Every season of Game of Thrones goes by too quickly for our liking (even though we’ll take a tight ten-episode structure over a marathon network season any day).
But Season 6 is flying by faster than most, largely because of how incredibly eventful the show has been these past five episodes.
“If you didn’t know you’re an idiot; if you did know you’re my enemy.”
“The Door” starts explosively enough, as Sansa spits those words at Littlefinger, whom she hasn’t seen since he arranged her disastrous marriage to Ramsay.
It’s a scene in which the show demonstrates that it’s at least slightly more compassionate toward the victims of sexual abuse than past controversial rape scenes would lead us to believe.
In fact, the tense standoff in which Sansa confronts Littlefinger with the reality of what’s happened to her displayed an real awareness of the trauma that sexual abuse creates.
The show’s not gonna win any awards for its social consciousness, but it’s taking steps in the right direction.
From there, Arya gets her ass kicked (This is still GoT, after all.) as part of her anonymous assassin training.
We finally get some background on the Faceless Men, and we’re sure it’s all leading somewhere, but frankly, we still wish Arya had a less mumbo-jumbo-fueled storyline to work with this season.
There’s some payoff when Arya is given another assassin mission, but she still seems too far removed from the central action.
That said, watching her disgust over the way her father is portrayed in a comedic stage play was surprisingly moving.
We’ll leave it to the many Shakespeare scholars penning morning-after thinkpieces to point out that everyone in that play likely would’ve been imprisoned for mocking the royal family.
That may sound like an awfully nit-picky assessment of a show that regularly features freakin’ dragons, but Martin’s commitment to a faithfully portraying European culture at the time of the War of the Roses is the stuff of legend.
That said, Arya reportedly will watch a similar play in Martin’s upcoming The Winds of Winter, so the scene probably had the author’s approval.
Okay, we’re through geeking out on period details (for now).
It was nice to see Arya return to badass form as she plots the death of some random actress, but we still wish she were a bigger part of he action this season.
Speaking of Starks involved in weird culty spiritual stuff, Bran does some more warging and discovers the origin of the White Walkers.
It’s another scene that gives us faith that GoT will connect all the dots this season so as to focus on the last battles for the Iron Throne next year. Sadly, more on that later.
Things are as bleak as ever in the Greyjoy family, as Theon and Yara battle for control of the Iron Islands with their Uncle Euron – who plans to marry Daenerys?!
Like we said, things are really starting to come together, with far-flung storylines intersecting in ways we never could’ve predicted.
Theon and Yara wisely peace out before their uncle gets to murder them, but it sounds like a tough road (or rough seas?) ahead of them.
Off in Dothraki territory, Jorah reveals both his greyscale and his love for the Khaleesi in a surprisingly touching exchange
In Meereen, Tyrion and company are still talking about Daenerys like a bunch of befuddled campaign managers.
Now they have the help of Kinvara, whose “chosen one” prophecies differ considerably from those of that other Red Priestess.
Tyrion would like to limit the number of peasants who are “purified” by Dany’s dragons, and Varys seems to think Kinvara is flat-out full of it.
But her knowledge of Varys’ castration convinces them she’s the real deal? We’ll have to see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, Bran comes face-to-face with the Night’s King and the whole thing goes terribly, terribly wrong.
We briefly head to Castle Black, where Sansa provides further proof that the Starks ain’t nothin’ to f–k with when she basically takes charge of the plan to overtake Winterfell.
She employs a bit of deception (Guess she learned something from her time with Littlefinger!); Tormund hilariously flirts with Brienne again; and like that they’re off. All hail Lord Commander Dolorous Edd.
Just when we thought this episode couldn’t pack any more plot developments into a single episode, we get the most badass Walker sequence since Hardhome, the loss of yet another direwolf…
And the origin story and courageous death of fan favorite Hodor in one of the show’s most memorable scenes to date.
What’s to be said about the loss of a fan favorite and one of the only true innocents on the show, aside from … is it just us, or is it getting dusty in here?
Watch Game of Thrones online at TV Fanatic to get all the feels all over again.