Game of Thrones Episode 6.06: “Blood of My Blood”

[chavalah]

This episode, like the last one, is also named for the final scene, where—mild spoilers—Daenerys gives a motivational speech to her Dothraki. :P Usually khals choose three bloodriders, aka the blood of my blood.

Family and loyalty are called into question a lot during this hour. Jaime and the Tyrells join forces to save Margaery and Loras, and take down the faith militant once and for all. Arya has to decide whether or not she’s going to poison Lady Crane,as per Faceless demands. Sam’s homecoming is fraught with all sorts of unresolved tension. We visit the Twins, and get a recap on what’s been going on with House Frey, those lovely people. :P And Bran also meets up with someone who’s been gone for a very long time. Slipping pretty damn close to spoilers here!

Here’s the big shocker—no Tyrion! :0 Can’t recall any other episode where he hasn’t been around, at least briefly. Guess it shows just how much story they have to fit into this season.


Summary
Beyond the Wall
Bran is still plugged into his warged state as he’s basically downloading the history of the world; we pay special attention to the Mad King with his wildfire, screaming “burn them all!” By the time he wakes up, Meera is exhausted from pulling his sled through the snow, and about to be overtaken by wights. A hooded figure, revealed to be the long lost and now magically kept alive Uncle Benjen arrives to save them, and to give Bran a pep talk about readying himself for the Night King.

Horn Hill
En route to Horn Hill, Sam lays out that in order for Gilly and the baby to be taken care of, they have to say that he’s the father and that Gilly isn’t a wildling. Sam’s mother and sister are charming and kind, but things quickly go south (no pun intended) with Randyll Tarly once Gilly’s true heritage is revealed. After allowing himself to be berated by his father, Sam prepares to leave Gilly and Little Sam for good but then changes his mind, taking them and his family sword with him.

Braavos
We witness act two of the play, where Joffrey dies and Lady Crane as Cersei gives a haunting goodbye speech. As the audience applauds Arya goes backstage to spike Lady Crane’s rum, but the actress recognizes her on the way out. The two women share a moment and Arya ultimately sabotages her own assignment and reclaims Needle; the waif is watching and gets reluctant permission from Jaqen to take the other girl out.

The Twins
Walder Frey’s two sons who killed Talissa and Catelyn are back in disgrace, after having lost Riverrun to the Blackfish. They also make note that several of their neighboring Houses, plus the Brotherhood Without Banners, are making trouble for them. But Walder demands that they take the castle back, despite Blackfish’s ability to withstand a siege; he brings out Lord Edmure, in chains, having spent the last several years in the dungeon!

King’s Landing
Jaime meets up with Mace and the Tyrell army to threaten the High Sparrow before Margaery’s walk of atonement. After a tense stand off the walk is canceled because Margaery has brought the faith a big fish—King Tommen! To loud peasant cheers, Tommen unites the crown with the religious order and later strips Jaime from the kingsguard and sends him to the Twins; Cersei tells her brother to embrace this and to revenge on their enemies, starting small.

The Road to Meereen
A week out from Meereen, Daenerys oddly stops her company. She and Daario talk a little bit of shop about how many ships will be needed to sail her huge army to Westeros (more than one entity seems to have on its own) and then she disappears. Just as everyone is getting a bit restless, Dany flies down on Drogon and gives the Dothraki a rallying speech that echoes the one that Khal Drogo gave all those years ago.

Possible Book Reveals
Beyond the Wall—last episode, this segment was rife with major reveals, but in this one, one thing is majorly different—Benjen is not Coldhands, according to notes on one of Martin’s manuscripts. That’s been a very popular fan theory though. I kind of think that Benjen’s whereabouts are meant to remain a mystery for good. :/ Canon Coldhands has been with Bran and Meera for a long time at this point, guiding them through their journey. It’s also worth noting that the threat of the Others isn’t so individualistic—Bran’s purpose isn’t to fight the “Night King,” from what we know.

Horn Hill—Sam’s plan from his last published chapters is to drop Gilly and the baby with his family, where he might have a reunion with his mother and siblings. But Randyl Tarly is in King’s Landing around this time. Linda from westeros.org thinks it’s unlikely that Sam would steal the family sword; it’s quite a brash move, though sheesh do we need that Valyrian steel at the Wall! I’m inclined to believe that Sam will leave it, along with Gilly and the baby, at Horn Hill, but I could be wrong!

Braavos—I’m pretty darn sure that this entire subplot is a show invention. I do think that Arya will ultimately leave the Faceless Men, but she doesn’t have such a strong antagonist as she does in the waif. Also, she hasn’t seen sympathetic-to-her Jaqen since the second book. But I’m very curious—and a little wary—about how it will turn out, because Arya has pledged herself and no one (no pun intended) is really allowed to leave. The name “Mercy” is one of her faceless identities in the books.

The Twins—this is pretty close to the published material; the Freys often use threats against Edmure to get the Blackfish to open the gates to his castle. Walder is often angry and berating towards his family. :P The big difference is retroactive—the Blackfish never attended the Red Wedding, but instead kept control of Riverrun at that time. The Freys have never occupied the Tully castle, not for want of trying.

King’s Landing—it’s possible that Margaery will side with (or pretend to side with) the High Sparrow, but she’s not as much of a player in the books. Tommen is even less of one, and is unlikely to make a surprise announcement like that. It’s also unlikely that Jaime will be dismissed from the Kingsguard; in the novels he’s already in the Riverlands but he still has his title. The Tyrell/Lannister alliance is a lot more fractured by this point, in large part due to Cersei’s paranoid actions (but she has some outside help, too.)

On the road to Meereen—the “I take what is mine” moment kinda coincides with the way Daenerys is feeling at the end of the published materials, where she decides that she’s a conqueror, not a peacemaker. But she has yet to act on or reveal those thoughts to others. It’s also likely that Drogon will play a significant role in her upcoming storyline.

Thoughts
I feel like this ending is closer to what will actually go down with Daenerys in the books. She can’t walk through fire, but she can ride Drogon and deliver a rallying speech to the Dothraki. I’m not quite sure why they have both options on the show; although the ending of episode four is more dramatic, it also comes off as more white savior/colonialist. This ending hearkens back to fan favorite, Khal Drogo, and reminds the audience just how long Dany’s been striving to conquer Westeros. In the books, Dany is prophetically supposed to “return to the start” in order to seal her army, and it does bear the poetic justice of our Dragon Queen doing it for herself this time rather than relying on her powerful husband. Finally, I think the showrunners wanted to draw our attention to the problem of needing enough ships to sail—might be a plot point picked up again in the future. :P

King’s Landing, as always, featured strong, dramatic stuff, and after a few episodes to taking the back seat to his sister, Jaime commands the center stage this time. I love his eyerolly acceptance of Mace Tyrell’s pomp, lol, but the real gravitas comes from how desperately he wants to beat the High Sparrow and how badly he was duped, by his own son, no less. (Side note—I love how Ramin Djawadi juxtaposed the royal theme with the faith militant undertones.) OK, really more by Margaery; poor Tommen is a pawn. Part of me really likes this scene for how the children wrest control from their elders, and the elders aren’t really sure of what will happen next. But slapping stars of the seven on the armor of the King’s Guard and placing them next to the faith militant could very easily lend power to fundamentalist violence.

I almost feel bad for Jaime, except for the part where he tells Tommen that since he’s king, he doesn’t have to hold himself to any moral or ethical standards. Then I wished that Tommen could be an empathetic religious reformer, but we all know that won’t happen. Probably for the best that kings aren’t priests anyway. Instead, this is a convenient turning point to move Jaime to the Riverrun plot, where guess who else is heading due to Sansa’s orders? :P Not to say that these developments didn’t feel genuine.

So, alas, we do get a look into the Twins for the first time since The Red Wedding, with Walder berating two of his prominent sons—responsible for killing Catelyn and Talissa, no less. Pretty high up there on the Bad Dudes list. David Bradley brings the lewd humor, but I certainly want to slap the character across the face. The Twins always feels oppressively miserable. And like with other sudden reveals and returns, this is a sure sign that we haven’t seen the last of the Freys this season. (Side note: it’s sweet to think that they haven’t just been living the high life since their horrid betrayal; Houses are turning against them, and then there’s the Brotherhood Without Banners; that’s a familiar name. Wonder if we’ll be seeing those folks again! :P)

Same could be said for Edmure, with Tobias Menzies taking some time away from Outlander to reprise this role. Rather bleak to think of him languishing in a dungeon this whole time, and he does look rather torn down. I was glad to see the Tullys return, but didn’t have any high hopes for them, except in terms of acting their parts in a small subplot. Season three had already squandered any chance of them being as nuanced or interesting as they are in the books, alas.

Speaking of acting, hee, The Game of Thrones pantomime continues with Joffrey’s (and then Tywin’s) deaths by Tyrion’s hand. I loved the amateur set pieces, but I’m having trouble believing that only Arya would laugh at Joffrey’s actor’s overwrought performance. Sure, Arya also wanted to see him die, but it’s still pretty funny. What breaks the loony spell in this play within a play is Lady Crane’s speech. Not quite sure why she thinks it’s bad, except that so few people seem to have empathy for vulnerable women. Though it did open up a pretty fascinating conversation with Arya, who suggests that Lady Crane take a more vengeful approach in her speech. Certainly fits the real Queen Cersei, whose big appearance in this episode is to tell Jaime to not wallow in frustration but to revenge on their enemies. But even more intriguingly—Arya is describing herself, her own reaction to the loss of family and friends. And in that moment it’s like she has empathy for Cersei, albeit while keeping her on the kill list. :P

I can see why Arya likes Lady Crane, a woman who knows her own heart and mind and appreciates Arya’s ability to read people. Bianca’s jealousy (Bianca almost certainly being the one to have ordered the kill) is a little more difficult to swallow. And not that it’s important to the overarching story, but I liked the character details about the tension between Tywin’s actor and Lady Crane, too. He’s one of those writers who needs to learn how to take criticism, hee.

But things kinda became “meh” for me after Arya sabotaged her mission. Maisie played the girl’s hesitation well enough for me to stay invested when she debated poisoning the rum to begin with. But this whole “I’m not no one, I’m Arya!” schtick is so incredibly unsurprising. I still believe that she was never “no one” to begin with, despite attempting to put Needle aside (guess what she dug out of the rocks this episode. :P) More to the point, the showrunners want us to feel like her life is in imminent danger, but she’s got way too much plot armor for that. :/ There’s so much more negative feeling I have towards Arya and the Faceless Men plot in general, but I guess I’ll save it for later.

Continuing with mixed feelings but more on the compromising side, we have Horn Hill. Started off with some strong dialogue, probably the best line of the hour—Sam’s “a person starts to feel unwelcome,” hee. Contrast that against Randyll’s overbearingly bullying speech at dinner, which seemed to go on and on and on. I’m trying to keep things in perspective—if we’d spent all of this time with House Tarly rather than with Sam, maybe Sam’s genuine achievements in the face of Tarly small-minded provincialism wouldn’t feel so striking. But much like with the Freys, there’s an oppressively miserable atmosphere in the air, just with better lighting. :p Makes me wonder how Sam’s mother and sister could remain so upbeat this whole time; maybe they don’t eat with Randyll often. Even Golden Boy Dickon would probably get tired of all this.

The costumes were mediocre (well, I thought they looked much better on the Tarly women than on Gilly, and maybe that’s a good thing, given that Gilly is a bloody wildling :P) and the hair was beautiful. I always wish we had more time to spend with traditional ladies, meh. Not everyone can bulk tradition—or embrace contemporary tradition of being a badass. At the same time, I love how Gilly is both childlike and fierce. Anywho.

I also did love how the wibbles of the Sam/Gilly goodbye scene was almost immediately undone by Sam’s reverse decision to take them with him; good comedic timing there. Of course, Randyll pointed out his VALYRIAN family sword just so that Sam could later steal it…some fans are curious if there will be a father/son showdown because of this, but I’m more desperate that Sam get that sucker to the Wall asap! Maybe a few ravens could carry it? ;)

And finally…back at the beginning, we have Beyond the Wall. Bran’s still in major “history download” mode with a bunch of intriguing flashes for the audience to see, most prominently, the Mad King shouting “burn them all!” Thematic significance for later in the season, perhaps? /zips lips And speaking of vulnerable women, I think Ellie Kendrick killed it with portraying Meera’s exhaustion and fear. Also, I should be ashamed of myself, but I had THE FEELS about the Bran/Meera hug. In the books he has a little bit of a crush on her, so. :P

And then…Uncle Benjen is back! Conveniently imbued with magic we just learned about. :P I’m not really hating on this development; we’re closing a door on the Benjen question and introducing a Stark reunion! I’m always a sucker for those. But mostly, Benjen is briefly taking on the role of The Mentor as Bran needs to accept his new identity as The Three Eyed Raven. He’ll always be my most favorite magical character. I get it, I get it…Jon and Dany defy death, amass followers, and are considered “the ones who were promised,” but Bran’s fight is much more psychological, and much closer to the lurking, supernatural baddies. Just don’t let the Night King kill off yet another Stark, show. :/