Game of Thrones, S6E2 "Home"

This post is for people who have seen season six, episode two of Game of Thrones, "Home". 

The premiere of Game of Thrones had me reluctantly disappointed—as I said last week, this is the writers' first chance to step wholly away from a George RR Martin book, and I am rooting for them to use screentime effectively and economically. Ar Ar might have cobbled together quite the work of civilization-scale intrigue, but sometimes he can take dozens of pages treading water through exposition. The HBO team has a phenomenal opportunity to burst forward through plot... especially since they've avowed not to pass seven seasons, and they've got two presumably massive tomes coming down the pipeline at them to adapt.

If the first episode engaged in a bit of ArArery, the second episode made it make a little more sense: in fact, there is a lot about the two episodes in sequence that makes them operate much more fluidly together than any two sequential episodes I can remember for a while. "The Red Woman" was Part One, and "Home" was Part Two. It's dorky as fuck to admit, but something that I might be looking forward to with perhaps more ardor than anything else? To see if "Oathbreaker" feels anything like Part Three, or another pearl on the strand.

A lot of what made "Home" so satisfying was in its schema: introduce a lot of these new threads that have outright redroomed a series that once almost felt like a period piece. Yes, the prologue included a snow zombie, but we were quickly able to forget that: the worlds of Westeros had memories and legends of magic, dragon bones, and five direwolves, but for the most part, we felt grounded in realism. Yet almost every scene in this episode reminded us that we have left the grounded world behind: Winter is coming, and it drags with it the horrors and wonders of the distant past—powers that we have no memory of controlling.

Let's look down the list at the backwards-talking dwarves peppered through "Home":

Bran and Max Von Sydow peer through roots into Bran's father's childhood.

A giant flicks a pesky archer into a pulp against the wall.

A populist cult cows the incestuous royal family while its reanimated monster cleanses the keep.

Fugitive Tyrion unchains dragons who seem to understand him.

Blind Arya will be welcomed back to the faceswapping temple.

Winterfell is now a place where babies can logically be fed to hounds.

The Salt Throne is up for grabs when a madman materializes in a storm.

And yes... the Red Woman finally did what we knew she would do, and pleased a man up from the dead.

Good lord of light. Whatever happened to the show where a horse horde felt exotic and far-fetched?

It says something for the confidence of this episode that the very first face we see is Max Motherfucking Von Sydow. That outright walking legend fits right in so far, and yes, gives plenty of gravity to a role that might best be defined as "old man stuck into a tree". We need it: and though we're not entirely certain why it feels so natural, we also need to meet Lyanna, a character so hidden from view that I think I called her Lysa last week, Ned and Benjen's sister and the Helen over which the war was fought that put Robert on the Iron Throne and drove the living Targaryan children across the Narrow Sea.

We meet an immensely significant character who has been dead for years, and to the HBO team's credit, it does not feel like a flashback. No, it's not quite as interactive as I was hoping it might be (though they had me fooled for a second!), but it is certainly immersive and immediate. What's best is, in this familiar setting, surrounded by familiar characters like Ned and pre-Hodor, Lyanna appearing could be appropriately mistaken for set-dressing for Bran's continuing character development—and sets the stage for another set of new characters in a less-familiar setting to enter into on the Iron Islands.

Bran's addiction to escaping from his own body is already a point of contention between the boy and the three-eyed raven: it's probably safe to assume that Bran will continue to endanger himself in order to warg and greensee, and with Meera's little scene outside the cave, it seems more than likely that she will have to take a major fall for him at least once. That little scene was another little subtextual cue: don't tune out: we're still in the world: we will be leaving this tree and stepping back out into danger before the end of this season.

Oh, Ser Robert Strong. Will you ever get a chance to fight your little brother again? If not, maybe the Faith Militant can convert Wun Wun to fight for them! The Lannisters' man is blue all over—we have very little idea how Maester Cly brought him back—seems very reminiscent of a certain Northern folk very fond of resurrection. Guess we'll have to wait for the Citadel to have any idea what might have gone on—Sam's got a lot of folks to meet, including a very interesting Sphinx that might have connections to a family we didn't see much of this week.

The Lannisters themselves seem to be on the verge of implosion: the more screentime the three remaining gold-hairs have, the more it feels as though they may become hell-bent on confronting the Faith, and there are very few situations that spring to mind which suggest a happy ending for Jamie and Cersei and Tommen. Still, it turns out Tommen does seem to benefit from a strong masculine force in his life competing with his mother's, er, tenacity. Even if he does go running to her... Dear Tommen. Mommy might be strong, but her being strong was what sent her naked back to the Red Keep. Better let Daddy-Uncle Jamie give you a little more input before you act rashly.

Yes! Yes, Tyrion wanted a little dragon for his nameday! What an adorable and germane memory for him to recall: it not only gives him the chance to acknowledge his lifelong devotion to dragons, but allows Tyrion a little agency in a sargasso of a situation, while simultaneously confirming that his father could be proven wrong and that yes, sometimes even in Game of Thrones, dreams come true.

Arya does NOT have to spend all season as a beggar after all, so we can assume that she's joining that theatre troupe sooner rather than later, and that's perfectly fine with me. Her scene was about as well-written as it could be coming off of a full five seconds of screentime truly begging, and it evidently proved to Jaqen that yes, she's ready to return to the temple. Let's hope that she learns everything she can about the sightless world before her eyes are returned to her.

The less said about the Winterfell scenes the better. I was hoping for just about any other resolution but this, but yes, it certainly looses Ramsay across the North to ruin as he pleases all the way to Castle Black. Odds are, he won't have to go all that way to have a shot at the bastard of Winterfell.

Pyke welcomed us back for a little burst of plot development last Sunday! We met Euron (had we met the Drowned Priest before?) and a question from the books was apparently answered: there was no "Faceless Man" on that bridge: just a faceless Euron, angling for a kingsmoot. We're set to hear a great deal about smoking Valyria at this kingsmoot, and perhaps even see a horn that might make the magic we've seen so far look almost as prosaic as a dragon skeleton. Guess Euron and Daario are NOT the same character after all; pity! It would have made for an interesting turn in the books. Still, Bran's visions earlier in the episode helped beautifully to ease this new plotline into the dwindling episode-set: Euron and his kingsmoot will likely play a huge role in the wars to come. Wonder if we'll ever have to visit Deepwood Mott...

Well, before we get ready to watch this week's episode, let's talk about the elephant in the room:

The Red Woman was indeed responsible for bringing Jon Snow back. Well, and Davos, I guess, for helping her give it the old college try. The artistry in framing and lighting that lovely longshot in the scene, where some of our view is obstructed by a doorway—just lovely to watch. Almost as lovely as Jon Snow's loincloth was frustrating. 

This week we'll start to see how much of Jon Snow was left behind in the return. A little maybe of the Dothraki Golden Girls. Maybe we'll even get to see a little Prince Rhaegar by a tower. And just maybe a little more technical pizzazz in the writing—come on. You know you're as excited as I am.