Game of Thrones recap: Season five, episode eight

SPOILER ALERT. They’re the ultimate dream team. Finally, after five years of waiting, Game of Thrones fans can revel in a piece of genuinely good news.

THIS story is dark and full of spoilers. Many fascinating spoilers. You’ve been warned.

A rising power couple, a very thirsty woman and LOTS OF STRESS. All that and more in this week’s Game of Thrones recap.

Last week’s recap

Daenerys is enduring an awkward reunion with Jorah, otherwise known as that wannabe boyfriend she told to get lost, and she’s throwing some serious shade. A cock of the eyebrow here. A death threat there. Surely, one of these days, he is going to get the message.

Luckily for Jorah, his new BFF is along for the ride. Tyrion convinces the Queen to spare Jorah’s life ... but then gets her to exile the guy all over again. You win some, you lose some.

“You’re the worst wingman ever.”

With Jorah out of the way, Tyrion refocuses on his primary objective: drinking his way through all the wine in Meereen, while dispensing nuggets of wisdom between gulps. Daenerys decides to stage an intervention.

“You’re going to advise me. While you can still speak in complete sentences,” she says, seizing Tyrion’s cup as easily as she plans to seize Westeros. He has a few sober thoughts (ironic, no?) on the matter.

“Here in Slaver’s Bay, you had the support of the common people, and only the common people. What was that like?” he asks, pointing out the inconvenient truth that no one with any influence will support Daenerys’s claim to the throne. She is still not concerned, because ... dragons?

“You took my wine. Now I will take your hope.”

“Funny man ... want to see my dragons? It’s lunchtime for them.”

Meanwhile, Darth Sansa is back, and she’s showing Theon her dark side.

“If I could do what Ramsay did to you, right here right now, I would,” she snarls, clearly referring to castration. If you listen carefully, you can hear an old man in the background: “Goooooooooooood. Your hate has made you powerful.”

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.”

Under mild duress, Theon reveals he didn’t actually kill Darth Sansa’s brothers, Bran and Rickon. She reacts in much the same way I imagine Darth Vader did when he first learned his kids were alive, so perhaps we should expect a “No, I am your sister,” moment to materialise next season.

Elsewhere in Winterfell, Roose and Ramsay are arguing over military tactics. The former wants to let Stannis’s approaching army freeze in the snow, while the latter wants to do something a bit more proactive and creepy.

There’s no sign of Stannis himself, so he must still be trying to come up with a strategy that doesn’t involve murdering his own daughter. Good.

“Theon, I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

In the cells of King’s Landing, Cersei is suffering from a severe case of thirst. No, not the type of thirst you read about next to photos of shirtless, amply-bearded men on the internet. I mean the traditional “I need to drink something before I get dehydrated and die” kind of thirst.

A KGB interrogator wearing a nun costume — I don’t know her name, so let’s just call her Vladimir — will happily give Cersei some water in return for a confession. Instead, the Queen Mother offers her death threats.

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Qyburn pops by for afternoon tea (without the tea), and he has some interesting news: Kevan Lannister is now Hand of the King, while Tommen has gone absolutely mental and locked himself in his room. At least he’s still King of the Bedspread.

“The work continues,” Qyburn says as he turns to leave. How very cryptic. Perhaps he’s talking about the massive, twitchy corpse in his dungeon.

“I haven’t been this thirsty since Magic Mike came out.”

Speaking of corpses, Jon has arrived at the wildling stronghold, Hardhome, where he hopes to forge an alliance against the White Walkers and their undead minions. He and Thormund are greeted by a horde of wildlings, who are confused by the unlikely bromance budding before their eyes.

“WE’RE ALLIES,” Jon says, far too loudly. Remember that time you brought the weirdest kid at school along to one of the cool kids’ parties, and he made a point of telling everyone he was your bestie? That is Jon in this situation. He knows nothing of subtlety.

Eventually, Jon and Thormund earn themselves an audience with the wildling elders, who growl at each other for a while before Jon wins them over using the power of impassioned profanity.

“My ancestors would spit on me if I broke bread with a crow,” one elder says. “So would mine, but f*** ‘em, they’re dead,” another replies. Well played.

“Oh my god, man, you can’t just wear someone’s skull on your head! Is it even clean?”

It all feels too simple, and that sense of unease is deepened by a scene lifted straight out of Titanic: one of the elders pushes her children onto a boat and says she’ll catch up with them later, as tears well up in her eyes. DEFINITE DANGER SIGN.

Sure enough, an army of undead shows up moments later, and a nerve-shredding battle ensues, during which Jon kills a White Walker with his Valyrian steel sword. So much for them only being vulnerable to Dragonglass.

As Jon and Thormund escape from the attack on the last boat, leaving hundreds of wildlings behind to be slaughtered, they look back at the shore and see the White Walkers’ leader, the Night’s King. He shows off his sweet corpse reanimation skills, and when the credits roll, we’re left to contemplate how foolish the political squabbling south of the Wall really is.

“Why are you all running? I just want to sell you some awesome blue contact lenses.”

What did you think of episode eight? Comment below, or talk to us on Twitter: @SamClench