, when Jorah, upon hearing that she is there, joins the fight and cleans house (without actually killing anyone). Dany seems more disgusted by Jorah than by the bloody mess, and orders him out of her sight, until he proclaims he has a 'gift' for her. And he shows her when Tyrion walks out and introduces himself. And what a great scene - so awesome to see these two together.
King's Landing - Tommen is pretty pissed that Margaery is locked up (I would be too!) and has a conversation with his mother about exactly how mad he is and what he's going to do about it. Cersei is great here and truly does love her children, and while Tommen doesn't exactly know that she really would burn cities to the ground for them, he buys into her offer to help Margaery. Of course, Cersei gets to Margaery's cell and torments her a bit before leaving, smug knowing she's going to take the Tyrell's down (another questionable move given they provide a good bit of finance and food for the King's army). This backfires a bit though since Littlefinger passed on a bit of knowledge about Lancel Lannister to the Queen of Thornes, Olenna Tyrell, which she used to turn the tables on Cersei. Thus, Cersei is locked up for her own various crimes (incest, regicide, etc.) and we now see why Olenna is so feared. My big gripe here though is this - if Lancel has been with the Sparrow's cult for some time, wouldn't the High Sparrow know of Cersei's misgivings a while ago? Why would what Olenna told him be a shock? In any case, I think things for Cersei just got seriously bad.
Okay, what did everyone else think? Three episodes left, and we typically get our 'biggie' in episode nine. Where are we going from here? War in Winterfell? Jon's trip to Hardhome? Arya finishes her training? Tyrion and Dany have a meeting of minds? What happens to Jaime? Will Brienne save Sansa? Lots of plotlines to tie up in three episodes. Looking forward to them though!
The Wall - Jon Snow makes good on his word to travel with Giantsbane to the wildling holdout to help persuade them to travel south of the Wall for winter (this seems like a pretty bad idea). Sam is getting nervous because with Jon's departure and the (shocking!) death of Maester Aemon (anyone else on this show died of old age??), as noted, he doesn't have many friends left at the Wall. Thankfully, one of them is Ghost and he helps Sam fend off a couple of rape-minded Nightswatchmen who had their sights set on Gilly. Gilly shows her appreciation by popping Sam's cherry, so good for Sam! Also, getting more and more obvious that Sam and Gilly need to get the hell out of dodge and soon.
Winterfell - Things seem to be worse for Sansa (as if that's possible) as she's looking beaten and bruised while being kept locked up all day by Ramsey (what a liar that guy is!). Reek brings her food and she tries to get him to help her by having him light a candle in the tower (the Brienne Batsignal as it were). Some clever misdirection here by the directors have us think he's going to do it, only to have him spill her secret to Ramsay. Ramsay responds by having Sansa join him on a nice little walk where she gets in a dig about Ramsay's bastard lineage and soon to be highborn little brother and how that could mess up Ramsay's Warden of the North dreams before he shows Sansa the flayed body of her kind old lady friend. Sansa's tune changes pretty quick here. Thankfully, the old lady held out and Ramsay is unaware that Brienne sits but miles away...
Stannis' Camp - Stannis and his army march south to Winterfell but, WINTER IS COMING! FOR REALS!, and the weather is making for a bad situation - horses are dying and sellswords are deserting. Ser Davos suggests returning to The Wall to wait things out, but given winters in Westeros last for years, Stannis is having none of that - he's moving forward win or lose. Davos takes off and Stannis goes to Melisandre for advice (and maybe some loving), but her plan isn't well received - she wants to sacrifice Stannis's daughter to the Lord of Light to ensure victory. He tells her to bugger off. Unfortunately, Melisandre is almost always right about things - will Stannis change his mind?
Dorne - Jaime Lannister is in the nicest prison ever and gets a visit from his niece/daughter Mrycella. She's in typical angsty teenager mode here, though is mostly right - she was shipped off and didn't want to be, and now that she's there and happy, they want to ship her off again. She says she's marrying Trystan and that is that. Jaime goes back to looking out the window. Meanwhile, we get to hear the rest of Bronn's Dornish Woman song (and it's awesome) while the Sand Snakes look on in an adjacent cell. Some snappy comments between the two happen and Tyenne Sand, the gorgeous short haired one, asks Bronn how he's feeling. He says fine, but it becomes obvious, and then super obvious, after Tyenne tells him her daggers were laced with poison and that he's in for a pretty slow death. She speeds things up by getting his blood to rush while showing off her, um, Dornish goods. Turns out she thinks he's pretty cute and a decent singer and offers him the antidote around her neck (after she forces him to admit she's the most beautiful woman in the world - and he probably wasn't lying). The Sand Snakes in this scene, especially Tyenne, more than make up for their somewhat sloppy first appearances. They seem funny and better developed. Maybe they have a future as Bronn's back up singers??
Mereen - Those wondering how long it would take Tyrion to get to Mereen to meet Danaerys found out this week - not very long! We see Jorah and Tyrion sold into slavery (Tyrion's beat down of the slaver was hilarious) and headed off to Mereen. Meanwhile, after some no nude (in her contract!) loving from Daario, Dany gets a bit of advice from him - kill all the remaining masters. She's shocked and isn't having any of it but like Melisandre, Daario is usually spot on with his recommendations. We next see Dany and her future husband to be taking in a pretty disorganized lower circuit pit fight. She's sort of disgusted and ready to go, when Jorah, upon hearing that she is there, joins the fight and cleans house (without actually killing anyone). Dany seems more disgusted by Jorah than by the bloody mess, and orders him out of her sight, until he proclaims he has a 'gift' for her. And he shows her when Tyrion walks out and introduces himself. And what a great scene - so awesome to see these two together.
King's Landing - Tommen is pretty pissed that Margaery is locked up (I would be too!) and has a conversation with his mother about exactly how mad he is and what he's going to do about it. Cersei is great here and truly does love her children, and while Tommen doesn't exactly know that she really would burn cities to the ground for them, he buys into her offer to help Margaery. Of course, Cersei gets to Margaery's cell and torments her a bit before leaving, smug knowing she's going to take the Tyrell's down (another questionable move given they provide a good bit of finance and food for the King's army). This backfires a bit though since Littlefinger passed on a bit of knowledge about Lancel Lannister to the Queen of Thornes, Olenna Tyrell, which she used to turn the tables on Cersei. Thus, Cersei is locked up for her own various crimes (incest, regicide, etc.) and we now see why Olenna is so feared. My big gripe here though is this - if Lancel has been with the Sparrow's cult for some time, wouldn't the High Sparrow know of Cersei's misgivings a while ago? Why would what Olenna told him be a shock? In any case, I think things for Cersei just got seriously bad.
Okay, what did everyone else think? Three episodes left, and we typically get our 'biggie' in episode nine. Where are we going from here? War in Winterfell? Jon's trip to Hardhome? Arya finishes her training? Tyrion and Dany have a meeting of minds? What happens to Jaime? Will Brienne save Sansa? Lots of plotlines to tie up in three episodes. Looking forward to them though!
