Game of Thrones: All in the Family

Every week for the sixth season of Game of Thrones, Christopher Orr, Spencer Kornhaber, and Lenika Cruz will be discussing new episodes of the HBO drama. Because no screeners are being made available to critics in advance this year, we’ll be posting our thoughts in installments.

Christopher Orr: The title of tonight’s episode was “Blood of My Blood,” and rarely has a title been more apt. The phrase is Dothraki—Quoy quoyi—and it’s a term of address between a khal and his (or, as of tonight, her) bloodriders. So it most literally related to Daenerys’s announcement that she wanted not the customary three bloodriders, but an entire khalasar’s worth, to help her pry Westeros from those men in iron suits hiding in their stone houses.

But blood ties—and, in particular, family reunions—drove almost every element of the episode. Moments before giving her speech, for instance, Daenerys was rejoined by her erstwhile stray puppy Drogon, who, judging from his growth, spent the first half of the season eating half of Essos.

Rewinding to the start of the episode, we opened with Meera and Bran on the run in the icy woods north of the Wall. Almost as soon as one could say, “Umm, what happened to that zombie army that was hot on their tails?” said army in fact showed up. (Before it did, though, Bran had some interesting historical flashbacks, including a nice vision of the wildfire-obsessed Mad King, Aerys Targaryen, who reportedly continued to yell “burn them all” even after he was impaled by his own kingsguard, one Jaime Lannister.) In any case, as the ghouls converged on Meera and Bran, who should appear but a man on a horse with a flaming morningstar who whomped himself some undead before rescuing them.

The whomper in question was—of course—Benjen Stark, younger brother of Ned and former First Ranger of the Night’s Watch, who disappeared above the Wall all the way back in season one and whose return Thronesiacs have been anticipating ever since. Bran was certainly glad to see his uncle, but Benjen’s news that Bran has to master his new Three-Eyed-Crow powers in time for a mano a mano with the Night King is pretty much the definition of familial pressure. At least he gave the boy a big ol’ cup of rabbit’s blood to fortify him.

From there, we traveled to Horn Hill, the seat of House Tarly down south in the Reach, for a decidedly less-happy family reunion. We’ve heard plenty about Samwell’s dad Randyll—brilliant military commander, toxic garbage fire as a dad—but this was our first meeting with him. Suffice to say that he lived up to his reputation, at least on the latter score. It was a nice reversal when Sam, on the verge of leaving Gilly and Little Sam with this paternal nightmare, instead came back for them—and for the family’s ancestral Valyrian-steel sword, Heartsbane. As noted, there are only a handful of these swords in all of Westeros, and while Sam may be an unlikely wielder of one, it suggests that he might be using its White-Walker-wiping-out powers at some point in the future.

We're six episodes in and Cersei still hasn't had her trial by combat?

Then, on to King’s Landing, where Mace Tyrell led an army to save his daughter Margaery from the shame of a Walk of Atonement. I don’t know what you all think, but I’m a tad brokenhearted about the state of the King’s Landing plot these days. For years, it was money in the bank that any scene in the capital would be a good one. But showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have really lost the thread the last two seasons. Part of the problem is that so many of the most interesting characters in King’s Landing are now dead (Tywin) or scattered (Tyrion, Littlefinger, Varys). But the ascent of the High Sparrow and the Faith Militant has been sloppy and abrupt from the beginning and continues to be so. For starters, why didn’t the Tyrells bring their army when Margaery and her brother Loras were first imprisoned? Why didn’t the Lannisters do the same for Cersei?

Tonight we had the nonsensical spectacle of the High Sparrow preparing Margaery for her Walk of Atonement (a small thing: but why didn’t she have to cut her hair?) and declaring his pleasure to die as a martyr to principle—only to immediately reverse himself and say, no, just kidding, nobody has to die, we’ve actually formed a secret alliance with Margaery and Tommen. There are some interesting elements here—notably that Margaery’s conversion is clearly a calculated one, presumably premised on the idea that a Crown-Faith partnership will make her (and her infinitely pliable husband Tommen) more powerful. But as with everything regarding the Faith Militant, it all seemed rushed: two scenes of Timid Tommen listening to the Sparrow’s song, and suddenly the entire balance of power in King’s Landing has shifted. Also: We’re six episodes in and Cersei still hasn’t had her trial by combat? The Westerosian wheels of justice are turning awfully slowly, and I doubt that, in the end, they will grind particularly fine.

We revisited the Twins for the first time in a long while, where Walder Frey berated two of his innumerable progeny for allowing the Blackfish to retake Riverrun, the house of his former liege lords the Tullys. When the unhappy pair reported that they don’t have enough troops for a frontal assault (the Mallisters and Blackwoods are both rebelling), he too played the family card, pulling the Blackfish's nephew, Edmure Tully, from the dungeons as a bargaining chip. (Poor Tobias Menzies, who plays the ineffectual Edmure. He just can’t catch a break role-wise: Brutus in Rome, nasty “Black Jack” Randall in Outlander, corrupt Geoffrey Dromgoole in The Night Manager…)

Just about the only plotline in tonight’s episode that didn’t directly reference family was Arya’s. After again watching the play about Westerosian history whose lead actress she’s supposed to be assassinating—last time we saw the Ned Beheading scene; this time we got the Purple Wedding—she decided that she didn’t want to murder her target after all. That’s the problem with being an acolyte of the Faceless Men: They don’t want you to kill the people you want to kill (viz. Ser Meryn Trant) and they do want you to kill the people you don’t (Lady Crane). Arya seems to realize she’s blown it for good this time—Jaqen H’ghar did warn her that  “A girl has been given a second chance. There will not be a third”—and she unearths Needle as an insurance policy. Still, I suspect that if I were her I’d hit the road immediately rather than go back to my bunk at the House of the Black and White. They are the world’s greatest assassins, after all. I’m not sure you want to make it that easy on them.

An aside: I was among the many people who didn’t catch Richard E. Grant’s brief turn as the lead theater actor in last week’s episode. (Yes, I’m ashamed.) But tonight he was impossible to miss: Richard E. Grant as fake-Tywin! Sometimes the gods are good. That said, I think his perfect role on the show would have been as a young Walder Frey. But I suppose you can’t have everything.

In all, I thought this was the third episode in a row that felt as though it was really driving the plot forward in a satisfying way. (Dany is actually talking about returning to Westeros!) Of course the price of this momentum may be some of the awkward and/or abrupt plotting we’ve seen more of lately: the Kingsmoot last week, the sudden Crown-Faith alliance this week, etc. What do you two think? Is the plot moving too fast? Too slow? Just right? Or some combination of the three?