Hell, we evengaineda Stark!
We start with…
North of the Wall:Bran and Meera are on the run!
Well, Meera is on the run, while Bran is quite literally being a total drag.
Credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO
“Burn them all!
Burn them all!”
The sled gets stuck and they’re seemingly doomed as the wights advance.
And then: A hooded figure in black saves them from the horde.
It’s a long-lost game ofThronescharacter.
No, not The Hound.
Or Arya’s direwolf Nymeria standing on her hind legs in a cloak.
And no, it’s definitely not Lady Stoneheart (so just stop asking about her).
It’s Benjen Stark!
This makes him perhaps the luckiest Stark around despite being dead.
Season 6 body count update: Direwolves -2, Starks +2.
Sam’s mother and sister are perfectly sweet.
She gets a top-to-bottom makeover and staggers up to Sam like a muppet.
Yet papa fully lives up to his reputation.
He’s a card-carrying member ofGame of Thrones' Legion of Terrible Fathers.
From the moment Sam reaches for the carbs, his father starts laying into him.
I’m betting his hunter dad is one of those annoyingly strident paleo dieters.
So Gilly goes to speak up for him and promptly outs herself as a wildling.
His father still agrees to let her stay, but she’ll work in their kitchen.
“You’re not what he thinks you are Sam,” she reassures.
He’s not going to split up his family the way his father split up theirs.
Braavos:Arya is watching the play.
I watch this and wonder how their respective knowledge might be put to use later on.
She goes backstage and gives a wary glance at the Ned Stark dummy head.
She gets Needle from its hiding place, and the Faceless Man gives smirking Waif permission to kill Arya.
between the two; illustrating both emotionally and visually why she doesn’t belong there.
Arya, like Sam, is better than the “family” she’s been stuck with.
NEXT:Tommen just checkmated himself
King’s Landing:The High Sparrow finally lets Tommen see Margaery.
She’s been cleaned up from her time in prison.
Let’s hope she didn’t have to endure Septa Unella bathing her.
“I’ve had lots of time to think about how good I was at seeming good.”
I suspect not many of you are buying this; we know Margaery to well.
“It’s about Loras,” Tommen says, proving thatwhile firmly and inarguably dumbhe’s not quitethatdumb.
Meanwhile Jaime and Mace Tyrell prepare to rescue Margaery and stop the walk.
Mace tries to give a rousing speech that practically has Jaime rolling his eyes.
There’s a standoff at the stairs of the Sept.
There’s Margaery, who, unlike Cersei, got to keep her hair.
Jaime, looking dashing on his horse, leads in the troops.
The Faith Militant is outnumbered.
We think,okay, finally the Lannisters are going to outmaneuver the Sparrow.
And then the Sparrow plays his trump cardor rather his king.
Instead, the Sparrow announces a new alliance with the crown and the Faith Militant.
Out comes Tommen with his Kingsguard, who got new church-and-state emblems created just for this occasion.
The Lannisters are in checkmatetheir queen had already been captured, and now a bishop just took their king.
Or put another way: Tommen just managed to checkmate himself.
He’s become a total puppet.
Somewhere in hell, Joffrey is highly frustrated.
Basically, Tommen/The Sparrow want him out of the picture.
Later, we see Jaime a bit drunk and furious, which is rare.
He wants to assassinate the High Sparrow.
Cersei, however, is sober and keeping her cool.
This is total role reversal.
Everything about the Frey’s castle looks like it needs sunlight and disinfectant.
It’s easy to forget the Red Wedding was an actual wedding and this poor guy was the groom.
“The Blackfish”) to give the castle back.
You know a good place to avoid in Westeros next week if you want to stay healthy?
Apparently, Benjen sort of died.
Yet he’s more normal-ish than we’re used to seeing inhuman creatures in this show.
He’s kind of in his own category.
This is also a character book readers know as Coldhands that George R.R.
Martin fans have long suspected is Benjen.
When someone on an enormous dragon asks you for something, you sayYES.
The episode is called “Blood of My Blood,” after all.
So might this be a tipping point for Dany as she starts down a path of tyranny?
And that’s it for this week.
SeeThrones, nobody needed to die.
You don’t have to hurt us to get us to love you.
So maybe everybody we care about on the show is safe for the rest of the season, right?
At least, as long as they’re not at Riverrun?
Trivia question for ourThronesgame.
Send answer togotpodcast@ew.com.
Also, your holiday weekend is a good time to catch up on ourThronespodcast.
