REVIEW: Game of Thrones – Season 6, Episode 3

Following on from the chaos of last episode, HBO delivered a much slower experience this week.

**SPOILER ALERT Contains Spoilers for Game Of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 3.

When the talk of Jon Snow not being ‘really’ dead began circulating last year, I’m not sure what I expected. Would he come back with crystal blue eyes? Or would he be like The Mountain and become some sort of freaky mutant monster thing? What I honestly wasn’t expecting, was for him to come back as the actual Jon Snow. Like, Jon Snow was dead… and now he’s not dead anymore, so don’t stare at his scares. It’s not to say that I don’t like it, it’s just, I dunno, Jon Snow was dead… and now he’s not dead anymore! It’s a lot to take in.

Melisandre simply could not believe her own skills, and she was fawning so much that trusty ol’ Ser Davos had to ask to ask her leave. Then Ser Davos gave yet another one of his matter-of-fact, pull-no-punches, tell-it-like-it-is pep talks. Seriously, does anything at all faze this guy? “Well, you were dead, and then you got brought back to life by 200 year old saggy-boobed witch, so suck it up son and get on with life. We’ve all got our shit to deal with.” He’d make a great wise old janitor in a 90’s teen comedy. Jon’s resurrection was met by a strange mixture of nonchalance and blatant disinterest by the rest of the Night’s Watch, who were staring at him as though he had a small, hard to notice pimple on his face, rather than having just returned from the dead.

From here we have a little spell out at sea, where our favorite love-birds Gilly and Sam are having a romantic luxury cruise. But hang on, looks like Sam is a bit seasick and…oh there he goes! The whole scene seemed to serve as vehicle to inform the audience that Sam isn’t great on boats. Oh, and probably to remind us that he is training to be a Maester. That will mean something at some stage, but boy, isn’t he missing out on some action at the moment?

It seems that even throwing a team of dedicated writers to come up with one-liners for Tyrion, and giving Varys a platform to shine in all his passive-aggressive splendor, still doesn’t make Meereen interesting. Why are you people there? Who cares, go find the Queen and go and do something that matters to the overall plot, will you? Speaking of the Queen, Daenerys found herself in an episode of The Real Housewives of The Dothraki, and boy weren’t they bitchy? I’m not really sure why she is there, other than to find yet another reason to delay her going to King’s Landing. Meh, it’s lucky she is such a compelling character, because her story continues to go around in big annoying circles.

What’s really annoying about the Daenerys state of affairs, is that the throne she feels so inexplicably entitled to, is currently being held by a wimpy teenager who can’t even stand up to a bald old man with crook knees. It couldn’t be more for the taking. She has dragons, an army of unsullied, a clever dwarf, a perez hilton style gossip queen, a Boy-Toy and a Friend-Zone who can both fight… she’d take King’s Landing in a heartbeat. Sure, Tommen has his mother and father-uncle by his side, but they just don’t seem all that intimidating at the moment. A lot of talk coming from that pair at the moment, but not a heap of tangible action. Maybe that’s the point though? Never underestimate those friggin Lannisters, especially Cersei.

Show a lot of things happening at once,
Remind everyone of what’s going on (what’s going on)
And with every shot, show a little improvement
To show it all would take to long
That’s called a montage (montage)

The Girl Gets Hit In Head With Stick trilogy came to its gripping conclusion this week, when the Girl finally didn’t get hit in the head with a stick, following a rocky-style montage. It was about time to move this story along, although I thought it was a pretty weak effort by bitch-face. Really, you smack the blind girl in the head that much, then she finally hits back once and you say ‘oh well, that’s that?’ Cop your whack, bitch-face. It’s good to see Arya get her vision back, don’t get me wrong, and hopefully this kick starts her story a bit more, because Arya is grossly underutilized at the moment.

The best scene of the episode though, was the fantastic flashback courtesy of British singer-songwriter Brandon Stark. These flashbacks have been most fascinating thus far, if only tree-yoda would stop cutting them off just as they get to the good bit. This week we saw Ned Stark as a young man, and what a superb piece of casting that was to get Robert Aramayo as a young Sean Bean. The likeness was freaky. Inside the Tower of Joy lays many answers to both the story of the time, and the story happening now. There is a baby up in that tower, and what everybody wants to know is, is it Jon Snow? It was also a nice touch for Bran to see that even his noble father could change a few details when retelling a story.

The man himself (it is Jon’s show now it seems) finished off the episode, performing his final act as the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch by executing the four men who killed him. I mean, they were punished for killing the guy who was executing them… look, it’s complicated. It was a pretty brutal scene watching young Olly die, and one that kept viewers wondering if the old Jon Snow clemency was going to come into play during the build up. But it didn’t. He went through with it with seemingly little remorse, and then he handed over his ceremonial winter coat, handed in his resignation, and headed off presumably to find a beer and a woman for the night.

A reasonable episode, but one that struggled a bit for pacing and needless side stories. But it did set up some very important story lines, particularly with Jon Snow finally being free of his obligations at The Wall, and now being able to get involved in the real stuff. Lets hope he gets to Winterfell, and quickly.

Some Notes:

• Littlefinger? Seriously, where is he?
• There is another Stark boy, his name is Rickon, and I’d totally forgotten that he even existed. But yeah, let’s just give Ramsay another innocent person to do unspeakable things to.
• Nice to see Olenna back for a brief cameo. The show needs more of her
• The Hand of the King, discussing things in a council meeting. I’d forgotten that this show used to be pretty much about those things
• No Sansa this week, which can only mean she’s been taken to safety where she will live out her days in total happiness.
• Nothing from the Iron Islands or Dorne either, which I’m fine with.