Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

As I have often said this year, the fifth season of Game of Thrones has been incredibly reckless as an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire.  For the most part this has paid off - the writing has been tighter and more focused this year; some of these characters have never been more compelling and the show appears to be building to some gripping climaxes (which for the most part will pivot back to the end of A Dance with Dragons).  But "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" represented all the pitfalls of such an approach.  While much of the content in the episode was praiseworthy and moved the story along neatly, two scenes in particular were just so botched - and in very different ways - that the episode stands unceremoniously as perhaps the all-time worst hour of Game of Thrones.

These two terrible scenes occur in Winterfell and Dorne.  Beginning with the rape of Sansa in Winterfell, I want to make one thing clear from the outset.  The rape itself does not bother me.  What did everybody think was going to happen when Littlefinger gave his big reveal in "High Sparrow"?  This is Ramsay Bolton.  We know him well.  This is absolutely in character for him.  Last week Roose told Ramsay to be a man by telling the story of Roose's rape of Ramsay's mother.  These are rapey people.  We all knew Sansa's wedding night was going to be traumatizing.

From a readers's perspective, the scene shouldn't be nearly so bothersome.  In A Dance with Dragons the Boltons marry Ramsay to an imposter-Arya, who is actually Sansa's old friend Jeyne Poole.  Without going into details, suffice it to say that the wedding-night rape of Jeyne Poole is infinitely worse.  Rape is rape - the logic of being more offended by it because it's happening to Sansa rather than some nameless common girl is poor.

Rather, what is bothersome about the scene - and the episode, and the entire season at Winterfell, more broadly - is how the show itself reduces Sansa to a victim.  Sansa has been given little or no agency this year, rather than a couple of choice one-liners at dinner with the Boltons.  In this episode, like all the other episodes, she is talked to, intimidated by or maneuvered by another character.  At least in this episode, the intimidation factor came from Myranda, but in her complacency at the White Wedding (which, I have to admit, was one of the most gorgeously shot sequences in the show's recent memory) and in her victimization during the awful rape scene, Sansa continues to play the victim.  This season promised something more than that for Sansa, who has been playing the victim since Season 1.  But Thrones has gone out of its way to show that she has grown up a lot, that she's smarter than that.  It's not playing out that way in Winterfell, and that disturbs me.

Perhaps the bedding scene had to happen, at some point or another, and perhaps Sansa will grow and change from this experience, but another choice just shows how callously the show has treated Sansa this year.  Why did this have to be the climax?  This is the show sacrificing decency for their own shock-value, always needing to one-up itself (this has been astutely pointed out over at the AV Club as well).  Why couldn't Arya entering the Hall of Faces work just as well?  How about Margaery's incarceration?  Even the massive fuck-up at Dorne would have been less offensive.

Let's talk Dorne.  Dorne has been seriously problematic.  From the awful introduction of the Sand Snakes to the total lack of character development in the leadership department, Dorne has felt awkwardly shunted in from the very beginning.  To the show's credit, Jamie and Bronn have had a nice, interesting, funny road trip together, and the fight with the Dornish patrolmen was quality.  But this episode brought all of these elements to an utterly botched head, and oddly enough, it was in plausibility, choreography and scale - production aspects that Thrones usually excels at - that made this scene so empty.

First of all, that Jamie and Bronn would sneak into the Water Gardens at the same instant that the Sand Snakes attack stretches plausibility to the extreme.  The sneaking itself looked silly - is it really this easy to break into the capital of Dorne?  If Dornish might is to be so feared, breaking into the Water Gardens (please, Thrones, just say Sunspear or the Water Gardens instead of Dorne) shouldn't be as easy as gate-crashing a 10-year-old's birthday party.

The Sand Snakes didn't acquit themselves any better in this fight than in their wretched introductory scene.  This was the rarest of things - an appallingly choreographed Thrones fight.  It was impossible to tell what was going on or who was fighting who.  Jamie shouldn't have survived the fight.  He barely defeated the Dornish patrolmen two episodes ago, and was very lucky to do so.  If the Sand Snakes are all that and a bag of chips, as they are supposed to be, then Jamie should have died immediately.  Thank God for Bronn.  When the Sand Snakes entered and he muttered "oh, for fuck's sake," the whole Thrones viewership was thinking the same thing.

When Thrones screws up, especially from a production standpoint, it has the effect of coloring the entire episode badly, which would not be entirely fair to "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken".  One of the best sequences involved the arrest of Margaery - that seemingly inconsequential scene when she walked in on Loras getting it on with Olyvar came back to bite her in the ass in the interrogation with the High Septon (Jonathan Pryce continues to kill it).  This was some especially clever plotting on D+D's part.

Meanwhile, we see Tyrion in his element, talking his way out of death.  Tyrion has gradually been growing more and more fun to watch this year, and in this respect the show has nicely mirrored his arc in A Dance with Dragons.  And in perhaps the finest sequence, Arya gives the gift of the Faceless Men to a sick, dying girl herself, and she does it with adult tact and composure.  Then, she is finally allowed into the magnificent Hall of Faces, a set that I've been hoping to see all year and which the Thrones production team absolutely crushed.

Unfortunately, all of this fine work overshadowed by monumental fuck-ups in Dorne and Winterfell.  This wasn't the conclusion of either story, and I'll give both arcs the benefit of the doubt until the end of the season (to be honest, I am very hopeful for the Winterfell arc, which up until this episode I have absolutely loved - less so for Dorne).  Unlike Democratic senator Claire McCaskill, I'm not going to give up on Thrones, but I also haven't been this concerned about the future of the show in a while.

C

Bits 

- I think having three girls fighting with a whip, double knives and a spear is cool to imagine in the books but logistically difficult to make convincing in the show.

- Nice to see Mr. Eko from Lost show up as Tyrion and Jorah's slaver.

- I am still hoping for a major Dorne reveal from Alexander Siddig, who hasn't done much but certainly feels like Doran Martell to me.  Also from this episode, perhaps my fears of an Arys Oakheart stand-in were unfounded.

- Welcome back, Diana Rigg, still some of the best casting the show has ever done.

- Littlefinger has a meeting with Cersei that does absolutely nothing to make his intentions clearer.

Book Bits

- Nothing major here, other than what I mentioned about Winterfell.

Kill the Boy

Early in the latest edition of Thrones, Jon is consulting Aemon Targaryen about a plan of Jon's, one that he knows will be deeply unpopular, but Aemon stops Jon before he can get to the specifics.  Aemon says that if Jon has thought things through and is sure that this it the right thing to do, then he ought to do it.  "Kill the boy, Jon Snow, and let the man be born."  'The boy' is hesitation, insecurity.  As the Watch (and the realm) faces its gravest challenge yet, there is no room for youthful indecision from the Lord Commander.

This thought (which the reckless but confident fifth season of Thrones has also taken to heart) is appealing but somewhat ambiguous in practice.  For our three big new leaders - Jon, Daenerys and Cersei - the relevance is obvious, and particularly so for Jon and Dany in this episode.  Jon and Dany, young and idealistic, want to forge new worlds, and in this episode take brave, bold steps towards doing so.  But decisive leadership alone isn't enough, as Thrones has illustrated time and time again.  Cersei, not seen in this episode, has epitomized confidence this year but is setting her house up for political alienation and collapse.  Time will tell whether Jon and Dany's courage under fire in "Kill the Boy" will prove commensurate to the challenges they face.

Jon and Dany are both influenced by fear - Jon has seen the White Walkers and their wights, as well as the abject terror of one hundred thousand fleeing Wildlings.  The Night's Watch wouldn't have survived the Wildling invasion without Stannis; how can they expect to survive the Long Night if they don't boost their strength?  Furthermore, if they couldn't stop the living Wildling army, they can hardly stop it when the Wildlings become an army of undead wights, doing the bidding of the mysterious Walkers?  In these respects, Jon's plan - to travel to Hardhome and offer the remaining Wildlings amnesty and land south of the Wall in exchange for joining the fight against the Walkers - is entirely sound.  The Night's Watch could remove an enemy and gain some battle-hardened allies.

But the plan is as risky as it is bold.  The Night's Watch and the Wildlings have battled each other for thousands of years.  The Watch recently lost some 50 brothers in the battle at the wall, including good friends of Jon's.  Young Olly lost his entire village.  Jon's negotiation with Tormund Giantsbane goes far better than his entreaties to the Watch.  Even Dolorous Edd has reservations.  Olly turns against his Lord Commander, perhaps permanently.  Part of this is related to the content of the plan, but Jon is also partly to blame.  Never the most expressive character, Jon has trouble relaying the urgency and complete logicality of his plan to the Watch, resorting instead to vague hints like "Winter is coming.  We know what's coming with it," which sounds great in a trailer for Thrones but not especially sensible to the hate-filled Night's Watch.

Fear and hate are also at the heart of Daenerys's troubles in Meereen.  With the death of Barristan, things have gotten to a personal breaking point for Dany.  To deal appropriately with the Sons of the Harpy, Dany will have to be a little less waffling.  Like Jon, however, there are problems with her approach.  Though her eventual, diplomatic solution of reopening the fighting pits to free fighters and marrying a Meereenese local, Hizdahr zo Loraq, seems sound, she prefaces it by dragging the Great Masters to her dragon pits and burning one of them alive.  She appears powerful and intimidating, but in the context of her final move, it's actually a bit indecisive on her part.  While Jon takes bold action at the beginning of "Kill the Boy," it is Daenerys who sees the most development in this respect over the course of the episode, finally thinking through a radical decision in which she has complete confidence, and then seeing it through.

As thoughtful and even self-sacrificing as her final choice is (she is not Hizdahr's biggest fan), Dany, like Jon, may be up against a conflict that she simply cannot resolve.  Our young dragon queen is not especially well-schooled in the history of her family, but the Targaryens are of Old Valyria, the ancient enemies of the Ghiscari Empire that now has its strongest remnants in the culture of Meereen.  The old-fashioned, traditional citizens of this city hate her far more than she can possibly realize, and the fear that the Sons of the Harpy's terrorist campaign strikes in the hearts of Dany and her freed slaves reflects this hate.  Still, her solution is diplomatic, and re-opening the fighting pits is a major concession to the old traditions of the city.  As with Jon, time will tell.

This was a remarkably focused episode, thematically and otherwise.  Most of the remaining action took place at the increasingly fascinating Winterfell setting.  Sansa and Ramsay both need to grow up a lot too, and its incredibly twisted to watch them do so in the same space.  This episode was mostly focused on Ramsay, who has been given much more responsibility since his father had him legitimized.  Ramsay understands this, to a degree, but he still cannot help posturing to prove his own power.  At dinner with Roose and Walda, he brings Theon/Reek in and forces him to apologize to Sansa for killing her brothers.  Roose, Ramsay and Reek know that the Bran and Rickon aren't dead, but far nastier is the unspoken subtext that Roose betrayed and personally killed Robb Stark.  A reserved but furious Roose gets his own back by telling Ramsay that Walda has a baby boy on the way - a potential threat to Ramsay's tenuous legitimacy.

Roose then delivers fatherly encouragement that could only come from a Bolton, and in a way, encourages Ramsay to 'kill the boy' as well.  Contrasting nicely with Stannis's endearing scene last week, Roose tells Ramsay that he is a true Bolton by way of recounting the day he raped Ramsay's mother.  Ramsay has got to stop being such a shitbag if the Boltons are to survive Stannis’s coming assault.  What is particularly delicious about this scene is the level on which Roose is simply manipulating Ramsay for his own uses.  These Boltons are a cold, evil breed, and Roose is perfectly happy to manipulate his son’s only weakness for his own ends.  

The episode did leave me wanting in one major respect, though I'm not worried about it in the future.  Sansa was a part of a lot of good scenes this week, but they were relatively passive.  The Myranda scene was interesting, and Sansa was sassy, but it was ultimately a vehicle for her to be introduced to Reek.  The dinner was the same - Sansa got one zinger, but the scene ultimately amounted to Bolton power dynamics.  She's been a bit too passive, fascinating as her content has been.  I'm hoping this will change in the later episodes, but for now there's not much evidence to that effect.

Thrones has been reckless this year, especially with respect to adapting the books, but the steps that the show has taken with Ramsay, Jon and Daenerys all feel appropriate when they construct a dramatically coherent episode like this, and this episode reaches the dramatic heights of Thrones at its best.  But even in an episode like this that skimped on the action (aside from a wonderful dragon-burning scene), "Kill the Boy" ratcheted up the tension and then dished out by far the finest Tyrion scene yet this year, a majestic journey Tyrion and Jorah take through the smoking ruins of Old Valyria.  This was not just a good scene because it was exciting - Tyrion and Jorah battle some Stone Men, greyscale patients left to rot in Valyria like lepers, and Jorah is infected in the major twist of the episode - but because of a haunting sighting of Drogon.  The moment has personal resonance for both Tyrion and Jorah (Tyrion has expressed before that he's always wanted to see a dragon, and Jorah knows him) but it also serves the purpose of emotionally drawing the disparate universes of Game of Thrones closer together by reminding us that Tyrion really is on his way to Meereen.  It has felt like the show has only been including Tyrion in recent episodes because he's supposed to be the heart and soul of the series, rather than because he's actually been important to the plot.  But this episode finally made Tyrion's story emotionally compelling again while hinting at his eventual return to political relevance, albeit under very different circumstances.

B+

Bits

- Stannis again shows his own type of sensitive side - he could have been meaner to Sam for his surprising unmilitancy, but instead encourages him to "keep reading".  Stannis' practicality outweighs his judgmental side; he knows that Sam's knowledge will be invaluable when the Walkers inevitably come.

- I could do with some more Tormund.  

- I could not give fewer fucks about the Grey Worm/Missandei mess.  The show is doing many things better than ever this year, but a few bits - this silly romance and the Sand Snakes - are some of the worst stuff they've ever done.

- They are being far more liberal with the dragon sightings this year than ever before - it's almost casual.  Indicative of more money being thrown into the show and I love it.  In both scenes this week the dragon usage was meaningful.

Book Bits 

- First Bowen Marsh sighting.  I thought we'd have seen him earlier, and perhaps he may not play much of a role this season.  There's no doubt in my mind where Olly's going to land though.

- Melisandre going with Stannis is a change and has implications for that last Wall scene of Dance.  

- With respect to the death of Ser Barristan, it appears that he was killed to give Daenerys a emotional impetus to take radical action.  The reasons in A Dance with Dragons are political and complicated and far too much for the show to include in their entirety.  I'm not so sure about the Battle of Fire being included at all, it just seems too complicated.

- Greyscale Jorah - so is Jon Conningtoning somehow?  Will he take Barristan's defense of Meereen?

- Aaaannnd we get the first mention of that Hardhome setting, not actually seen in the books but mentioned in the "Day in the Life" feature and reportedly the home of the single most expensive sequence Thrones has ever produced.  The footage that I think will be from Hardhome that I can see from the 2 trailers they put out looks incredibly violent and, to be honest, scares the shit out of me.  As always, dread.  

Sons of the Harpy

I suppose I look like a bit of an idiot now for calling last week’s episode “a watershed moment” in the book-to-show transition of Game of Thrones.  This week, the brutal episode “Sons of the Harpy” largely lured viewers into a false sense of security before putting both schooled and unschooled fans through a horrific shock death, perhaps two.  On the traditional opening day of the Meereenese fighting pits, the insurgent Sons of the Harpy ambush Daenerys’s patrolling Unsullied in the backstreets of Meereen.  The entire patrol is wiped out along with Ser Barristan, who takes it upon himself to attack the attackers, killing most of them before being stabbed in the heart himself.  Though Barristan went out with an absolute bang, it was an inglorious end for perhaps the greatest contemporary Westerosi knight. 

I can’t write this review without getting this fact out of the way – Barristan is alive in the books, and not just alive, but alive and doing exceedingly important things.  His death thus portents considerable changes in Daenerys’ storyline, and in that sense, the proof will be in the pudding as to whether this was a good idea or not.  I feel slighted, shocked and angry, but considering the experiences of show-watchers, who have endured the shock deaths of far more important and beloved characters, I feel a bit ashamed.  Barristan is no Robb Stark.  In some ways, this is the first time I’ve ever really experienced what this show really is.  Maybe I should just grow up.  

The subreddit has been having an absolute conniption about that scene.  In some respects it was not thoughtfully choreographed – the Unsullied fight in a phalanx and would never have broken rank and been cut up like that - but the broader strokes of the scene make a lot of sense.  The Unsullied were lured into a trap by citizens (that black-hearted prostitute is due for a cut throat) and were surrounded and outnumbered in a dark alleyway.  Even if they had fought properly, the point of being ensnared in a foreign city where the citizens hate you was the overriding point, and the Unsullied would have lost this fight either way.  Sure, the Sons of the Harpy only had daggers but many of them were probably out-of-work pit fighters.  The scene worked very well as an appropriate escalation of what is becoming a very terrifying insurgency (the Thrones production squad absolutely slayed it with the masks).  

Before the climactic action scene, director Daniel Mylod and writer Dave Hill gave us a very well-paced episode, one that not only moved the action decisively forward in several locations but also did some shrewd bits of world-building and gave us one of the most unexpectedly touching scenes in Thrones history.  Personal fury aside, this was an excellent episode in many respects. 

The most eventful and momentum-building scenes came in King’s Landing.  At one of the increasingly small Small Council meetings, Cersei sent Mace Tyrell to Braavos to renegotiate the crown's terms with the Iron Bank along with her thug Meryn Trant, which basically amounts to an execution.  She then has a meeting with the High Sparrow and offers to arm the Faith Militant, hoping that they will become as much a tool of the crown – read: Cersei – as a tool of the faith.  Jonathan Pryce and Lena Headey are both terrific in their meeting, as each believes they are getting exactly what they want from the other and can barely contain it.  The Faith Militant embarks on a rampage of justice all across King’s Landing, smashing false idols, destroying wine caskets and raiding the brothels once again.  They castrate homosexuals, which is a bit ham-handed and anachronistic but at least consistent with Cersei’s more meaningful scheme of having Ser Loras Tyrell imprisoned for the same offense.  It also sets up the Faith’s awful sexual politics, which will be relevant later. 

Cersei’s approach to her natural rivals, the Tyrells, highlights the fundamental differences between herself and her father.  Tywin found the Tyrells distasteful but was also fully aware they were the only natural rivals to the Lannisters in terms of power and influence, and thus shrewdly knew that the most logical move for his house was to bind them in an alliance.  Cersei allows her personal distaste for the Tyrells to act as her primary motivating factor.  She would love nothing more than to jail all of them but in seeing them as her enemies she is in fact alienating the only allies the Lannisters have left.  Back in Season 4, Cersei asked Tywin what a jailed Tyrion should deserve for setting the Lannister future on fire, but nobody has done more in service of that goal than Season 5 Cersei.

Cersei makes an incredibly irresponsible parenting move later in the episode by pressuring Tommen to confront the High Sparrow personally, which almost leads to disaster.  This is offset, however, by some very heartwarming parenting from the unlikeliest of figures, the steely Stannis.  By far the best scene this week, and one of the best in the show to date, came from Stannis telling his daughter the story of her greyscale infection and his relentless efforts to save her.  "You are the Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon.  And you are my daughter."  Thrones never, ever tries to warm our hearts, just break them.  I'm hoping to God this isn't the plan here, but for now, color me tickled.  The show desperately needs these moments, no matter how occasionally.  

This excellent episode, which for the most part tempered brutal militant escalation in King's Landing and Meereen with some deeply thoughtful scenes like the one mentioned above, delivered a decidedly mixed bag in Dorne.  On the one hand, we got a very entertaining fight scene between Jamie/Bronn and some Dornish patrolmen.  On the other hand, the Sand Snakes are probably the worst-realized characters in Thrones history.  I don't want to besmirch this review by spending more time on them, but it's just really, really bad writing.  The characters are awkwardly shunted in there, and it's just not much of a story.  

But this does little to dampen an otherwise excellent episode, full of major plot escalation, tightly-written and character-driven small-scale scenes, and a savage shock death.  Season 5 continues to impress me as much as it horrifies me.  I think this is how show-watchers have been feeling the whole time while I've been smirking in the corner.  The book reader in me could snark at all the changes, but the truth is, this has already been a wild ride, and I love it.  

A- (A if not for the Sand Snakes)

Bits

- Maybe the best touch of this episode was Tommen on the steps of the sept and the smallfolk calling him an abomination or whatever.  Good stuff.

- I would certainly love to see the blubbering Mace Tyrell attempt to negotiate with Mark Gatiss's icy Iron Bank representative.

- Another less-than-stellar week for our boy Tyrion, but it was pretty funny when Jorah just knocked him for being such a dick.

- Great sword-hand catch by Jaime.  I don't know why he doesn't use the hand all the time.  That said, he was right to note that it was just luck, and things may not be so easy when they get to Sunspear.

Book Bits

- Meryn Trant is firmly on Arya's list.  Mercy, Mercy Me?

- The show hit book readers with Rhaegar stuff like they were using a fucking hammer this week.  That said, I think that while all the pieces are there for a show watcher to put it together, it would take a pretty astute viewer to do so.  Loved to see Aidan Gillen tell one of the series' best backstories.  

- I just about shit my pants when Carice van Houten delivered the iconic "you know nothing, Jon Snow".  What is his deal with redheads?

- Can't overstate the fucking-up of the Sand Snakes.  That Obara monologue was cringe-worthy.  The sad thing is, it's not even the actresses, but poor writing.  They obviously don't have time to do this properly and it should probably have been excised entirely, as they originally planned.  I would have preferred Arianne and like 1 well-developed Sand Snake.  And I'm still terrified about who may fill the Arys Oakheart role.

High Sparrow

In many ways, "High Sparrow" represented a sum of all my meta-textual fears about this fifth season of Game of Thrones, and in an even more complicated respect than I had imagined.  In a pivotal scene tonight, D&D threw us book-readers for our biggest loop to date by announcing that Sansa (Sophie Turner) will be marrying the deplorable Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon).  Is this a spoiler?  Is it a change? Both?  I will ruminate more excessively on these implications later, but one cannot discuss "High Sparrow" without noting that this episode represents a watershed moment in the adaptation history of this series.

It is also worth noting that the creators rose to the challenge and then some in making this bold decision.  "High Sparrow" is not only the best episode of Thrones this season, it has me convinced that this season is truly going to be the best season of Thrones.  I can't recall feeling such confidence in Game of Thrones, not just as an adaptation, but as a show.  I thought I would despise spoilers, and perhaps this bullet will be easier to bite than the teased death later in the season, but they delivered so damn well that I couldn't have cared less.  The content at Winterfell was second only to Jon Snow in this episode.

After teasing us with the flayed man banner over Winterfell in the opening credits, we returned to the ancestral northern holdfast for the first time since Theon and Ramsay ran it into the ground in the second season.  It is, above all, terribly sad - the Boltons are the greatest remaining villains in the show, and the return to Winterfell, where the show really began, emphasizes just how much tragedy has befallen our beloved Starks over the last few seasons.  Indeed, the focus of this episode is the respective evolutions of the Stark children.

Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton, promoted to the main cast with this episode), is reeling from the death of Tywin Lannister as much as Jaime and Cersei.  Despised by the northern lords (no northern family emerged from the Red Wedding unscathed), Roose was protected only by the fear of Tywin Lannister.  Now he desperately needs to legitimize his rule over the north, and to this end he forges a bold new alliance with Petyr Baelish, who himself is playing a very dangerous game.  Littlefinger will offer the support of the Vale, while the Boltons get a proper Stark heir shore up their rule.

Sansa appears to be a pawn in all this, but when Littlefinger tells her about his plan, he convinces her to go along by insinuating that this is really an opportunity for her to re-embrace her identity as a Stark.  "There's no justice in this world, not unless we make it.  Avenge them," he says.  This hints that Littlefinger will betray the Boltons, but it does not make Sansa any less of a pawn in his game.  He says he's heard very little about Ramsay - coming from Varys's only true rival in King's Landing, this rings false.  Either the creators are mischaracterizing him a bit, or (more likely, I think) they're emphasizing that Littlefinger will happily sacrifice Sansa's well-being for his own ends.

They are followed by Brienne and Pod, who abandon the convoy at Moat Cailin.  Brienne says she and Pod will go around - obviously, they do not know how impassible the Neck is, and I expect serious road troubles for BriPod in the coming episodes.  Meanwhile, Stannis plots an invasion of the North.  I can envision some ways in which they are adjusting the book plots to reach the same climax at the end of A Dance with Dragons, but on the whole, this is shaping up to be a fascinating convergence.

As a change, this is colossal.  But as has been the case this year, the writing and acting has just been so terrific that I was immediately sold.  Roose and Littlefinger have never spoken in the books - to see these two most cunning, implacable figures speak with each other was one of the greatest thrills of the episode.  This was phenomenal television, and I look forward to this direction.

Jon and Arya are the other main focal point of this episode; both are asked to confront themselves as Starks and as people.  In Braavos, Arya has been sweeping the floor of the House of Black and White for days, but as Jaqen points out, she has hardly progressed in her quest to become "no one".  "How did no one come to be surrounded by Arya Stark's things?" he asks, gesturing to her clothes, her silver and her blade.  In a powerful scene, phenomenally acted by Maisie Williams, Arya throw most of her items into the sea, but she can't quite give up Needle, Jon Snow's parting gift to her.  Instead she hides it in some rocks and returns to the House, where she is seemingly promoted.

Jon rejects his Stark heritage more completely, at least on the face of it.  Arya buried Needle, presumably to return later, but having been elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon rejects Stannis's offer to become Lord of Winterfell and give Stannis his aid in regaining the North.  But would Jon call this a rejection of his heritage?  I'm not sure.  Stannis compares Jon's relentless honor to that of Ned, which Jon considers a high compliment (Stannis disagrees).  Jon is simply trying to do what his father would do.

The connections to Ned are deepened in the most riveting scene of the episode, the execution of Janos Slynt for insubordination.  Slynt, recall, betrayed Ned back in "You Win or You Die," though Jon doesn't know this.  Slimy as always, Slynt refuses Jon Snow's order to repair the abandoned ruin of Greyguard.  For this Jon personally executes him.  Dominic Carter gives a fine last performance, breaking down and admitting his inner cowardice, emotively and pathetically.  Jon hesitates but executes him anyways.  Back is the second season Jon failed to execute Ygritte and was captured by the Wildlings, but Jon is not the green boy he was back then.  He's becoming a proto-Ned Stark in command of the Night's Watch.  Whether he survives command better than his father did remains to be seen.

Though "High Sparrow" saw the most substantial book-to-show changes, the show maintained a remarkably firm grasp of character and circumstance.  Returning the series to Winterfell does wonders with respect to the feels - it's simultaneously heartening and heartbreaking to return to Winterfell in the state that it's in.  Meanwhile this episode maintained thematic unity, showing three of the remaining Stark children facing their Stark identities in the face of huge, and hugely different, personal challenges.  Add in the fantastic introduction of an ambiguous but intriguing new character, the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) and crisp pacing, and "High Sparrow" stands out not only as one of the best episodes of this season but of the entire series.

A

Bits

- The previous High Septon is caught in Littlefinger's brothel by some black-robed Sparrows, a new breed of militant servants of the Faith of the Seven whipped and made to walk naked through the streets in a fairly harrowing scene.  Good scene (and foreshadowy), but far funnier was the septon's absurd worship fantasy with prostitutes standing in for each of the seven.  Olyvar in the beard was hilarious - "always the maiden..."

- The presentation of this development to the Small Council also provoked one of Pycelle's funniest moments in recent memory.  "A man's private affairs should remain private!"  The blustery Mace Tyrell also gets a great one "High Septon! This is a rather shocking thing to hear!"

- Didn't mention it, but the stuff with Margaery and Cersei this week was terrific.  I especially like the way Tommen is being depicted.  He's a sweet, ultimately pretty inconsequential kid, but in the scene where he suggests Cersei return to Casterly Rock he gets a bit of agency.

- "Welcome home, Lady Stark.  The North remembers." Chills.

- I'm officially going to say that Tyrion is just boring so far.  But at least giving him only one scene a week minimizes the boredom.  I genuinely believe it's going to get better.  The brothel scene was, at least, his best all year.

Book Bits

- Robert Strong sighting!  But this does not confirm Cleganebowl.  I'm not a huge fan of that theory as it doesn't really fit with the new "Gravedigger" characterization of Sandor.

- I hate the setup of a Brienne/Stannis confrontation, as Brienne is one of the finest killers in Westeros and I'm firmly on Team Stannis.  That said it would be completely in GRRM's wheelhouse to have Brienne die horribly in the attempt.

- Serious concerns with Ollie.  He fucking hates the Wildlings.  He may be "for the Watch".

- I am really, really looking forward to Theon's arc this season if they do it right.  Having Sansa stand in for Jeyne Poole is going to make it all the more powerful.  Terrific nonverbal performance from Alfie Allen.

- The Daenerys cosplay is a bit silly, but as is often the case the sexposition tells us something - Dany is being mythologized and culturalized within Essos already, even if they haven't really gotten the message yet in Westeros.  Tells us something about Daenerys even if we don't see her this week.

- The Faith Militant is ok...a bit over-the-top.

- Jonathan Pryce is excellent.

- Edd may not have fetched a block, but Olly fetched a sword, and more importantly, Stannis nodded.  I fucking love Stannis this year.