Social media is dark and full of terrors spoilers. To avoid spoiling the fun for fans on the west coast and those who have to wait to beg, borrow, or steal an HBO Go password, this season I”m confining my stream-of-consciousness thoughts to this liveblog. Follow along or flee in fear. Here there be spoilers! Catch up on Episode One, 'The Red Woman,' over here.
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[8:55PM EDT] – Everyone head to the bathroom, get your snack, and gird your lore loins. Tonight, we FINALLY see Bran again.
[9:01PM EDT] – One day, Game of Thrones will begin on time. Today is not that day.
[9:02PM EDT] – Suddenly I am very worried about Walda Frey's Bolton baby. Ramsay is feeling threatened and she is an easy target.
[9:03PM EDT] – Time for hippie tree magic! Are we finally getting those flashbacks I've been craving for six years? Probably not, but a girl can hope.
[9:05PM EDT] – YES, flashbacks! YES. I am so happy right now, you guys don't even know! It's LYANNA STARK! Oh my God, I am having a religious moment!
[9:07PM EDT] – Wait. Hodor used to say something besides Hodor? THIS IS BRAN (haha) NEW INFORMATION.
[9:09PM EDT] – Whoa. The guy in the tree said something about being under the water too long and you'll drown. I know they took Patchface out of the show, but that sounds an awful lot like what Shireen's fool kept talking about in the books.
[9:10PM EDT] – The children of the forest got a serious upgrade. They look much more wood elven and less like elementary school kids headed to a LARP.
[9:11PM EDT] – F–K 'EM UP, GHOST.
[9:12PM EDT] – Okay, a giant is also an acceptable solution to this problem. But I still want to see Ghost eat Thorne's face. And FFS, someone put Olly out of his misery.
[9:14PM EDT] – Drawing out the burning of Jon Snow's body is more proof than ever he's not DEAD dead. Feeling maybe a bookend to Dany's birth by fire is coming down the pipeline.
[9:15PM EDT] – First rule of King's Landing. Don't pee on the zombie Clegane.
[9:17PM EDT] – Guys, I really want Tommen to live. He might be born of incest, but he is a good man-boy. Besides, now Uncle-Daddy Jaime is home, and it is about to get real.
[9:19PM EDT] – Ugh, fundamentalists are the worst, you guys. But seriously, Jaime is gonna kill these mofos. But not the High Sparrow. That'd make him a martyr. We don't want martyrs Jaime. We want them to lose face, power, and hope. Destroy them.
[9:23PM EDT] – “I was wrong.” Tommen is officially the strongest Lannister to ever live. He can admit fault.
[9:24PM EDT] – The whole of Slaver's Bay has returned to the slavers. Thus completes Martin's subversion of the White Savior trope. Good job, Dany. You did nothing.
[9:26PM EDT] – Please let this go better for Tyrion than it did for Quentyn. Please, please, please. Meanwhile, Varys is like “No thank you. I didn't survive this long to be dragon chow. YOU go down there.”
[9:27PM EDT] – “Don't eat the help,” is sound life advice.
[9:28PM EDT] – If Tyrion Lannister isn't really Tyrion Targaryen, I will eat my hat.
[9:30PM EDT] – Arya, this would go so much easier if you'd just warg. Or they could just skip over that entire storyline because they HATE ME.
[9:32PM EDT] – You can see Bolton looking at these summer children like “Please stop wanting to kill everything. Killing everything is a precision strike, not a spray-and-pray tactic.”
[9:34PM EDT] – You know what? Roose should've seen that betrayal coming. I'm honestly surprised it didn't happen sooner. With a son like Ramsay, you should never get within hugging distance.
[9:37PM EDT] – Called it. Walda and that baby never had a chance.
[9:39PM EDT] – Oh God, Sansa and Brienne are filling each other in on Arya and…other things. Sansa missing her once-annoying little sister is gonna make me cry. That little smile at Brienne saying Arya wasn't “dressed like a lady.” I can only hope this conversation sparks Sansa wanting to get revenge on the FREYS.
[9:41PM EDT] – Theon's brokenness will not go over well with his father. He should know that. But those sibling bonds are strong. Maybe with all this patricide and regicide going on, the king of the Iron Isles should be a little bit nicer to his daughter…just a thought.
[9:44PM EDT] – Just kidding! We're gonna change it up with some fratricide!
[9:46PM EDT] – I honestly wouldn't put it passed Martin to have the Iron Isles' religion be based on a Cthulhu monster that lives beneath the waves. After all the SeaStone Chair is older than human memory and made of that weird oily rock.
[9:47PM EDT] – Here we go. Davos is getting the resurrection ball rolling. But wait! A twist. Melisandre is having a crisis of faith. Now is not the time, woman!
[9:49PM EDT] – Seven Gods, Drowned, Gods, Tree Gods, they're all the same. Davos dropping some probably real mythology truth here. Everyone in this lore is connected.
[9:51PM EDT] – This is waaaaaay more involved than Dondarrion's resurrection. Maybe Jon won't be all messed up when he comes back. This is why you hire a professional and not a drunk non-believing priest who happens to be your buddy.
[9:52PM EDT] – Oh, the CORPSE gets to not be naked? Weird time to get prudish, HBO.
[9:54PM EDT] – Maybe you can't resurrect someone…YES. F–K YES. I WAS RIGHT. I WAS RIGHT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
[9:56PM EDT] – I would bet you a shiny nickel Ghost woke up because Jon's spirit finally vacated his body and Ghost was back to being his direworld self.
See you all next week!