REVIEW: Game of Thrones – Season 6, Episode 8

Some old friends catch up and some old story lines continue to repeat.

* SPOILER ALERT: Contains spoilers for Game of Thrones – Season 6, Episode 8.

Firstly, sorry, this review is late getting up. Bad Holding Steadfast.

So how was the episode you ask? To be honest, I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. It wasn’t a cracker, and a lot more of ‘nothing really happening’ took place, but the setup is there to finish big in the last two episodes. So that’s something.

Arya’s confusing and (as it turns out) totally pointless adventure in Braavos finally came to end this week, with mixed results. Her wounds were seen to by her new friend, Lady Crane, who just happened to be an expert in sewing up holes in people. Talk about fortunate luck for Arya. It did seem as though the very likable Lady Crane was going to play a part in Arya getting the hell out of there, but in true Game of Thrones fashion, the nice new friend always gets killed. It’s not really clear why bitch-face (The Waif… or the Waifenator as she is now known) killed Lady Crane, or how that fits in with her face-changing religious philosophy, but she was hell-bent on ending Arya. What took place following Lady Crane’s demise, was equal parts exhilarating as it was comical. It started with Arya jumping out of a window, and ended with a blown-out candle and a thin sword, but the in-between was just something else all together. Aside from the fact that Arya was able to run and jump so well with a very nasty knife wound to the stomach, the ensuing Waif was a caricature of cringe-worthy proportions. Why would she move like the Terminator? Why? That movie doesn’t even exist in their realm, so what the actual fuck was she doing? She was also rather lacking in stealth for a trained assassin. I don’t know, the whole thing was weird. It’s great that Arya has taken back her name and decided to move on, but apart from learning to fight in the dark (which is handy, I won’t deny that), this entire story line seems to have been one very big waste of time.

Hopefully though, Arya somehow quickly finds her way back to The Hound, and they can reunite to wander Westeros getting up to all sorts adventures again. I’m not really sure where The Hound story line is going, but its great to have him back. He once again proved to be the biggest presence of the episode, and he dropped the ripping line “You’re shit at dying, you know that?” It was a strangely amusing scene watching The Hound barter for executioners rights with the Brotherhood Without Banners, and gave us a reminder just how vicious The Hound Clegane really is. I hope he has more to do in the last two episodes.

Mountain

Image: HBO

 

In Kings Landing, The Mountain Clegane finally killed one single religious freak. There was a whole group of them there he could have killed, but just the one for now. If there is one thing about the new Frankenstein version of The Mountain, he’s in no hurry. Unfortunately for Cersei though, her stupid naive little softcock son who happens to be King, just keeps thwarting her. No trial by combat anymore, according to King Tommen’s decree, which is clearly a very bad result for his mother and her unbeatable bodyguard. That High Sparrow is all over this game at the moment, and Cersei is still two steps behind the whole way. She really needs Jaime back.

Jaime though, is busy cutting deals in strangely designed sieges that stem from strangely confusing reasons. There was a certain amount of nostalgia in these scenes at Riverrun, with some genuinely enjoyable reunions such as Bronn and Pod, and of course, Jaime and Brienne . Both shared equally intimate moments with each other, albeit in very different ways. It was very nice of Jaime to say that he hoped he didn’t have to kill Brienne, but lets be honest, ol’ one-hand aint winning that fight if it came to be. But Jaime did manage to get through to Edmure Tully, who for reasons that don’t make much sense yet, handed the castle over in a bloodless siege. Bloodless of course, except for stubborn Mr Blackfish face, who joined the growing list of characters who die off screen. With next week’s episode ‘Battle of the Bastards’ looking to be an epic showdown between Jon Snow and Ramsay, and this battle being ‘in the vicinity’ of winterfell, it will be interesting to see if anybody from this bloodless battle makes their way up to big one.

tyrion and varys

Image: HBO

 

Tyrion’s awkward small talk with Grey Worm and Missandei was interrupted by the most obvious attack in history, as his clearly terrible decison to form a pact with The Masters backfired big time. I’m not sure what’s really happening here, because Meereen looked to be in quite a bit of strife before Dany rode back on her Dragon, and you’d think next week’s episode is going to be too busy to include a second battle over there. What will Dany and friends do? Will they finally give up on Meereen and just head back to deal with the real world? And where was Varys going all sneaky-like?

It’s really kind of limping home this season, but as Game of Thrones has a history of epic ‘Episode 9’s,’ next week looks rather promising. Lets hope.

NOTES:

  • Rickon is now just an eyeball. “Give me my brother’s eyeball back Ramsay!”
  • Dorne is long gone. Good.
  • We are running out of time for the interesting Greyjoy story to go somewhere this season, hopefully they meet up with Dany soon enough.
  • Tyrion has been horribly wasted over in Meereen.
  • I wonder if Sam and Gilly will accidentally stumble across Winterfell on their way back to The Wall?
Summary
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Game of Thrones - Season 6, Episode 8
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Matt Caton

Matt is a freelance writer, content marketer, comedy geek and podcast evangelist

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