Wildcard:

Once again Game of Thrones has pulled that same old glorious trick. A character, much beloved and long thought lost or dead to the screen revived before our eyes and to the glee of all those watching. What a moment to behold… the return of Bronn!

Oh, also The Hound is still alive after his beating at the hands of Brienne way on back before Arya had even left Westeros and he’s been living with Ian McShane in a commune of sorts. Al Swearengen’s really turned his life around, renouncing violence and taking up a non-denominational role as a priest. And Houndy no longer goes by that name but his birth handle of Sandor. Good for him, although it seems while that rampant alcoholism has dried up just a little as he’s found purpose living off the land, the psychological demons remain.

Septon Swearengen: “Violence is a disease. You don’t cure a disease by spreading it to more people.”

As the Septon also says, the gods aren’t done with Sandor Clegane just yet. This probably came as a big shock to some while others probably caught the hints left hiding for them – specifically a certain reference in the books to a gravedigger and then also the fact that he was left breathing when we last saw him. They may have killed off Stannis when we weren’t looking but he was one of the few. And there is a reason for him to linger on too. Cersei is about to enter a trial by combat featuring his reanimated brother and if there are two things that Sandor truly hates it’s his brother and the Lannisters. Plus he had a connection with a rural septon of the High Sparrow’s faith. The Clegane Cup, winner takes all.

Plus he’s probably got vengeance on his mind after those brotherhood bastards savaged his entire commune. The Brotherhood Without Banners are supposed to be aligned to the Red God and the Hound – sorry, Sandor Clegane – had a bit of history with the main crew there, going way back again. Lady Stoneheart is with them in the books. We haven’t really seen them much on the show, they’re a bunch of Robin Hoods. They hate Lannisters too, especially post-Red Wedding so there ya go.

We’ll see how Sandor reacts to the massacre of the innocent that he managed to avoid (probably deliberate on the part of the killers). It’s implied he’ll seek revenge but there’ll be some twist out there, we just have to wait and see. This was another episode short on developments but unlike last week’s set-up piece, at least things kept moving here.

Probably the biggest drama was over the sea where Arya booked passage home to Westeros only to very clumsily forget that the trained assassins she just screwed over were still out there and the Waif did her best to gut her. Arya escaped over the bridge and into the river and the Waif let her go when she didn’t see the student she’d been training to be stealthy and discreet come back up for air. If Arya’s on the block for sabotaging a kill, then the Waif ought to be as well for completely botching this bollocks. First of all, why the gutting? Go for the neck or heart if you’re for the kill, and then make sure of it afterwards instead of assuming she’s drowned. Bloody ridiculous. The only reason I can think of was that the Waif was going against orders and trying to make Arya suffer as much as possible. Was the knife poisoned? That’d do the trick but somehow I doubt it.

Arya will survive because if she wasn’t going to then she’d have been killed seasons ago. But what this probably means is that she’ll need to take a few to recover, so it’s a good thing she kept the down-payment on the ship fare or the poor lass’d be well out of pocket. It also means that once she recovers the Waif will likely still be on her tail, might be a good idea to kill the lady that smacked you in the face with a stick all those times just for good measure. Hey, she tried to kill you too… albeit badly. This all also falls in with the theory that Arya will end up travelling with the actors. Good fun if that comes to pass, there might even be an opening if she wants to audition for the role of Sansa.

Other people having a tough time: Sansa and Jon. It took Davos to convince House Mormont (with their ten year old leader, so weird) to give them all 62 of their fighters (620 when you consider that each fights with the strength of ten men) while nobody else was much interested in fighting with wildlings because Westeros is crazy racist. And while the north remembers, it remembers the wrong things sometimes. As Davos said, it’s not what they hoped. At least Jon kept those wildlings on board – although Wun-Wun the giant probably swung it more than anyone. Also, I thought Tormund was with Brienne? Apparently he just hung around to say goodbye to her.

Brienne herself was off to try get the support of the Blackfish but it looks like he has bigger problems on his hands. For roughly the next two years he is planning on living in siege and Jaime isn’t too impressed by that – he wants to get in, win the castle and get the hell back to his sister/lover. Hence Bronn has been put in charge of getting trenches dug and all that. Talk about a rags to riches story, Bronn is basically the Jamie Vardy of Game of Thrones – all the way down to his England/Riverrun call-up and his potential transfer to Arsenal/the Lannisters.

The Blackfish is a badass. He doesn’t care if you kill his nephew, either that or he saw straight through the Frey bluff. As Jaime said, a threat’s not worth much if you aren’t prepared to carry it out. I get the feeling that the Blackfish is perfectly willing to see through his two-year siege, probably knowing full well what that amount of time can do within the power structure of King’s Landing. Problem is that it all means it’s gonna be tough to spare the soldiers to the Stark’s campaign – unless they want to drop down to the Riverlands and break up the siege first. Makes me wonder what twist may befall Brienne as she turns up and finds all those Lannister/Frey soldiers. Not to mention the lingering Brotherhood Without Banners, since they’re back in the action now.

But Sansa has a backup plan, even if she ain’t telling. Who do you reckon she was mailing… Littlefinger? Gotta be Littlefinger, right?

If anyone was doubting that Margaery was playing a little game then those doubts are gone, she’s busy playing an undercover role worthy of any 70s cop drama. She’s so far undercover, she’s basically Sean Penn in State of Grace (really underrated gangster flick that one, Gary Oldman is incredible in it). Every word and every action have been perfectly timed and placed, even when the High Sparrow pretty much told her to hurry up and get pregnant already. But before the prying eyes of that horrible Nurse Ratchet priestess, Margaery sneakily fed confirmation of her true allegiance to her grandmother.

Hopefully that isn’t the end of the Queen of Thorns, who is never short of compelling when she gets to start rapping on. Did you know Dianna Rigg was a Bond girl? She did get to leave Cersei with a damning send-off though, so there’s always that to remember her by if that’s it for her – which it almost certainly is this season, I’d say. Again, here’s hoping she’s back next year. I can’t help but feel that Lady Olenna is right, too: Cersei has lost. She just doesn’t know it yet. Look, they’re not bringing Sandor back to be killed by his brother, no way. Cersei probably ought to follow Olenna’s lead and skip town before it’s too late except that she never will. I almost don’t wanna say this but I have this niggling feeling that another Lannister may die before the season is out and frankly it could be any one of them. Cersei just got owned by Olenna and her trial may not be the forgone conclusion she thought it was. Jaime chatted with Brynden about penis-size and the Blackfish was not impressed. And Tommen is a tool, nothing more. Tyrion ought to be all goods though, even if it’s been ages since we last saw him. Those dragons been fed?

Ooh and one more thing: Yara and Theon are headed for Meereen to treat with Danaerys and show them how fast their boats are. Given that they’re already in Volantis, it would appear that those boats are very fast indeed. And Yara gave Theon quite the pep talk, trying to snap him out of that whole Reek thing once and for all. Or, as she called it: “a few bad years”. That’s definitely one way to put it. Funny how quickly their alliances have switched too, Theon was under Ramsay’s control last season, then was pitted with Sansa and Brienne before joining his sister on the Iron Islands and now is headed for Dany and company. It’s a small world after all.

Diggity Doc:

Theon, like Davos and Lady Mormont, wouldn't have pictured this sort of future when he was kickin' it with Ramsay. I doubt the Wildcard had any positive or negative tone when writing 'funny how quickly alliances have switched too', he was merely pointing this out as it highlights one of the great low key skills on the Seven Kingdoms and life in general: getting in where you fit in.

After kickin' it with Ramsay Bolton and then ditching Sansa, despite having a fairly decent future in riding with Sansa for the foreseeable future, Theon is now on his way to meet Dany. Finally, after having no real idea what Theon, or Yara for that matter, could have in store for them, there is an endgame for the weirdest siblings of the lot. Theon has been riding a wave of fluid shit for much of GoT and his future seems bright, I mean if he does meet up with Dany and along with Yara manages to convince (won't be too hard) Dany that their fleet is her best option, Theon could possibly be in the company of the Unsullied.

"That's like saying I have a bigger cock than anyone in the Unsullied army" ... or Theon.

You see, Theon and Yara had their quest laid out for us to see while the rest of the characters in The Broken Man and their futures were left to us with plenty to ponder. This was an episode in which business was done, well more like coffee dates were had and no real deal was actually done, there was a fair bit of breaking bread though. Up in the North, we saw Jon, Sansa and Davos trek around asking for help, they won and lost in that regard which did nothing in helping us understand what would happen next.

Sure, we kinda know that they will attack Ramsay and try to take what is rightfully theirs but they don't have much of an army and by the looks of things, Sansa is requesting help from that one slimey-as dude in Littlefinger. I couldn't help but enjoy Tormund's line when the wildlings agreed to offer their assistance, he basically said that the wildlings aren't quite smart enough to think about screwing Jon and Sansa over; if they say yes, they'll do it.

Littlefinger? Well he's pretty smart, possibly too smart. It always feels like he's up to some shenanigans and if he doesn't screw over Sansa, he'll have something up his sleeve for later on. That's if Sansa was writing to Littlefinger and I really hope she wasn't, that she is the one with a trick up her sleeve, I just don't know what that trick is.

This is reflected by Arya's uncertain future and to be honest, I don't really care. Arya was silly enough to let her guard down and she kinda paid the price, which came in the same episode that we met Lady Mormont. Obviously Arya is pretty damn important, but the 'Young Powerful Lady' title has now moved on to an actual 'Lady' who goes by the name Lyanna. This scene was one of the best in this episode and Lyanna strikes me as a character who may have a role of greater importance, she does have an interesting name and in unrelated news she is the cousin of Jorah ... who was strangely sent on a cure for his greyscale.

Lyanna appears pretty damn ruthless, just as Arya showcased a complete lack of ruthlessness. This also follows the trend of young folk creeping into crucial roles; Jon + Sansa, Margaery, Bran, Arya, Danaerys and so on. Young folk bring with them a fresh way of thinking which is contrasted by the older folk and their stubbornness, which you could argue is a positive or negative...

We have no idea how this whole situation at Riverrun is going to play out, nor do we know what's next for Margaery or Cersei at King's Landing. Margaery is up to some wicked tricks and I think we're all pretty happy that she slipped that note to her only family member left who holds any importance. Margaery clearly hasn't quite been fully converted, as we suspected, but why she's doing all of this intrigues me. Will Margaery go on a kill rampage (with both the High Sparrow and Cersei in her sights) or will she play a more delicate role in hunting for the throne?

Either way, keep in mind that Margaery, Sansa and Dany hold extremely important positions in across the Seven Kingdoms. Sure, someone like Bran is super duper important at this stage but there are women in power in the North, further south and across the ditch(/es). I wonder what Dany might think when she goes to bombard King's Landing and is met with another powerful female, would she feel any different?

This Septon must have some accurate prophecies as you wouldn't introduce a character and then kill him off if he wasn't somewhat important. What really got my head spinning was how much I loved his line 'violence is a disease' as this pretty much follows how I like to view things; we kill each other far too often, too easily and too stupidly. If it was all this simple though, violence would truly be viewed as a disease and no one would want to catch that disease, instead most of us have that disease somewhere deep inside of us.

We saw what happened to the Septon and taking this righteous approach doesn't exactly help you when that disease comes a'knocking, especially in a GoT world where violence is a currency. There could have been a cute moment in which Mr 'Violence Is A Disease' ended up in being right but duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, this is the wrong show for that. The conclusion that I come to here is that it's kinda sad that our real world is so similar to the GoT world in that regard.

Oh, yeah and that the Brotherhood Without Banners are pretty damn ruthless. Keep that in mind.

GOT S06E07 Character Rankings

Margaery Tyrell – Dunno what she does next but so far so good, she’s got King’s Landing in the palm of her hand.
Yara Greyjoy – Those Iron Islanders sure know how to party. Yara might have a future as an inspirational speaker too.
Brynden Tully – Quite a castle you have there, Blackfish. So long as you can hold onto it.
Lady Olenna Tyrell – “You’ve lost Cersei. The only joy I can find in all this misery.”
Lyanna Mormont – If only child-leader Lyanna was on the throne and not child-leader Tommen. Or Joffrey before him.
Ser Bronn – A lordship, a castle and a highborn beauty for a wife. Just waiting on the contract in the mail.
Wun-Wun the Giant – “Snoooow!”
Sandor Clegane – But at least you’re alive bro. That broken leg healed well.
Sansa Stark – One last trick up the sleeve… albeit a reluctant one.
Arya Stark – Shouldn’t have let your guard down after all that training, should you have, Arya?