You guys. YOU GUYS!! I am so excited!!! I am a huge Game of Thrones fan, which they have tested over the years, and I am SO SURE this will be an exhausting and devastating season, but I’m STILL ‘CITED!! The writing is THAT GOOD. I used to recap this with Veronica on the the Bookie Wook, now we’ll be alternating, starting with my words and her awesome gifs. Let’s roll season 6!

Okay, Imma do this by memory, when last we saw our gang, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) had been thoroughly knifed by Alliser and a bunch of the other Night’s Watch for letting the Wildlings through their walls; theatrically dying all bleedy in the snow. Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) was stuck amongst a Dothraki horde when Drogon ran out of gas after saving her from the Slavers Revolt, Theon (Alfie Allen) had just helped Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) escape, Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) had just killed Stannis Baratheon  and it was all very exciting. Ser Jorah (Iain Glen) had grabbed Tyrion earlier on, and is dealing with the Stoneman’s disease, which Stannis’s beautiful daughter had been touched by as well, but that hardy matters now that HE BURNED HER ALIVE TO ASSUAGE THE BLOODY NEEDS OF THE LORD OF LIGHT. So said the Red Woman, Melisandre (Carice van Houten) anyway.

ALSO: Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) thought she could manouevre politically using the Church of the High Sparrow, but learned an ugly lesson in shame when that blade turned back toward herself. Poor ten year old Tommen sits on a powerless throne while The High Sparrow effectively rules. Arya (Maisie Williams) borrowed a face without asking and then something weird happened to her eyes. She owes a debt.

Onward! Quick note about Jon Snow; it’s widely believed that his death was a massive fakeout and that he’s been filming with the cast the whole new season, but I forgot to mention the reason he wanted to bring in those Wildlings; the White Walkers, creepy blue-eyed zombies is what dead people are turning into up north and are much harder to kill than say, a bunch of Wildlings in fur armour. Right? Ready?

We open immediately at Jon’s body: there are two main schools of thought on his resurrection (of which there is NO doubt): either he will warg into the body of his recently re-found wolf, or The Red Woman will bring him back, cuz that’s what she do. I prefer the latter explanation.

Jon lies dead and still while his wolf does everything he can to get out, attracting the notice of (my favourite!!) Ser Onion, AKA Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham), former right hand man of Stannis Baratheon. All of Jon’s crow pals come out just then, they help carry his body inside.

Can this be the end of our Lord Jon Snow? They cover his eyes; Davos asks who can be trusted in the Night’s Watch. Only the men in this room, but the wolf knows them, so that’s something. Just then there’s a knock and all the swords are drawn, but it’s Melisandre. She looks very sad to see Jon dead, hurry up now, then. Bring him back to life, he’s only Mostly Dead, there’s a good Red Woman.

Alisser Thorne (Owen Teale) has gathered the rest of the Night’s Watch to explain to everyone how he and the main officers of the castle all murdered Jon Snow because Jon was going to end the Night’s Watch.

Davos and Jon’s friends are plotting; Thorne would have noticed their absence by now and be on the defense for it. The friends all want to make a run at the Watch, but Davos urges them to plan first; Jon wouldn’t have wanted them to die for nothing.

How come Jon isn’t alive yet? We never did find out who his mum was either, that seemed important. Chop Chop, Red Woman!

Davos counsels caution, but Edd tells him “If he wanted to see tomorrow, you picked the wrong room. We all die tonight” and that is magic, truly. Davos suggests they ask the Wildlings to help, that won’t make the relationship any better with the Night’s Watch.

Renowned sadist and star of a friend’s sex dreams Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) is mourning the death of his side piece Myranda; he’s not handling the loss very well, but he won’t waste good meat! Feed her body to the dogs. Er-ooh

Daddy Bolton Roose (Michael McElhattan) is warning Ramsay to not get too comfortable; he has a momentous fight against the Lannisters coming and they don’t have Sansa Stark right now to bring the North to heel behind them. Roose says “you played your games with her. And you played your games with the heir to the Iron Islands and now they’re both gone” and I suppose you could call rape and castration “games”, but only if you’re a Bolton. Roose unequivocally states: without a Stark heir, there is no empire. Luckily, Roose’s new Frey wife (of the traitorous Freys from the Red Wedding where the rest of the Stark family was murdered in cold blood) is pregnant, Ramsay knows exactly what will happen to him if she pops out a boy.

 

Sansa and Theon are running through the woods with the sounds of the hounds behind them; they’ve got to cross a river of icy water to throw off the dogs or they will surely die. Hypothermia will get them next, if they don’t find a way to warm themselves. They rest under a tree and I tear up when he grabs her suddenly and rubs her back to warm her.

Suddenly the dogs’ baying can be heard again; Theon jumps up to divert them. Sansa begs him to stay, she won’t make it without him! He tells her to head north to the Castle Black, where Jon is Lord Commander and yeah, about that…off he goes to head them off, and they’re maybe 10 feet away. I mean. He lies and says she died blah blah, they can smell her! She’s right there!

And just as I am shouting at my husband “where’s Brienne then?? She sat there and stared at that window for bloody MONTHS and now, when they need her, WHERE IS SHE??” the woman herself rides up, YAY!! I TOTALLY cheered!! Podrick (Daniel Portman) is his usual useless self in battle, and Brienne is fairly quickly unhorsed. Theon, grab a sword!! You’re no longer Reek!

Brienne takes out one and unhorses another (is the horse okay?? She fell down!), Podrick managing to kill one but brought down by another, who advances as…Theon guts him from behind. Yay!

Oh I love Brienne so much. She kneels before Sansa, offering her services and her protection once again, by the old gods and the new. Sansa replies as her mother Catelyn did and now they are joined AND I AM SO HAPPY!! There may be crying.

Side note: I don’t usually watch the fighting scenes, so YOU’RE WELCOME.

Cersei is sitting, shorn, in her room watching the harbour when a handmaid disturbs her to tell her that a ship from Dorne is there; making Cersei smile because she thinks Jamie’s bringing back their daughter Myrcella. Well, see, about that, last season Cersei had the Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) of Dorne killed by The Mountain (Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson), and his wife, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) wasn’t just letting that piece of leverage go; she killed Myrcella with a lipstick poison. Sooo, this will not be a happy day for Cersei. Now, I’ve never been a Cersei fan, she’s a bit too much into the cousin and brother-fcuking for my tastes, but until this mistake with the High Sparrow, she was a canny ruler and a force to be reckoned with.

She runs outside to see Jamie at the front of a small ship; clearly carrying a coffin aboard. Her smile falters. She and Jamie reminisce about the first dead body they saw; their mother. Then it gets weird, because Cersei IS weird, a budding psychopath from birth. She knew that Myrcella was pure, though, so very different from her and where Jamie and I were worried she’d be mad at him for their daughter’s death, she always knew that would happen.

At the beginning of season 5, we saw a flashback to Cersei as a child, having her fortune told by a witch. In her future was three children, and they all die. Somehow in all this, she’s decided that prophecy and fate matter, including Jamie’s prophecy that everything would be lost if they didn’t stay together. He says “Fcuk prophecy. Fcuk fate. Fcuk everyone who isn’t us” and if I don’t get a gif for that I will be inconsolable.

He ends with “We will take everything there is. And more.” CHILLS! Is it wrong that I felt hope for Jamie when she was nice to him just then? It’s so wrong that he loves her, but he does. And she…

Margaery Tyrell is being hounded for confession by Septa Unella (Hannah Waddingham), beaten in between “confess. Confess.” The High Sparrow comes in and shoos off the Septa, apologizing for her zealousness and that makes him Good Cop! He tells Margaery that her pre-teen husband misses her dearly, but she really wants to know about her brother Ser Loras. Ser Loras is in jail because he’s gay, which Cersei set up before being hoist on her own petard. Margaery was imprisoned for lying to cover for her brother, she saw him in bed with another man. Sometimes, it seems as though we’ve come a long way, and sometimes, it does not.

Ellaria helps King Doran Martell of Dorne into his chair, he always envied Oberyn his wild ways, fcuking and fighting his way across the earth, trying all the colours and the flavours of the universe. Ellaria throws in Oberyn’s bisexuality for why, again? I’m guessing Doran hasn’t heard that Myrcella has been killed just yet, that hit was completely unsanctioned.

Just then a monk comes up with a scroll; now Doran has the information and the Sands act quickly. I bet that’s exactly why Ellaria’s daughter was standing so conveniently behind Doran’s bodyguard. Ellaria kills Doran with a speech about him not knowing Dorne any longer; and his son Trystane will never rule either. “Dorne will never be ruled by weak men again.” Oooh rise of the Sand Snakes!!

The other daughters of the Sand advance on Trystane; who does he want to kill him? Obara (Keisha Castle-Hughes) or Nymeria (Jessica Henwick)? He chooses Nymeria but Obara jumps in with a spear to the back of the head: she greedy.

Wow, just like that, that entire next generation of rulers are gone. Myrcella, Trystane. Huh.

Can I just say? I love how they are jumping right into all that we were wondering about, unlike other shows that dick you around for three weeks, dangling the fate of a lead character for NO REASON *cough The Walking Dead cough*.

Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Varys (Conleth Hill) are walking, Tyrion is an aristocrat through and through, walking the streets as though he owns them, says Varys. He stole from people like Tyrion and then there’s a weird segue into discussing Varys’ missing cock, and he’s missing the beans, not the frank! Edit: Veronica tells me that Varys has neither franks NOR beans, so I don’t understand how urination works.

They happen upon a poor woman with a baby on the street, Tyrion managing only to convey that he wants to eat her baby (she declines), but once again Varys smooths things for Tyrion.

There is much political unrest in Meereen, Daenerys’s defection on a dragon and not returning has confused everyone. The slavers, the freed men EVERYBODY wants to know when / if she’s coming back. Daenerys wasn’t a very good leader sometimes (too soft), but she always worked for the good of her people.

The Lord of Light is gaining a big foothold in the land, Varys also believes that the Sons of the Harpy coordinated attack in the fighting pits was orchestrated by one person. His little birds are looking for that someone, but in the meanwhile, all the ships have been set afire and ain’t nobody going to Westeros today.

Jorah and Daario (Michiel Huisman) are tracking Daenerys, they talk about her being too smart to be queen and how much Ser Friendzone luuuuurrvvvves Dany. The stoneman spot on his arm is growing, though. They find the markings of the Dothraki horde and if he sees that fcuking ring she dropped in the middle of a vast hilly plain…OF COURSE HE DOES. Calling SO.MUCH.BULLSHIT. on this. Okay, hubs disagreed, there was a special circle of (foot-long) grass surrounded clearly by a horde. So.

The Dothraki have their former Khaleesi with her hands tied and walking while they wonder out loud about the lightness of her hair. She stood in the sun too long! All I can say is that this is the basis of religion, y’all, seeing something you don’t understand, thinking it’s weird and making up stories to control any of it’s potential power. You know, if I didn’t know this was a primitive horde, afraid of water and the like, I’d think they sound exactly like a bunch of rapey fratboys.

They bring her to meet the Khal, whose wives suggest he cut off her head, she’s a witch, of course, everyone knows that. He’s very excited to see a beautiful woman naked for the first time and there’s even a little tiny funny part before the rapey part, where he and and his henchmen debate the five greatest joys in life, seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time ranking in there somewhere.

I am so glad they are teaching consent as part of sex ed in school here!

She stops him and recites her whole name and all of her titles, but she lacks conviction. He presses his case, this aggressive suitor, but she gathers her wits and tells him about Khal Drogo. He immediately stops, saying that he will protect her, nobody will lay with a Khal’s widow. Now she just has to go live in the temple for the rest of her life with the other Khal widows, the Khal’s wives explain gleefully. I do not dig how little these ladies care for the sisterhood!

A blind Arya is begging on the side of the path, maybe she’s meant to be listening? Working on some other senses? It would seem so, as that ahole waif that hated her so much last season comes up and starts hitting Arya with a stick. Defend yourself! Use your ears or some shite! She just hates Arya. The waif beats the shite out of Arya, but no worries, she’ll be back tomorrow! Start working on that enhanced hearing that having no eyesight gives you!

At Castle Black, time is up, Thorne has noticed Davos and the other Night’s Watch men haven’t turned up for tea; he offers amnesty to whoever turns in their weapons. Davos and the men have until nightfall. Thorne is non-plussed by Davos’s friendly and breezy manner, expecting an immediate an bloody fight, but Davos is waiting for the Wildlings. They make his heart sing.

In the meantime, they have the Red Woman, could she not do something? Maybe after she brings Jon back to life, hey? She’s in her quarters when she receives a sign, a flickering in the mirror that means she must immediately take her clothes off and stare at herself in the mirror. Hmmmmm, when she takes off her clothing including, the necklace, she turns into an old hag, also naked. Is that a Dorian Gray situation?? And we’re oot.

Great opener, I do love the fact that the show addressed everything we were wondering about, THAT’S HOW YOU START A SEASON FCUKERS! I didn’t understand the talk Varys and Tyrion were having, that cock comment was so out of left field AND context, and the finding of the ring…I mean. Overall, it was great, I feel greatly nourished at the Game of Thrones well and I would sure like to find out when Melisandre’s going to get her aged arse up to rise up our Jon? Any time!

 

Until next time, Script Kiddies!