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Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 2 “Home”




By Zane Bixby

Overall Score: A-
Now that is how you do an episode of Game of Thrones. This week’s episode, while not perfect, was a shining example of how great the show can be when the characters are treated right and are given proper time to showcase their area. Thankfully we ignored Dorne, albeit with a small quip about the death of Prince Trystane tonight. As with last week I’m going to go through each of the plots starting with the strongest.

The Night’s Watch:
Everything about this plot line tonight worked. From the get go, seeing Thorne going to knock the door down reinforces his stance. But, while it was very convenient timing thematically, the wildings showing up in the nick of time is useful to quickly cut down Throne’s supposed reign over the Night’s Watch. Wun Wun is definitely the MVP of this early scene. Between busting down the gate to wall slamming one of Thorne’s followers into a wall there’s nothing here that is unlikeable. The only real issue I can see with the first portion of our scenes up north is that Olly is still alive. It would have been far more acceptable to just shank him right then instead of throwing him in prison.

But any issue I could find with the early scene in the episode is completely forgiven by the anchor of this episode. It really looked like Melisandre had been broken. Sitting in front of the fire and all the confidence lost from her usually stoic expression. So when Davos comes in, easily the least faithful man that she knows, and practically begs her to find the power to bring Jon Snow back it is an absolutely fantastic scene and would have taken it as my favorite scene of the episode. Melisandre is given two back to back anchor scenes and as it stands I’m fine with it continuing because both times they have been extraordinarily remarkable.

As Melisandre sat over Jon Snow and perform an act that she believed she did not have the power to do it showed the strength she required from being broken to perform this act. And while it would have been a happy scene to see her actually SEE Jon Snow rise from the dead letting her, and everyone present, believe it failed made it that much greater. From what we have known of Melisandre it is fine to not give her instant redemption, because allowing it to simmer and truly hit rock bottom will allow for a far more powerful scene when she is shown what her true power can be.

And this is all topped off by that slow stinger. With each member of the audience leaving, the background music was beautiful and perfect for the scene and made that final moment hit that much harder. Many of us may have argued how it would happen, the general consensus of the discussion, was that Jon Snow wasn’t permanently dead. There are far too many unanswered questions surrounding him for that to have been the case. And tonight’s episode gave us the satisfaction of knowing we were right. His rebirth does however open up a slew of new questions of what is to come. And I can say that I am excited to see all of them answered.

Winterfell:
Now this is a 180. After how little I cared for the plot in Winterfell last week I wasn’t at all thrilled to be seeing it again this week. But I was wrong, and I am glad that I was. As we enter the scene and see Roose once again berating his legitimized son I was interested to see which way this conflict would topple of the carefully balanced perch it sat about a sword. Seeing the new Lord Karstark siding with Ramsey and the Boltons is the answer to a question opened up in earlier seasons of how Robb’s command over the Karstarks would come back to haunt him. Many of the Northern Lordships have lost faith in the Starks and are eager to follow the Boltons instead. And what makes this scene interesting is how it seems that they are eager to be behind Ramsey instead of the experienced Roose.

This scene is however undercut by the sudden arrival of the Maester and his news that Lady Walda had indeed had a son. I was paying attention to Ramsey instead of Roose when this news was given and there was a flicker of fear across his face. That flicker actually tossed me for a loop in the follow up scene as Ramsey and Roose , I started to wonder what was coming. I assumed that Ramsey would kill the baby to secure his place as the heir apparent. I didn’t see him killing Roose coming. And while you could almost see a small fraction of humanity in Ramsey as his hand shook and it SEEMED like he was upset with his own actions the follow up scene was just as powerful.

Ramsey Bolton is very easily the biggest prick we have ever had on this show, and that’s saying something with the size of the pricks we have had on this show. Joffrey for the longest time held that title, but committing Patricide was the first of Ramsey’s atrocities in the episode. As he led Walda and his newly born unnamed brother to the kennels Walda wasn’t even questioning or untrusting of his actions. When he closed them in, she was still trusting. Walda and her son didn’t deserve to die. They are very much like Trystane from last episode in that regard. However, in Ramsey’s eyes, they HAD to die. This turned the entire plot for Winterfell into an amazing, while disturbing, part of this episode.

Meeran:
“If I lost my cock, I’d drink all the time” –Tyrion

Tyrion is continuing to be given some of the best one liners in the series and a large part of this is owed to Peter Dinklage for his wonderful delivery. We are given a good amount of exposition this week and this is actually a great example of the opposite side of the spectrum to what we were given with Dorne last week. Here we are told about what has happened to the rest of Slaver’s Bay that Daenerys left behind in her conquest and it works far better to Tell us this as opposed to Showing. We don’t need to know that the Master’s that were left behind were dicks that would want to take their property back because we already knew that about them. So us being told what we know could happened worked without having to take up screen time.

This did however let us see a beautifully done scene with Tyrion and the Dragons. Prefacing this with Tyrion speaking of how smart Dragons supposedly were, having him enter and as the infamous imp talk down these two dragons that could swallow him whole shows that you don’t need to be much to have courage. It also reinforces the idea of how smart the dragons truly are. The scene lasted just as long as it needed to and we were given another great line to close it out, “Next time I have an idea like that, punch me in the face.”

King’s Landing:
King’s Landing is far more impressive this week than last week, Jaime and Tommen have a wonderful scene together and Tommen is a stark contrast to the arrogance that Joffrey displayed as King. Tommen actually shows his innocence and willing to learn as he listens to Jaime. However, Tommen’s fear of failing his mother does lead to him to barring her from attending her own daughter’s funeral, and although Cersei is a complete bitch most of the time even this seems a bit harsh.

The visual we were presented with the High Sparrow was excellent as well. His complete confidence in his god and what he is doing is underlined gorgeously by the Faith Militant showing up to back him up in the presence of Jaime’s threat. And as single minded this almost made Jaime seem in his desire to protect his sister it also shows the self-preservation that is very much obvious to his character. Jaime still acts as a strong character and the performance given here showcased much of who Jaime is. And while it seemed very narrow minded of Jaime to attack the leader of the Faith it was so in character of him that it’s hard to find fault in this.

Closing out the King’s Landing plot we see Tommen asking forgiveness of his mother. It’s a satisfying scene even if it does threaten the idea of given Cersei more power back. It obviously hasn’t worked in the past and allowing her to return to that could be a return of the arrogance that got her into trouble last season.

Bran:
After a season long absence we are finally seeing the continuation of Bran’s story. We are allowed a bit longer of a check-in scene with him thankfully and while the actor has certainly grown a lot since we last saw him it doesn’t change much. Bran will probably act as our connection to the past this season and seeing a young Ned and Benjen, along with a young Hodor (his name was Willis! And he could talk!), points us to the hopeful direction of this season. It will be exciting to see into Ned’s past and the possibility of seeing what truly happened at the Tower of Joy is going to lay the groundwork for what will eventually end the series.

Unfortunately that’s about all we are given from this check-in. And while seeing Meera reassured that she will still be needed for Bran it’s not enough to really give us the true direction their plot will take them this season.

Sansa:
Sansa wasn’t allotted much this week, and like last week, the time given to her was actually put to great use. I remember in earlier seasons any time we were given a Sansa scene I felt a bit underwhelmed by the presentation. But that had slowly changed over the seasons and now I can say that it’s paying off greatly. Getting to hear Sansa actually talk about Arya is nice in its own regard but her conversation with Theon is what really sold the scene.

Theon is so obviously on a redemption arc that I’m actually fearful for him. He’s gone through a lot over the seasons and I can’t help but shake the feeling that this arc is going to end in his death. Theon’s own humanity is what makes this scene shine so brightly. He has clearly had a lot of time to think about everything that has happened to him and happened BECAUSE of him. It’s easy to see that he blames himself for what he has become because each one of his actions brought him closer to being under Ramsey’s thumb and this is what caused him his greatest loss. Sansa gave him that glimmer of humanity back last season when they were first brought back together but he finally lit it ablaze tonight as he listed out to her everything that he believes is his fault. And her absolving him, it lifted a certain amount of weight off of his shoulders. He’s headed home, and Pyke is very much about to be in turmoil so the seas are going to get rough for him.

Arya:
All of the Stark siblings this week fell into the same category this week for me. They weren’t terrible scenes but they weren’t great scenes either. Arya is a bit of the highlight of this. As much as I love Arya’s character, her story line this season has yet to really take off. The clear path is back to the House of Black and White and the end of her scene reinforces that but until they start adding more meat to her scenes I can’t say much more than that we know she is still alive. But at least a girl is no longer a begger.

Pyke:
As much as this ties into what will happen with the rest of Theon’s arc this season, I feel like this is the weak point of the episode. While we are given a lot of substance here and in theory it all should work well, it falls a little bit short and I just can’t pin point where that is. It’s probably in Balon Greyjoys death that it really lost me. Killing off major players in the game should always be a big deal and as Balon said, he was the last remaining King from the War of Five Kings. But I think it lost its potency the moment that Roose was stabbed. Killing off Roose, Walda, and her son took away any shock value that we might have gotten from seeing Balon Greyjoy fall to his death. It might have been better to save his death for the next episode, but it could indicate that there is so much crazy that will be happening that they felt killing off Balon was minor enough that it didn’t need to impose such a great impact.

It’s in his burial at sea that I think the story line lost me. How did they even find his body when he fell off a bridge into the ocean below in the middle of a storm at night when presumably no one, other than Euron, was on. Unless it was just a ceremonial thing it felt a bit too convenient for this to happen. But it opens up many questions to be answered, such as who will be leading the Ironborne now. So it’s enough for the weak point of the episode to be forgiven as I’m still interested in seeing where it will take us.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @ZaneBixby and live tweet with me each week during the show using the hash tag #BlerdsGoT. I also tweet about gaming news and complain about League of Legends eSports!

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