Wildcard:

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGHHH!!!! What just happened!?

From the first moments of the episode I knew this was gonna be something. Last week was pretty bare for action but when the recaps include some Catelyn/Robb flashbacking and a little Bran with the Three Eyed Raven then you can strap this Wildcard right on in because I’m sure as hell going along with the ride.

… Just as soon as I’d skipped over the opening sequence…

Right. Okay. Thoughts in order now. Man, I did not think they would deal with that whole thing so soon. I really thought they’d drag us on longer, just to tease it out and all that, but they didn’t. And then when they didn’t I thought maybe just maybe that this was the world’s greatest inside joke like it was all a big bluff and it wasn’t going to work. I mean, doesn’t that sound like something they’d do after all that press work in the off-season? Of course it was… except that would screw up the whole pacing of the show just so the showrunners can play the seven gods for a little longer. Or the red god, should I say. Oh, look at me. I’m rambling like a dwarf to a dragon here.

So the Great Spoiler is out. Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he breathes again. MY MAN JONNY! ATTABOY! Jeez that was tense though, they really wrung us like a flannel of mopped up bastard’s blood there. It got to the point where I almost wanted it to fail, just to read the reactions afterwards – or maybe for the spell to seemingly fail only to work again next time. There was a moment when (the clinically depressed) Melisandre seemed to feel something in her hands and hesitated before chanting a little louder as the music swelled and the camera moved right in close… but then a cut away to Davos and Tormund looking at each other skeptically and the moment was over. Something was missing, something wasn’t working.

Fire and ice. Melisandre dealing with a stiff. Don't touch that cloth...

I could have told you what it was by that stage. The bloody wolf! There was a shot earlier of it sleeping under the table but I’d not seen that on first viewing, so when Tormund left the room I was hoping that he was out to the kennels to fetch the beast. Turns out he was outta faith was all – he who used to chill with a bloke that could warg into eagles and all sorts. Disappointed me there, that fella. I get why Davos and Melisandre might miss the significance of a direwolf (WHOSE NAME IS *GHOST* FOR CHRISSAKES!) but I really thought the wildling had more experience than that.

Hey, but cool to have you back now Tormund. I remember back when there was almost a little love triangle between he, Jon and Ygritte. He was always a really interesting character, it’ll be fun having him and Jon on the same side (for real) now.

And then just like every awesome trick shot I’ve ever made on the basketball court, the real magic happened when nobody was around to see it. Melisandre solemnly follows Tormund’s lead, Edd goes after them and then Davos takes one last look before he takes a stroll out into presumptive wintry doom. Wolf and man slept silently.

And then Ghost stirred. And he woke. And he rose. And the camera cut to a high angle shot of Jon lying prone. Wait a couple beats. Nope, still dead. A couple more. Still dead. Then a couple more. And just as you’ve finally given up his eyes fly open and the silence is broken as he catches his breath (it took him a few days to find it, he’s bound to be short of air). Jon Snow, here we go.

But wait… why are Edd and Tormund there? Why that would be because Edd finally came back in the nick of time to storm Castle Black with a troop of wildlings just as Alliser and company were about to slay the guardians of the Commander’s corpse. A giant smashed a guy into jelly against a wall. It was not the only time that happened this episode. Yeah dude, as much as I was frustrated by the premiere, it was worth it to get to this episode, where almost every scene came with real value, be it the temporary salvation of the wall or the tension at King’s Landing and… a lot happened, let’s say.

Cersei has King Tommen back on her side but arguably more valuable (than the king, yeah I know) is her massive Frankenstein’s Monster that follows her around. Book readers now and show watchers have probably already guessed that the monster is the reanimated Mountain. We almost got to see it wreak havoc but that was all in suspense. I expect it’ll get to rampaging some time in the future. For now Jaime is out there bossing around the king and threatening to murder the High Sparrow in blasphemous revenge. All in a day’s work down at the Landing, I heard the Kingslayer’s half an inch short of an inch but I wouldn’t say it too loud if I were you.

This Week… in ‘The Adventures of Dwarf and Eunuch’:

Varys worries that Tyrion is drinking too much while Tyrion goes out and tames a couple dragons with his sweet talking and a bit of compassion. Stay tuned for the next instalment!

Tyrion: “That’s what I do: I drink and I know things”

My esteemed colleague here has a theory about Tyrion emerging as a surrogate Targaryen. That theory has never looked more legit than this episode. There wasn’t much for he and Varys to do in this one and yet that scene was good fun all the same. Tyrion is a character who is always worth the attention he gets and Peter Dinklage is yet to come up short when asked to display a little acting range. No pun intended but I’ll let it stand.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot my favourite bit: BRAN IS BACK! And not only that but he’s hanging with the Three Eyed Raven and learning lessons. Apparently frustratingly slowly but thankfully they’ve spared us having to deal with his trials. Both he and Arya going through the Mr Miyagi treatment at the same time would definitely get annoying. It is interesting to wonder how those two will feature once they get their black belts though, brother and sister each seemingly chosen by a higher power and presumably with significant roles to play. Arya seems to have gained enough exp. points to reach another level, though I reckon she’ll need a moonstone to evolve. Another thing with her: that whole thing seems to be about banishing who she was in favour of becoming nobody: a faceless, nameless servant. Facechanger Bob clearly knows whassup, so when she says she is nobody she must really be meaning it. I do like the whole concept of finding this neutral zone of consciousness entirely without ego but the assumption was always that Arya would return to Westeros for justice. But like… what if she doesn’t? If she graduates her teachings then she won’t be Arya, those thoughts and memories will have been extinguished. Who is keeping those records if not her? Possibly she could do a Reek/Theon thing and have the old self triggered back into being but I’d guess equally as likely is that she doesn’t. So what happens if she runs into Sansa again? Sansa who has been told by Brienne that her sister still lived.

Anyway, Bran is now best friends with Max Von Sydow and, as somebody who not that long ago watched The Seventh Seal, that is one of the finest things this show has ever done. Not only that but Three Eyed Raven (now called 3ER) is taking him back in time to see Winterfell a generation ago. There’s Ned and Uncle Branden (still missing, so his mention was very conspicuous). And there’s Lyanna, who may or may not be one of the most important characters we never met (she is the L in R+L=J). Not to mention the lad Hodor, who – as previously hinted – was not always such a simpleton. He used to be a walking talking kid called Willis (who might have giant’s blood). Which, what? His parents never mentioned that to him?

3ER: “It is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long you’ll drown”

Bran: “I wasn’t drowning, I was home”

Sorry lad, can’t stay in the glorious past. Gotta come back to being a crippled kid with an imbecilic best friend. I was sort of relieved to see Meera is still around though. Not sure why, I guess I enjoyed her character more than I remembered. She was better in the books, overshadowed on film by her brother but he’s been given the flick.

I’ll admit I had a little bit of worry about Bran returning. One small thing being that when we last saw him he was kind of a drag and it had been a couple years so… you know with child actors they don’t always grow up to be Leo DiCaprio. But praise be to 3ER, turns out the kid can really act. That slight look of panic when Lyanna points to/past him where he thought for a second he’d been spotted and didn’t want to show it was superb, as was his face right before he left the green dream. He is sharing scenery with one of the best ever so I guess he picked up a few things.

Bloody hell and the Boltons! No, wait, there’s only one Bolton now. And he is a right old bastard that one, him and his hounds. Let’s not dwell there.

Nope, there’s only one place for this one to dwell. All of those lies from HBO, from the showrunners and from Kit Harington himself… those flirts. Those deceptive, morally bankrupt fraudsters. We all knew they were lying but a part of us couldn’t be 100%, that must be why we keep on watching this thing.

Ingredients for Magical Resurrection:

1 Corpse (ideally recently encorpsed)
1 Fire
1 Wet Flannel and Bucket
Several locks of hair
1 Dire Wolf
1 Set of Magic Words

Either that or you get Lord Qyburn to stitch something together. Do you think he used any sorcery with his monster or was is all ‘science’?

Good thing it’s so cold up on the wall, right? Because I’m not sure how long Jon was supposed to be dead for, maybe only a day or two but even still you’d expect a little rigor mortis and some decay to have begun. Congealing blood and all that. Coldhands had it. No but Jonny looked good as new, just a little pale. All the way down to that carefully placed loincloth over the one part of him that didn’t actually Know Nothing.

Now, there will be some ramifications. First of all, those people all think he’s dead and he ain’t no more. Who knows what kind of freakishness will be unleashed. Also, how much function is he going to retain? There was one other example of this happening was Thoros bringing Beric Dondarrion back to life in season three, Melisandre and he ran into each other and bartered over Gendry and his king’s blood. It was a whole thing. Anyway there were hints that the revived knight was short on energy and worse so every time they brought him back, right up until they didn’t but there’s no Lady Stoneheart in this telly play.

By the way, remember the leeches and the death curses that Melisandre paid back when? The three usurpers that were supposed to die were Robb Stark, Joffrey Lannister and Balon Greyjoy. The third of them just got pushed of a rope bridge.

So there’s that thing to wonder about but then also this: Is he still Lord Commander? He died, he was replaced by Alliser. Does Jon just take that title back? Or is he even still a member of the Watch anymore, did his dying release him from his oath? And if Melisandre was able to bring Jon Snow back from the dead… do you think we could get her to try bring back Prince as well?

Diggity Doc:

In that room, after Melisandre had done her thing and the few hopeful buggers in attendance had gapped the scene, Jon Snow came back around. In an episode that stormed through the various main characters and their individual doses of mayhem, Snow's revival was far from the most exciting narrative of this episode.

Regardless of Melisandre stumbling through the revival process, you always felt as though Mr Snow would be sweet which when compounded on top of the off-season hype surrounding Snow's revival, meant that this was a given. Snow was probably going to be back and what'd'ya know, Davos has a sneaking suspicion that Melly's magic can bring Snow back to life, too easy.

Snow is back, cool but holy shit, things got mental elsewhere.

Not too far down the road, Ramsay gave his hounds the flesh they had longed for after Sansa and Theon escaped. I'm just happy that a little bit was left up to the imagination here as I wouldn't put it past GoT to show a mother and baby getting fed to hungry hounds, it was horrible, far too horrible. However, I'm chillin' like a villain, cold blooded and all, which enables me to look past this unspeakable act and gain further insight into Lord Bolton.

We knew this dude was nuts, he's a torturer so killing off his competition in the race to be king is nothing to him. It's just another example of what power can do to someone and what someone will do for that power, especially as the writing was on the wall for Ramsay and with Roose Bolton trolling him a little too far, the writing was on the wall for the viewer as well.

This puts Ramsay in an interesting situation: he's been on the cusp of becoming a patched gang member for a few years now. He's put in work as a prospect, he's proven himself to be a maniac and he's climbed the ranks swiftly, he's now a patched gang member and he's just shanked the gang leader ... and fed the gang leader's heir and baby mama to the hounds. That's the definition of a power move.

Power move sure, but like, the Night's King is coming, Jon Snow is back and Bran's learning magical stuff all within close-ish proximity of Ramsay and Winterfell. I'm not willing to go all in on buying Ramsay's stocks just yet, despite his thirst for power and violence, he's still behind our good guys.

I'm going to assume that the flayed man we saw in a trailer is Roose ('fuck with me and I'll flay you, just like I flayed my pops').

Grr, I hope Sansa is the one to shank Ramsay.

Bran's appearance was interesting, not because we learned that he's mastering his warg stuff and not because we got a little trip to the past ... to a very happy, merry Winterfell. The 3ER seems like a nice chap and while his female off-sider looks like the epitome of evil, she had some wise advice for Meera. This got me excited because like Meera, I thought that Bran might become part of the furniture like the 3ER but hearing that Bran won't stay there forever was a relief.

As Meera looked out to the vast landscape, she was told that Bran would need her out there. I took this to mean that Bran's is going to go beast-mode at some stage, leave his nest and use his powers for the greater good.

As my comrade alluded to, that both Bran and Arya are in training camp at the moment can't be slept on. I don't think we can put either of their uugggh ... powers (?) over the other's, both are going to be equally as useful as the other.

I won't tell y'all I told ya so just yet as I'm not even 100 percent sure that Tyrion is a Targaryen. I am certain that Tyrion does have a dragon fetish though and I'm happy to anoint the dwarf as the official dragon whisperer.

Does anyone else really not give a shit about Daenerys right now? She might be the great dragon queen or whatever, but I've just seen Tyrion get all cosy with dragons and the Wildcard told me once of Tyrion's love for dragons as he was growing up. Tyrion is like the athlete who doesn't have freakish natural talent, but he works harder than the next person and all his dragon research as a youngster looks to be paying off.

Or those dragons can sense his Targaryen blood.

Either way, the possibility of Tyrion riding a dragon looks a whole lot more realistic. That's super duper exciting.

As Ramsay shanked his father, Tommen begged his mummy for help. Cute, a little sad but very smart. Tommen has realised he's not quite up to being the overlord just yet and that he needs some assistance from his cunning mum, not only does Tommen now have a revenge-thirsty Cersei there in his corner, he's also got that freak-a-zoid now as well. Freak-a-zoid who delivered the most ruthless one-hit-KO to that poor joker in the alley that I've ever seen.

I'm very confused by what happened with Jamie and the High Sparrow. I admire that High Sparrow's way of thinking, that the poor can take over if they come together and combine their powers against the rich minority (apply it to our lives right now), but the High Sparrow isn't very likeable when he's associated with those religious warriors. He's even less cool when he's going against Jamie Lannister, who I now like.

There's a battle between the haves and the have nots in King's Landing. I like the idea of the have nots and the majority rising up, but I have come around to liking the haves, especially after Tommen showed some wits and handed the power over to Cersei. Power to the people, but as long as the remaining Lannisters are all good and most importantly, as long as 'power to the people' isn't based on religion.

We all know what has spilled the most blood throughout history and religion just makes a violent world even crazier.

S06E02 Power Rankings

Tyrion Lannister – He drinks and he knows stuff. Plus he’s got a certain way with dragons.
Ser Davos Seaworthy – Still kicking ass with that self-deprecating humour and practical wisdom. It was his idea to try the old haircut revival move. His apology before the attempted siege was a real boss line.
Three Eyed Raven – “It is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long you’ll drown”
Cersei Lannister – As the Lannister stronghold is re-focussed, make no mistake who rules that roost. Especially with a goddamn giant zombie slave on her shoulder.
Ramsay Bolton – “I am Lord Bolton”… *shivers*
Melisandre – The Red Woman still has skills. Also, was that a new moisturiser or what? She’s looking much younger these days.
Brienne of Tarth – There probably isn’t a better person for Sansa to have in her service while strolling through the wilderness than Brienne. She is the definition of a true knight.
Tormund Giantsbane – Big fella’s been transferred to the old enemy and looks like he’ll get a bit of a say in things too. Call him Sol Campbell.
Arya/Nobody – A girl must rise up the leaderboard when she no longer needs to be smacked in the face with a stick. A girl will hopefully get her eyesight back with senses enhanced.
Yara Greyjoy – Here’s hoping the kingsmoot is generous to her case.