The Story Thus Far
Last week boils down to two fucking things and two alone: Jon Snow doesn't know when to get in the fucking car and ice dragon is absurd. What does it spew? Ice cubes?! And then when it does that, does it make the same sound as some ancient hotel ice machine all like, "Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm" followed by the clanking sound of cubes falling into a bucket?! IS THAT WHAT HAPPENS!?!?! IS IT?! Even people I know who LOVE this show can't defend it anymore. Ugh. Anyway, hold onto your cubes—it's Game of Thrones for Noobs!
The Gist
A lot of dumbass things are up in the air as we head into the season finale: Where's Theon? What's up with the ice zombies and how does their king know how to javelin that well? Does Arya hate Sansa now? Does Sansa hate her back? If Cersei and Daenerys are gonna meet and talk peace, will everyone else be OK? And then, almost most importantly, are Snow and Daenerys gonna take it to Bone City?
Dateline—some effing field outside a castle in God-knows-where, Westeros. Eight bazillion dudes who look exactly the same stand in perfect lines while Baron von Chinstrap (aka Bron) hangs around the walls with Jamie. OK, so this must be King's Landing. Bron and Jamie talk about dicks for, like, a really long time as the Dothraki horde shows up all screamy and glistening in the sun. On the opposite side of the castle, where the sea lies, Tyrion, Snow, Theon, Davos, Frankie, Jordan, Captain Caveman, Scooby, Jesus, Clegane, Mr. Ed and Richard Nixon sail in, ice zombie in tow, ready to blow some minds with the actual existence of the undead monsters. Everyone is tense, especially when we cut inside to Cersei who gives her bodyguard (his name is The Tall Hill, I think) a kill-in-this-order list: Dany, Tyrion and all the rest.
Meanwhile, out in the wooded path alongside the castle, a bunch of principal characters meet at long last. Tyrion sees a dude he knows, and everyone else clenches like there's no tomorrow. Clegane hangs with Brienne who's like, "We're both pretty tall, bro, is that an ice zombie in that box?" Clegane is all like, "I dunno. Maybe." Bron and Tyrion exchange verbal blows. They like each other. And voila—some coliseum/amphitheater kinda thing appears for their peace-talk convenience. Cersei arrives with Jamie and Uncy Greyjoy. It zooms in on Theon, obviously, and everyone takes their seats to begin. Meanwhile, this writer pauses the stream to get a look at how long the episode will last; 90 minutes, it says, although this writer is pretty sure it could've been half that without the four minutes it took Cersei to walk over to her fucking chair. "Where's Daenerys?" Cersei demands. "Probably flying in on a dragon, sucka!" Tyrion retorts, just as that very thing happens. Clearly a show of force from the queen of Dragonburg, and her auxiliary dragon flaps about just as impressively. This also takes a really long time as we catch fleeting glimpses of everyone's "Oh shit, a dragon!" face. Snooze.
Finally everyone just sits the hell down as Cersei steals my line ("We've been here for some time.") and Uncy Greyjoy makes threats about shit. Cersei and Jamie ain't having it, though, and they make him sit at the kid's table. He pouts. And Tyrion finally begins. "Shit's tough," he says, "and everyone is dying. Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing or fighting my friends." Snow joins him in the talking-ness, and slowly (so so slowly) leads up to the reveal of the ice zombie. Clegane brings it up from some heretofore unseen basement, carrying it in a crate like it's a fucking backpack. He unlocks the 75 locks on the crate and the ice zombie cometh straight at Cersei. Of course, it gets cut in half and spends some time ice zombie-ing it up on the ground despite its in half-ness. The collective "Oh shit!" moment reverberates throughout the amphitheater. Snow gives a mini "See!?!?!?!!?!" speech before stabbing it with dragonglass. It dies. He's all, "Yeah, bitch!" at everyone. Uncy Greyjoy is basically like, "See ya, I'm going back to my island nation." Everyone knew he was a little punk, though the terror is felt by all. Finally Cersei and Jamie and Chinstrap get it and a tenuous alliance is formed so long as Snow goes the hell home and stays the hell home. "Naw," he says. "Naw." Methinks it's because he wants to bone down with Daenerys, but it makes Cersei get up and leave with a smug, "Have fun fighting the ice zombies," rejoinder. Jamie just watches, impotently. And they leave. The rest of them (being the good guys or, at least, some version of good guys) stay to hang and debate the usefulness of lies and half-truths. Tyrion decides to go chat with Cersei alone.
Over at the castle, it's a Lannister family reunion. Shouts and tears flow like the ice cubes from the mouth of an ice dragon, but just when we think she's gonna have Tyrion cut the eff up, she doesn't. Instead, they drink a little wine and feel the tense-ness of the situation. "Sorry I caused the death of all your kids," Tyrion says, but Cersei doesn't care, choosing instead to shit on the concepts of love and feelings. Which is weird, because it's revealed she's pregnant—yet another incest baby for the Lannisters. Yikes.
Back in the amphitheater, Snow get a history o' dragons lesson from Daenerys. They make googly eyes at one another for a minute or two before Tyrion returns to spoil the effing moment. Oh zam, Cersei came back, too, and the decision is made that she's gonna join forces with Daenerys to fight the ice zombies and that they can get back to hating each other once that's dealt with.
In the north, Sansa and Baelish join in on the "Snow and Dany are INTO each other!" train of thought. There's also talk about Arya having become an assassin. Sure, they both think it's cool, but who knows what she's capable of at this point? I mean, we know it's a lot, but neither Sansa nor Peter "Quantum Break" Baelish are aware of her throat-slashin', Frey-poisonin' moves over the past however long.
We return to Dragonville castle, where a planning meeting goes down. Snow and Daenerys make totally obvious plans to sail around together, but Theon sees right through it. Still, he sets that aside to continue the "should Snow have lied to Cersei?" convo and tell everyone that he's Lily Allen's brother, and an important lesson is revealed: Honesty is a good policy. Damn. How many times dow we have to reinforce the idea that Snow is a good guy? Like, can we just all know and believe that yet? Anyway, it's showdown time for Theon, so he hits the beach to recruit some of his Iron Island buddies to save his sister. Too bad the beardiest one of them spits in his face and tells him to kick rocks. A fight ensues, Theon gets beat up pretty hard, but he's tired of being a coward…which results in him getting beaten even worse. And yet, he stands and fights again and again. This works because the other dude tries for the groin shot, but Theon ain't had a dick in ages. He face-smashes the guy until he's unconscious, and this somehow turns the rest of the Greyjoys to his side. To think, all it took was him getting kicked in the dick, or at least where the dick used to be. So now they're friends, I guess. Dumb.
Back in the north, Sansa decides it’s time to work shit out with Arya once and for all. They are, after all, sisters. Oat-Bran is there, too, readily ignoring his ability to see the future in favor of staring at everyone like a motherfucking creep. Turns out this is a trial for Baelish, though—for murder and treason and for having a creeper mustache—and he's, like, pretty surprised. I mean, he has to know something like this was coming...but dude still gets all nervous. He tries to sing and dance his way out of it, but ain’t nobody having it. Arya likes this. Bran likes this. Baelish does not like this. He falls to his knees to cry. Not a single person in the room feels bad for him and then—HOLY SHIT! ARYA JUST SLASHED HIS THROAT RIGHT OPEN! Dang! He dies. And no one cares even at all, not counting those few fans at home who're like, "Woah! They just killed Baelish!" Dang-a-zang.
In King's Landing, Cersei reveals to Jamie that she was lying about joining forces with Daenerys. Jamie doesn't like that, but Cersei doesn't care. She's somehow pretty sure there's only two dragons left, which seems like a pretty big thing to assume, but whatever. Jamie leaves, knowing full well his sister is pregnant and that it's probably his, because this is about life and death, not houses and families and really tall dudes with stupid fucking helmets. Off he rides to the north where he'll probably be friends with Snow and them and someone will say something like, "We never thought we'd trust a Lannister," and then it'll be all tense, "but welcome aboard, you fake-hand-owning sonofabitch!"
We revisit Oat-Bran in Winterfell who is paid a visit by Samwise Gamgee (or is it Samwell Tarly…? Toucan Sam…? Uncle Sam-a-lam-a-ding-dong….?). He showed up to let Bran know he’s got a gf now, he’s read a few books, cured a little bit of stone-itis—that he’s really blossomed. Bran thinks he knows a thing or two about who Snow’s mom and dad are, but Pudgy Junior has other news—Snow is related to Daenerys. Oat-Bran uses the power of Max von Tree-dow to see this through the vortex of time and space. It’s true. Oh boy.
Anyway...
The Good
OK, so we got a lot more closure and Baelish got his throat slashed.
The Bad
Do you guys ever think about how they could put a lot more cool stuff in each episode if they didn’t waste time on minutes-long scenes of people walking places?
The Grade: B-
Even though they’re related, we kinda wanted to see Snow and Daenerys bone down. And man, did they. And we’ll even admit it—the ice dragon is pretty cool.
