So you thought it couldn’t get better then episode four huh? Well it appears Thrones still has some tricks up its sleeve. Up until now the focus really hasn’t been on the White Walkers. While we know from a small bit of action and mostly hearsay that these are some bad to the bone foes, we finally got a taste for just how formidable of an opponent the White Walkers are.
Dany’s Pyric Victory
While Daenerys says she was glad she went to save the A-Team[i], I’m just going to call it like it is. Not worth it. Why did everyone go through that? To grab one zombie? You couldn’t borrow one from AMC’s studios and bring Cersei one of those zombies? No, you had to have that one. Now you gave the White Walkers the ONE thing that can, I don’t know…fly over a tall wall? The giant icy thing that has a 100 percent success rate at preventing White Walker invasions.[ii] And you traded that for what? Cersei’s conniving and potentially backstabbing help and whatever troops you didn’t already turn into kebabs? But really this isn’t on D because it was Jon Snow and his ragtag team of misfits who had this bright idea. All I can say is I sincerely hope Cersei has been making some improvements to the supersized crossbow because they have an ice dragon headed their way.
On the A-Team’s Forced Dialogue
While the A-Team was marching their way north in the hunt for their frozen friend[iii], the show took some time to investigate some of the feelings the characters had for one another. Gendry vented to the Lord of Light guys (I know their group has a name but be real. Can you even remember it?) about how they sold him to be leeched and then let that whole thing go rather quickly. I don’t think he was given a very sufficient explanation for why that was okay to simply just shrug it off. “Rub some dirt on it, Gendry. You’re fine.” was pretty much what that boiled down too. Meanwhile Tormund tried to provide comic relief before the bear brawl. I did not know this army had bears but with every episode my bet is sliding towards the White Walkers coming out on top. Which would be the ultimate GRRM move.
Gendry is the A-Team’s Pheidippides
I don’t know how everyone just so happened to know that Gendry was the fastest but he managed to cover some serious ground. Which means that the dead army can’t be that far from the wall. They’re just one-third of an episode away people. Gendry got to the army and back in maybe 20 minutes. As for my comments about how Gendry needed to smith dragonglass, I won’t take them back because this whole mission was a sham and a disaster. But I’ll give him credit where credit is due. Nice job, kid.
Arya is Auditioning for WestWorld
I honestly can’t tell if the next major plot point is that Arya has actually been a host this entire time and then after the final season HBO is doing a WestWorld-GoT crossover. She was acting like she spent a winter at the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. We are starting to see the fruits of Littlefinger’s plan as Arya almost skinned her sister’s face off. Arya has the award for longest grudge holder of the series and is a threat to derail the whole northern operation leaving Baelish in charge. It was interesting to see that Sansa was not fully trusting of Baelish’s advice to somehow have Breanne intervene. Part of me wants to believe she suspects Baelish is behind the whole letter and she has some notion that he supplied it to Arya. But instead of telling Brienne about the whole issue with Arya, she sent Brienne as far away as possible. Perhaps she is simply trying to be unpredictable to foil whatever Littlefinger may have in mind. But I’m saying it again. For like the 10th time. Petyr Baelish is trouble.
What is Bran Doing All the Time
Bran is a rather frustrating character for me. Perhaps it’s not his character development so to speak but the fact that he clearly has some sort of important role to play in the events that are unfolding but he gets little screen time. However, when he does get screen time, he mopes, says cryptic things, and daydreams by a tree. I understand he can’t see the future but he didn’t see Baelish purposefully plant the note? He could’ve put this whole sister feud to an end last episode. Bran could’ve swayed several events that are unfolding even now and yet he flies crows (basically the GoT version of a drone) over the White Walker army. As John Oliver likes to say…khool.
The Season Finale
Total honesty I thought there were two more episodes so imagine my bittersweet excitement when I saw the preview for the season finale. It looks like the focus will turn back south as we will finally get the meeting between Cersei and Daenerys. If the episode is over an hour, I imagine there are still some big moments left in store and I also can’t imagine Cersei comes along quietly to help fight at the wall. If anything, she will see that zombie and think, “Damn. That would be a great pet. How do I get one?” As far as my predictions, I should stop making predictions (though I was totally right about Benjen Stark) and simply enjoy the finale. Then commiserate on how much longer it will be the till the final, even shorter season. And then after that complain about all the spinoffs there are and about how they just aren’t as good as the original show.
Till next week.
[i] Minus any nameless characters who got zombified. I know I called a major death here and my money was on Dondarrion but I was wrong on several things on this episode. It’s nice to be surprised though so kudos to the writing staff
[ii] Also now beginning to wonder what Donald Trump was watching while writing his immigration strategy
[iii] I know they shouldn’t give him a name because if they do they might get attached to him. But that zombie at least needs a collar with a return address in case it gets loose.
