This season of Game of Thrones has been so scattered, and so varied in terms of quality, that it’s a pleasure to see a focused, intense episode like “Hardhome.” For the first time in a while, it feels like the narrative is actually moving forward, and while “Hardhome” was, for the first half of its runtime, another talky, catching-up episode, it was far more engaging than GoT has been recently.
Let’s start with the obvious: Daenerys is finally interesting again. It’s no secret that her storyline has stagnated, and seeing her frown over thirty seconds of fighting pit footage last week wasn’t enough to save it. One of the smartest moves that this show has done all season is pairing up one of its least interesting characters, Dany, with one of its most interesting, Tyrion. Tyrion immediately starts making himself useful as a political advisor, telling Dany to spare Jorah, but to banish him as well. Peter Dinklage and Emilia Clarke have good chemistry together, because they’re both great actors, and the only downside to their pairing is that it might have come a little too late to save what’s mostly been a waste of a season for Dany.
That’s the weird thing about GoT‘s fifth season: the whole thing feels transitional. The show finds itself in a weird spot, diverging from George R.R. Martin’s text while at the same time inventing storylines of its own. I highly doubt we’ll ever see another book-to-screen adaptation that has to spin the same plates. A lot of these stories will pay off dividends, later, but as of now so many of them seem like promises.
For instance, Arya. We didn’t see much of her in “Hardhome,” but what we saw was good. She’s calling herself Lana and selling oysters in Braavos, under instruction from Jaqen to give a gambler a special gift. Maisie Williams continues to kill it, even with limited screen time. Elsewhere, Sansa learns the truth about Bran and Rickon (her telling Theon that she would give him the same treatment that Ramsay gave him was a particularly chilling line, expertly delivered by Sophie Turner, this season’s quiet MVP). To be honest, Game of Thrones is still having trouble moving past the rape from “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”; all Sansa has done for the last two episodes is just kinda mope around, which we’ve been watching her do for five seasons now. The show really has to stick the landing of the whole Sansa/Ramsay plot, otherwise it will become clear that Sansa is just the show’s punching bag, at which you point you might as well kill her off.
The latter half of “Hardhome” takes place at the titular wildling encampment, where Jon Snow and Tormund go to convince the free folk to come south of the wall. Naturally, the wildlings don’t like this, but Tormund makes a pretty good case for himself by killing the shit out of Rattleshirt, which was awesome (dynamite criticism there). Jon has better chemistry with Tormund than he did with Mance Rayder, which is saying a lot, because I really liked seeing Kit Harington and Ciaran Hinds on screen together. My point is, Jon is always most interesting when paired with wildlings.
The wildlings are skeptical about Jon’s offer, and the Thenns straight up refuse it, because the Thenns are assholes. Right as I was thinking “White Walkers need to be a bigger presence in order to be a credible threat,” Hardhome is attacked by approximately infinity Walkers, plus some skeletons. TV doesn’t have enough skeleton warriors, in my opinion.
Miguel Sapochnik (Repo Men) wisely directs the attack as a horror movie, as opposed to an action movie. The fighting is inelegant and frenzied, and for the first time in a while we get a real, visceral sense of the threat that the Night’s Watch and the wildlings are up against. The battle at Hardhome is some of the most exciting action that we’ve seen on Game of Thrones all season, and it has me wondering if we’re going to see GoT‘s patented crazy ninth episode. This season has been so much more intimate and personal, and we just saw a preview of the big battle that the show is building to. But in the end, I don’t care; if next week’s episode is at least as good as this week’s, the show will be in good shape.
A Few Thoughts
- “I am the greatest Lannister killer of all time” – Tyrion
-
“Belief is so often the death of reason” – Qyburn
-
Very nice touch that the White Walker’s sword couldn’t break Longclaw
-
David Benioff and D.B Weiss have written a lot of season five, along with producer Bryan Cogman. If they’re going to so aggressively diverge from Martin’s books, it’s good to see that they’re being hands on about it
About Author
