Game of Thrones really is on fire this season. Even an episode like “No One,” which wasn’t as explosive as previous installments, works wonders when it comes to plot and character development. It’s a mostly talky episode which underscores the fact that this season’s major moments have all been emotional. It’s not the best of the season, but it really, really works.
I’m amazed at how this season has had me wondering “Yeah, but when is Sansa going to show up?” What great character triage. We don’t get any Sansa in “No One,” but we get the next best thing, that is, Brienne and the Blackfish. The siege at Riverrun comes to a mostly anticlimactic finish – the Blackfish dies off-screen, after all – but it works not in spite of that but because of that. The whole thing starts to feel like a quarrel between friends, namely Brienne and Jaime, who are reunited tonight for the first time in way too long.
Gwendolyn Christie and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau do such a marvelous job with their characters that you start to wonder how the show survived keeping them separated for so long. “I know you have honor in you,” Brienne tells Jaime, and the moment lands, because Brienne is one of the few people in Westeros who has seen Jaime’s honorable side. Largely because she brought it out of him. To many people, Jaime is the man who killed his king and sired two bastard rulers by his own sister, but to Brienne he’s the man who prevented her from being raped and later saved her from a fight with a bear. There’s history between the two, and in their scene together “No One” does a marvelous job of capitalizing on Game of Thrones‘ long memory.
As wonderful a job as GoT has done in building sympathy for Jaime – and here, with his brutal threats to Edmure Tully, it takes pains to show why people hate him – this season has done equally strong work with Cersei. She’s being continually shut out of her son’s inner circle, first by the High Sparrow, then by her uncle Kevan, and lastly by Tommen’s decree that trials by combat are no longer allowed. He denounces them as “a scheme devised by corrupt rulers to avoid judgment by the gods,” which, yes, obviously that’s what they are. But without the Mountain to win her innocence, Cersei looks well and truly screwed. Maybe that fan theory about her burning King’s Landing with wildfire has some merit.
One fan theory that doesn’t hold water, though? Pretty much everything involving Arya. Let me take a second to be petty here.
HAHAHAHAHA, if you thought Arya and the Waif were the same person, you’re a goddamn moron. If you thought Jaqen H’ghar and Syrio Forel were the same person, you’re a goddamn moron (why would a show bother introducing new characters when it’s been on for six seasons, right?). And if you thought Syrio was coming back in “No One,” well, see above.
Okay, gloating aside, I’m actually glad to see an end to Arya’s time in Braavos. At first I loved the idea of her becoming a Faceless Man, but over time I realized what I loved was the idea of her becoming Arya Stark, the Arya Stark she was truly meant to be. Her identity as a Stark, and all it encompasses, is a huge part of her character, and one the show would be unwise to cast aside. Her time spent with Lady Crane – ironically bonding with someone who portrayed one of the people on Arya’s kill list – just underscored that. There is no separating Arya from Westeros, or from all that she suffered there. She puts it best when she confronts Jaqen after killing the Waif. “A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell. And I’m going home.” It’s about time. Season six has done such a great job of reinvigorating the Starks that it would be a waste to see Arya confined to Braavos, killing random people (even if they were played by actors as talented as The Babadook‘s Essie Davis, who played Lady Crane).
Sadly, wheels continue to spin in Meereen. Which is weird to say, considering maybe my favorite scene of “No One” was just Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm sitting around telling jokes. Game of Thrones has made its reputation as a “big” show, but it excels at these smaller moments. Some momentum is gained when the masters of Slaver’s Bay start attacking the city, and Daenerys returns, but for the most part Meereen is a whole lot of setup with no payoff.
And it’s so great how the show is handling the return of Sandor Clegane, who can’t reasonably be called the Hound anymore. He’s shed that identity and all it represented. In a macro sense, Sandor’s transformation could apply to the show as well. However long we’ve known it, it’s not afraid to try new things.
A Few Thoughts
- Remember when there was a Dorne plot on this show?
- I love Sandor’s respect for Brienne: “Tougher girls than you have tried to kill me.”
- Lena Headey sells the absolute shit out of lines like “I choose violence.”
- Edmure Tully is no Catelyn Stark, that’s for sure.
- I was moved almost to tears when Brienne tried to return her sword Oathkeeper, only for Jaime to tell her to keep it.
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