Game of Thrones recap: Season six, episode two

SPOILER ALERT. There’s only one character Game of Thrones fans really care about at the moment. In this episode, we learned something about his fate.

Bloodraven tests out his Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

SPOILER ALERT. There are spoilers ahead. Big, whopping, earth-shattering spoilers. I really cannot emphasise enough how spoilery the following spoilers are.

Still here? OK. Let’s do this.

Last week’s recap: The Red Woman

CASTLE BLACK

Alliser’s men are breaking down the door. Davos seemingly has no hope, and even worse, he has no mutton. But unlike a certain sorceress, he’s not allowing his spirits to sag.

Perhaps that’s because Davos knows what the rest of us suspect: the wildling rescue party he sent for is just outside the gates of Castle Black, waiting to barge in at the most dramatically effective moment. Confronted by a slightly superior force, the disciplined, battle-hardened soldiers of the Night’s Watch lay down their weapons immediately.

“Where’s my mutton? I explicitly asked for mutton.”

With Alliser safely locked up, Tormund examines Jon Snow’s corpse and provides his expert medical opinion: “Took a lot of knives.”

Meanwhile, Davos finds Melisandre moping in front of a fireplace and tells her to get on with the resurrection magic already. That’s Davos for you — always speaking on behalf of the viewer. Don’t put leeches on Gendry’s penis, Stannis. Don’t set your daughter on fire, Stannis. It’s like he actually hears what we’re all screaming at the television.

“Everything I believed. The great victory I saw in the flames. All of it was a lie. You were right all along. The lord never spoke to me,” Melisandre tells him.

“F*** him then,” he replies, badassly. “I’m not asking the lord of light for help. I’m asking the woman who showed me that miracles exist.”

Guess she’s forgiven for that whole Shireen thing then.

“Really? Cause I’ve seen your boobs. They’re actually pretty nice.”

“Davos, I got nude and looked in the mirror. It was awful.”

Cut to Jon’s body, which is now sporting a rather fetching loincloth. Melisandre washes his washboard abs and cuts his hair, because if you’re going to come back from the dead, you want to look your best while you do it.

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She then mutters some magic words. At least, I think they’re magic. One of them is “please”, and I’ve always been told that’s the magic word.

But at the end of all this rigmarole, nothing happens. One-by-one, the disappointed spectators file out, much like the fans at a 2016 Fremantle game.

“Abra kadabra.”

Strangely, however, the credits don’t roll. Instead we get a long shot of Jon’s sleeping direwolf, which suddenly wakes up and looks towards him.

Then Jon’s eyes snap open. So, there you go. The worst kept secret in television, officially uncorked.

What next for Jon? We know nothing, and neither does he. That’s rather appropriate, isn’t it?

He looks like he’s seen a Ghost.

NORTH OF THE WALL

Bran can walk again! In his dreams. And what interesting dreams they are. This time, he’s watching Ned, Benjen and Lyanna Stark fool around together as children at Winterfell.

Look for Lyanna to play a much more important role in next week’s flashback, which you can read more about here.

We’re also introduced to a young Hodor — back when he was a stableboy called Willis, who could speak normally. So, Hodor wasn’t born Hodor. But did he choose the Hodor life, or did the Hodor life choose him? Are there secrets hidden in Hodor’s backstory? Is Hodor a secret Targaryen? We can’t rule anything out now. Hodor.

“Everyone loves a good root, Brandon. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“I am loving these roots, man.”

When Bloodraven (the old guy) forces Bran to wake up, he goes outside to visit Meera, where it becomes clear that Bran’s two sisters never taught him anything resembling emotional intelligence.

A strange creature we can only presume is a child of the forest tells Meera “there’s a war coming” and Bran “isn’t going to stay here forever”, so she should stick around, even though she has absolutely nothing to do.

Meera’s life kind of sucks right now.

“Hey Meera. Meera. Hey Meera. have you heard the one about the cripple, the simpleton, the girl and her dead brother? Hilarious.”

KING’S LANDING

Jaime is standing guard over the corpse of yet another relative he failed to protect. Luckily, the king has forbidden Cersei from attending Myrcella’s funeral, so he can’t use the occasion as a chance to get amorous again.

The Kingslayer does have plenty of company though. First there’s Tommen, who has finally realised he’s a terrible ruler. Then there’s the High Sparrow, who has yet to realise he’s a bit of a prick. You sense the Lannisters are preparing to strike back.

“A little?”

“I ... kind of want to have sex with you right now. Is that weird?”

That impression is only reinforced when Tommen stops by his mother’s chamber to apologise for being a wimp. The problem is, he’s now going too far the other way.

“I should have executed all of them,” he says. “You raised me to be strong. And I wasn’t. But I want to be. Help me.”

Somewhere in the depths of hell, Joffrey is smirking.

“You’re lucky I don’t have any spare kids left.”

WINTERFELL

Roose Bolton’s wife, Walda, has just given birth to a baby boy, and this represents a threat to Ramsay’s status as the heir to Winterfell. Ever level-headed, he responds by murdering his father right in front of two witnesses.

As an interesting aside, one of those witnesses is the son of Rickard Karstark, whom Robb executed shortly before the Red Wedding. The Karstarks are bitter about that, and are now completely loyal to House Bolton. Way to go, Robb.

But Ramsay still has a rival to eliminate. He leads Walda and her newborn baby into the kennels, which you’d think everyone would have learnt to avoid by now. Then, the Monty Burns of Westeros releases his hounds.

With Jon alive and Ramsay now in charge of Winterfell, we daresay a battle of the bastards is looming. In episode nine, perhaps?

“Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who? Me, that’s who. Prepare to die.”

IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE

Now that Sansa has linked up with Brienne and Podrick, Theon reckons she doesn’t need his protection anymore. And after watching Pod wield that sword last week, who can argue with him?

“I would have gone with you to the end. Into the very fires of Mordor,” he tells her. Well, something to that effect.

Theon is heading off to the Greyjoys’ home in the Iron Islands, where he will hopefully be reunited with his favourite “member” of the family. Yes, that’s his penis. The one Ramsay chopped off and sent back in a box.

Anywho ...

“Your father hates you. We all kind of do. You know that, right?”

PYKE

Theon will be returning to a turbulent homeland, because his father Balon is dead. The miserable sod was thrown off a bridge by his own brother, who apparently believes he is destined to rule as “the old god” reborn. Good mental faculties do not run in this family.

The other main contender for the Iron (Islands’) Throne, which is really more like a crappy wooden chair in front of a fireplace, is Theon’s ass-kicking sister Yara. She seems entirely sane and competent, so we must presume she doesn’t stand a chance.

“Balon died as he lived: miserably.”

BRAAVOS

Blind Arya is still hopeless at fighting.

Yep, great life choices, Arya.

MEEREEN

Someone has given Tyrion control of the wine tray, which means he is in ideas mode. On the one hand, this is good, because all of Slaver’s Bay has gone to hell in Daenerys’s absence and nobody else has any good plans. Then again, it’s bad, because Tyrion’s big idea is to release two uncontrollable dragons from captivity and hope they roast the right people.

“Guys, trust me. I know what I’m drinking. I mean, doing. I know what I’m doing.”

So, he descends the steps into Daenerys’s basement and approaches the two remaining dragons. “I’m here to help. Don’t eat the help,” he tells them, as though they understand English.

Wait, do dragons understand English? The message does seem to get across, because instead of swallowing him whole like the scrumptious, bite-sized human treat he is, they do absolutely nothing as he releases them from their chains.

“Bilbo Baggins, is that you?”

These scenes spell out something book readers already knew about Tyrion: he is, and always has been, obsessed with dragons. He knows everything about them. For instance: “Dragons are intelligent. More intelligent than men, according to some maesters.” He wanted a pet dragon when he was young, and still wants one now that he’s old.

An increasingly popular fan theory claims Tyrion is a secret Targaryen, citing his dragon obsession as proof. The show’s writers just gave that theory a very big boost.

Share your thoughts on episode two by commenting below. We’ll be back with another recap next week, but there’s plenty to talk about in the meantime.

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