With so many book-to-show changes, and the fact that many plots are caught up with George R.R. Martin’s text, we’re only doing one Game of Thrones recap this season: this one. Please try to talk about last night’s episode, not plot points half a season away (context from the books will be provided as needed, though nothing will be spoiled). Also, each week’s recap will be broken down into (Faith of the) seven questions that need answering, beginning with…
1. Is Dean-Charles Chapman the luckiest 17-year-old alive?
Yes, and Callum Wharry is the unluckiest. He was the original Tommen, back when he looked like this, but it would be pretty unsettling if Natalie Dormer had laid in bed naked with someone who still hasn’t lost his baby fat. The new Tommen, who is Becky No. 1 in this casting swap (also known as the superior Becky), looks like Rocky Horror and acted more level-headed than the average Baratheon/Lannister, save for a brief moment where he corrected Margaery for calling him “a cub.” He was also horny as hell, and the Queen used his randiness (four times in one night!) against him, or, more specifically, against his mom. Margaery surmised that Cersei will always consider Tommen to be her little boy, not a big man; Tommen recommended that she return to Casterly Rock. How will Cersei get out of this one? She can’t sleep with her son. Then again…
2. What is this week’s “well, in the books” moment?
There was one wedding this episode, and another in the future. That would be Ramsay Bolton and Sansa Stark because that girl’s life is one misery after another. WELL, IN THE BOOKS, it’s not Sansa who gets matched with Ramsay; it’s Arya, or should I say, “Arya.” The woman he actually weds is Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s friend whom we haven’t seen on the show since the first season, I believe. Only Ramsay, his father, and Reek know the true identity of the girl; to everyone else, she’s Arya, strengthening the Bolton’s hold on the North. The whole thing is needlessly confusing, so it was much easier, and far more interesting, for D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to cut all of that and simply have Ramsay end up with Sansa. Easier for everyone except Sansa, who’s stuck with a former-bastard, the son of the man who killed her brother and mother. Unbeknownst to her new in-laws, though, the North remembers, and Sansa has a long memory.
One more note here: Littlefinger’s goal is for Sansa to kill the Boltons and take over the North (and maybe a few more kingdoms…?), but he also mentioned that he knows very little about Ramsay, the clear WILDCARD, B*TCHES in this equation. Things could either go very right, or horribly wrong. Considering this is Game of Thrones, I know which option I’m leaning toward.
3. Are we supposed to know who these women are?
The camera lingered on them for a not-insignificant amount of time. I’m not sure who the two in the background are, but in front is Ramsay’s jealous (former) lady friend, Myranda, who will presumably make Sansa miserable, because again, poor, poor Sansa. “In next week’s episode of Game of Thrones, Ramsay forces Sansa to read his Veronica’s Closet spec script.”
4. Will Jon join Stannis?
That sure seems to be where things are leading, mostly because of Davos. That guy could read the list of diseases that originated in a King’s Landing brothel, and I’d listen to every word; he’s that commanding. So, when Davos told Jon Snow that “as long as the Boltons rule the North, the North will suffer,” you know the Lord Commander was listening. Jon and Stannis even shared a moment after he cut off Janos Slynt’s head for refusing to travel to Greyguard. It reminded me of the time my dad and I played our first game of catch, and then I decapitated some dude for being a stubborn dick and he approvingly nodded at me from across a snowy courtyard. Anyway, if the newly bold Jon does travel with Stannis to Winterfell to wage war against the Boltons, it’s likely he’ll run into someone who’s awfully familiar with the Starks: Brienne.
5. Why did Cersei meet with the High Sparrow?
While camped out in Winterfell, Littlefinger tells Roose Bolton that “every ambitious move is a gamble.” Few are as ambitious as Cersei, who sent the High Septon to the dungeons after he got caught in Littlefinger’s brothel playing the weirdest game of Ring Around the Rosie ever. In his holy place stepped the High Sparrow, a servant of the Seven Gods who feeds the poor and gave away his shoes to those in need. Surely this decent, elderly man is a model citizen, and Cersei’s decision to fraternize with him, as a way of proving her importance, won’t backfire on her.
6. Who (or what) the hell was under Qyburn’s sheet?
Oh, just one of the world’s strongest men, slowly being pieced together by a black-magic crazy man. I like to imagine that one day the Mountain will rise like Frankenstein’s Monster, and then he and Qyburn will perform “Puttin’ On the Ritz” in front of a confused King’s Landing crowd.
7. Where was Jorah again?
This question comes courtesy of my wife, except instead of saying “Jorah,” she used his Downton Abbey character name, Richard. The short answer is, after Dany banished him for spying on her for Robert Baratheon, he was exiled from Meereen and wandered the desert, eventually washing up, minus any actual washing, in Volantis, the home of tattooed slaves and Robb Stark’s wife Talisa. Sunburned Jorah nabbed Tyrion to bring him back to his queen, who he loves so much that he’s been hanging out in brothels with open-bottomed prostitutes who pretend to be her.
I’m sure he’ll be welcomed back with open arms and even more open dragon mouths.
