As much as I don’t like the idea of the final two seasons of Game of Thrones only being seven episodes each, the upside to the shortened order is that every episode gets down to business right away. Sure, the “previously on” segment is helpful, but episodes like “Stormborn,” or even last week’s “Dragonstone,” leave precious little time for catching up. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are now so good at handling their huge cast that the show can feel breathless without feeling rushed (with few exceptions). “Stormborn” was a worthy follow-up to a pretty solid premiere, although it did have a potentially glaring issue, which we’ll get to.
I’ve said before that Game of Thrones is able to use its stupendous cast to make dialogue scenes play like action scenes. Danerys’s dressing-down of Varys is a good example of this. She presses him on his betrayal of two kings, and demands to know who hired the assassin who tried to kill her back in season two. To Varys’s credit, he doesn’t grovel or beg; he explains himself and holds firm. It’s an interesting scene for what it says not just about Varys – who, I firmly believe, is the character who cares most about the good of the realm – but what it says about Daenerys. Varys has been part of her retinue since season five, and if she nursed these concerns this whole time, which she very well might have, why bring it up now? Maybe Dragonstone is having a Shining effect on her; this isn’t the first time we’ve seen glimpses of the Mad King in Emilia Clarke’s performance. To have her chase that to its logical conclusion would be a nice twist, one that seems firmly in line with the way GoT views birthright. Daenerys has the strongest claim to the throne, so it would be heartbreaking if she turned out to be too irrational to take the throne. Remember, Stannis had the strongest claim to the throne before he died, and Stannis was a prick who was hated by everyone except me.
There’s an exciting capper to the Dragonstone scenes, one that could potentially change canon in a big way, all thanks to one line from Missandei. Melisandre arrives to broker a meeting between Daenerys and Jon (whom Tyrion vouches for, in a nice touch). A cornerstone of Melisandre’s faith is the belief in a figure who will bring dawn after a long night, and up until now this figure has been called “the prince who was promised.” Missandei says that the translation is rough, and it actually means “the prince or princess who was promised” (it’s a cool prophecy that I’m not going to get into here; you can follow this link for more). Sure, this could be something of a narrative cop-out, but it’s excusable because it makes GoT more egalitarian, and more importantly, opens up the door for wild speculation. I for one still firmly believe that this show ends with Littlefinger on the Iron Throne, but that’s neither here nor there.
All the Dany stuff dovetails nicely with the scenes in King’s Landing, which were quieter, but still manged to be some of the best in “Stormborn.” Cersei is in full-on supervillain mode, and Lena Headey is laying it on thick. It’s a fine line she’s walking with her performance, but she handles herself nicely and manages to avoid crossing over into camp territory. She’s the good kind of hammy. It speaks volumes about the way she runs the Seven Kingdoms that her Hand is Qyburn, and not the more capable (and saner) Kevan Lannister. (Hilariously, Qyburn intones that he’s working on a plan to kill Dany’s dragons, which appears to just be using the same giant crossbows that killed Aegon Targaryen’s dragons. It seems slow and unlikely to hit anything moving in the air, but hey, I guess it worked once so how stupid of a plan could it be?) Jaime gets a nice scene with Randyll Tarly, last seen being a huge asshole to his son Sam, who here is reluctant to abandon the oath his house pledged to House Tyrell. It shows that he is not without the loyalty and steadfastness that so define his son.
Sam, for his part, decides to try to cure Jorah’s greyscale. It’s an unproven procedure that killed the last maester who attempted it, but Sam doesn’t forget debts he owes, and Jorah’s father Jeor was a hugely influential figure on him. Game of Thrones continues its war on eating, as there’s a seamless edit between Sam cutting the scales off of Jorah’s body, releasing a river of pus, which then turns into someone chowing down on a meat pie. It’s here that Arya meets up with Hot Pie, who, even though they met at Harrenhall, seems to be a figure from a more innocent time in Arya’s life. At this point Arya is so disconnected from humanity that it’s actually scary, but in a rare moment of levity for “Stormborn,” it’s Hot Pie who tells her that the Boltons are dead and her brother Jon is now King in the North.
So far “Stormborn” is pretty solid, and it ends on a crazy scene where we get to see Euron in full reaver mode. I’m torn about this ending, because on the one hand, I love seeing this side of Euron, who up until now has been a lot of talk. But Pilou Asbaek gets this crazy glint in his eye when his ship Silence overtakes the Iron Fleet, and you get the sense that as much as he wants to rule Pyke, he’d be just as happy slaughtering people for the rest of his life.
Here’s where the scene could lose people: two of the Sand Snakes, Obara and Nymeria, are killed, and Ellaria and Tyene are taken captive (this is presumably the gift Euron spoke of last episode; like I said, GoT is moving fast this season). Now, the Sand Snakes have never been my favorite characters on the show; they have always felt like a huge missed opportunity, especially considering how well George R.R. Martin wrote them in A Feast for Crows. So this is either an elegant solution or a hurried one – just kill two of them! (Tyene’s fate is unclear, but there’s no great reason for Euron to keep her alive.) So, fine, that’s a bit of messy narration, but it’s not fatal to the show.
What is worrisome is the end of the episode. Euron has a dagger to Yara’s throat, and rather than try to save his sister, Theon jumps overboard. The Silence sails away. There’s a bit of tragedy here – will Theon ever stop being Reek? Even after all the progress he’s made? But the troublesome part is that this is the second time now that violence against a woman has been used to show a change in Theon. With him floating in the water, Yara kidnapped, and the Iron Fleet in flames, the most distressing part of this is that it seems like this could be the end of this plotline, which would be hugely disappointing. There’s a chance that Theon could rally his troops and ultimately save Yara and kill Euron, but how satisfying would that be? It’s a somewhat sour note on which to end an otherwise solid episode.
4/5
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