Gamer Throons (SPOILERS for S6Ep7)

Another very short episode. The next three are all long ones but this felt too short, as did last week; we could have had at least one more scene, possibly two this week. Having set up Septon Meribald they could have given us the Broken Man speech in full, there would have been time and it would have taken the length of the speech (about five minutes), times retakes, to film. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Old Man rating: 7/10. Minus two points for shortness, minus one for the Waif's rank incompetence (see below).

To begin at the beginning: I really enjoyed the whole Hound sequence. I like the cold open (action before the credits) and this episode felt like it was shot noticeably differently from what we've seen so far this season (and better). It was nicely done - though the Brotherhood Without Banners has changed since last we met them. Will we see Cleganebowl? I'm still not sure but this makes it more likely.

The Kings Landing scenes were really good this week. Margaery is clearly Playing The Game, and playing it well. Diana Rigg turned it up to 11 for Cersei - who wouldn't have enjoyed that? Well, Cersei, obviously. But it really drew out how isolated Cersei now is. She said "...and surely you're not going to kill them all" - but I suspect that's where this is all leading (I think she will follow the Mad King and try to use wildfire to destroy the Red Keep - leaving it burned out and roofless as Dany found it in her House Of The Undying vision - I think she will kill some known characters by doing this, and may well die herself this season - Tommen has to die first, though, and maybe the Faith chooses him for the Trial By Combat...).

No Dany Motivational Speech(tm)! No Euron Cartoonish Villainry(tm). In the books Euron is a very complex, very dark character, not the caricature we've seen so far in the shows. I didn't really go for the whole Yara/Theon scene, but you could see Theon emerge from Reek (again) at the end of it.

Lady Mormont was the star of the episode for me. In general I liked the way that not all the northern houses are just swinging behind Jonsa. There are and have been real consequences to war; and while Jon excels at some things he isn't good at the diplomacy lark. He can work with the wildlings because he's a straight talker and they respect that but those aren't necessarily the skills he needs when drumming up support. More hints at a rift between Jon and Sansa - she doesn't understand why he's listening to Davos and he doesn't know she's in touch with Littlefinger (to whom that raven was surely sent).

I enjoyed the Riverrun scene immensely. Jaime getting some of his mojo back, Bronn is back, Freys being Freys and Blackfish reminding us why he's such a favourite. The standoff between him and Jaime was perfectly done, and you could see how deflated Jaime was by Blackfish's parting "I was disappointed". With Brienne coming to the castle next episode it's shaping up nicely.

Which leaves the Arya piece. I'm very much in two minds here, as stuff just didn't ring true in a number of ways.

Where did Arya get all that money from? Where did Arya get that swagger from - she was walking like Tyrion walked in Mereen, like she owned the place. Knowing that the World's Deadliest Assassins(tm) were now after her, she advertised her presence by the docks and then she decided to stop and take in the view from a bridge in open view. The old woman was so clearly the Waif. But then this highly trained assassin failed to kill her completely surprised mark. Why didn't she simply open an artery? Instead she went for a stab and a twist to the guts - which would kill you in real life if the intestine was pierced and certainly if you then jumped into a canal full of human waste, inter alia. But slowly and painfully (which is probably why she did it) and who's to say Arya can't find some kind of healer in the meantime...

Did Arya prepare herself somehow - did she use mummers' tricks, pigs blood or whatever beneath her clothes, so that she would leave a trail back to somewhere she could surprise her pursuer? But then how could she be so certain that the Waif would go for a gutshot and not a clean kill?

Was it even Arya? Was it someone else with Arya's face (normally someone needs to be dead for face to be used - but we saw Arya's face on someone else last season, though it's possible that was just Arya hallucinating). Is the Waif actually the one being tested at the minute - was that a fake Arya designed to see if she would, despite Jaqen's instructions, make her suffer? After all the Waif is certainly not no-one, she clearly harbours resentment towards Arya and no-one wouldn't do that. But a "fake Arya" feels like something I should don a tinfoil helmet before considering - it's not too complex for the books (indeed there is a whole fake Arya subplot with Ramsay in the books) but might be a layer too far for the show. I dunno.

We'll find out next week (the episode is called "No-one"). I can't decide what the twist is but I'm fairly sure there will be some kind of twist. I think the real Arya will eventually kill the Waif. I'm hoping that Jaqen then says she can leave.

Overall it had the feel of an early-season episode, say season 1 or 2, where characters developed, plots were advanced and there were a lot of different moving parts. I think the last three episodes will be blockbusters and last week and this week have more or less been setup for those.

Blimey. I don't half drivel on.

Posted By: Old Man on June 7th 2016 at 10:37:20

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