This week, the sounds of war continued to get louder and louder, in the North, the Riverlands, and King’s Landing. But the only place, on camera, where a sword was lifted was across the Narrow Sea – and the result of that attack will have ramifications on both ends of the Narrow Sea.
IN THE RIVERLANDS…
THE HOUND IS ALIVE! Quiet Brother found the Hound near death, and nursed him back to health. The Hound is helping him with building a church.
Jaime leads Bronn and what’s left of the Lannister army to Riverrun. They meet with the Frey army outside the castle, who threaten to kill Edmure Tully if the Blackfish does yield the castle. The Blackfish calls their bluff, and Jaime dresses down the Freys for not being willing to follow through on their threats before taking command of the operation.
Jaime meets face to face with the Blackfish. He urges Tully to yield the castle instead of fighting, and is shot down.
Back with the Hound, Quiet Brother talks to some of his followers and the Hound about a murder he committed back in the day. They’re interrupted by the Brotherhood Without Banners (WOOOOHOOO!), who make an ominous threat towards them. The Hound goes off to chop wood, and when he returns, he finds his entire camp slaughtered and Quiet Brother hanging from the incomplete structure they were working on. He grabs his axe, and rushes off to find the Brotherhood.
IN KING’S LANDING…
Margaery is reading scripture in the Church of the Seven. She has a discussion with the High Sparrow, who questions her about not sleeping with Tommen since her release. He also prods her to produce an heir for Tommen, and encourages her to help her grandmother Olenna repent for her sins. In a conversation with Olenna, Margaery reveals that Loras is still imprisoned and if he repents, he can return to Highgarden after renouncing his name. Margaery then urges Olenna to return to Highgarden, and slips her a paper in the process, outside of the vision of Septa Unella. Drawn on the paper is a Highgarden rose.
Cersei and Ser Robert Zombie Mountain Strong confront Olenna. Cersei admits she made a mistake enabling the sparrows, and admits the Lannisters and Tyrells need to work together. Olenna confirms she’s leaving King’s Landing, and urges Cersei to do the same while pointing out she has no allies left in the city.
IN THE NORTH…
Jon, Tormund, and the wildlings discuss their plans in camp. Tormund says that if they lose this battle, the wildlings will be destroyed, and Jon points out that if they don’t fight, the same thing will happen. Wun-Wun vows his support for Snow (as Wun-Wun does, monosyllabically), and the wildlings fall in line.
Jon, Davos, and Sansa travel to Bear Island to meet with Lyanna Mormont and request allegiance. Lyanna isn’t too receptive to the idea at the cost of losing more men, but Davos talks up Jon’s relationship with Lyanna’s uncle, Jeor, and the battles they fought against the undead north of The Wall. Lyanna pledges the allegiance and 62 men to House Stark.
The trio then move to Deepwood Motte and House Glover. Lord Glover has no desire to abandon his castle to fight alongside wildlings, but Sansa reminds him of the Glover’s sworn allegiance to the Starks. He then asks where the Starks were when the Ironborn took his castle, and proclaims that House Stark is dead.
Jon, Sansa, and Davos return to their base camp to discuss their plans. A fight breaks out. Sansa writes a letter for a raven.
ACROSS THE NARROW SEA…
Somewhere in Slaver’s Bay, all of the Ironborn, except Theon, are drinking and getting frisky and having a grand ol’ time. Yara encourages him to “be the old Theon”, or slit his wrists. She states they’ll sail to Meereen to forge a pact with Daenerys, and Theon agrees to stand with her.
In Braavos, Arya meets a ship’s captain to book passage home. She’s then confronted by the waif wearing the face of an old woman, and is stabbed numerous times. Arya survives the assault and jumps into the water. She crawls back ashore bleeding out and wanders through a market looking for help.
IT IS KNOWN…
This was a tightly focused episode – only four locations and six storylines were followed. Remember in the first episode when they went to something like a dozen places? It made my head hurt a bit. You can’t build anything up if you give a character two minutes of screen time. This week, we got heavy doses of the North (and no Boltons), Jaime and the Hound in their respective storylines in the Riverlands, one King’s Landing segment (with no Tommen at all), and two shots across the Narrow Sea, one with the Ironborn and one with Arya.
The Hound story was cool, and it looks like it’s going to end up leading to the Brotherhood Without Banners/Lady Stoneheart storyline from the books – but how is the Hound going to be involved with this? If there’s going to be a trial by combat/Cleganebowl, he needs to somehow get to King’s Landing alive and the sparrows need to know he’s alive. With Quiet Brother and all of his follows slaughtered by the Brotherhood, how’s that going to happen? The Brotherhood will obviously have no desire to help him, so I’m confused and interested about where this is going.
As much as I’ve liked the North stuff this season, it seemed like filler this week – you saw two houses saying the exact opposite thing to Jon, Davos, and Sansa. I think it shows how divided the North is and what a challenge this ragtag army has in front of them. I have a feeling that next week, we’re going to get a break from the North, and episode nine will be the Battle of Winterfell, Part Two.
The Riverrun saga is going just like it did in the books so far, with the exception of inserting Bronn next to Jaime instead of Ilyn Payne. Based on next week’s preview, with Brienne meeting up with Jaime outside the castle, I think this arc will come to a quick end – though I have no idea where it’s going to go.
The usual nonsense happened in King’s Landing. Olenna got some great jabs in on Cersei, who seems to be losing confidence. Margaery is playing ball with the sparrows, but apparently still realizes she’s a Tyrell and is loyal to her house. Again, it looks like this is going to come to a head next week.
Finally, across the Narrow Sea – just a couple of updates this week, and neither involving Daenerys or Tyrion. The Ironborn are closing in on Meereen (who knows if that mention of them being in Slaver’s Bay was accurate or not, but if so – man, they can sail pretty quickly), and Theon is still on the fence about whether or not he wants to do this. He didn’t kill himself when Yara implied that he should, so that’s a positive step. Then there’s poor little Arya, finally getting a ship to go back home…and getting attacked by the waif, because she apparently forgot about the fact that she can change faces. Arya’s going to survive this attack, but who knows who ends up helping her. Is anyone interesting still in Braavos? I don’t think so.
AND NOW, THEIR WATCH HAS ENDED: Quiet Brother and all of his followers (except the Hound)
