'Game of Thrones' recap: Literally hell yes
Warning: This recap for “The Spoils of War” episode of Game of Thrones contains spoilers.
You know you’ve truly made it when you can ruin a party just by arriving. It can take years of painstaking scheming, backstabbing, and social manipulation to finally get to the point where you enter a rented banquet hall and “This Is How We Do It” turns to a record scratch as everyone stares at you bewildered. Or perhaps you took the easy route and spent millions on high-powered attorneys to strip your enemy of custody rights and a good credit score, all so that you can walk into Dave & Buster’s and watch people back away from the Skee-Ball machines. In another scenario, you could arrive on a dragon. Whatever the case, that party is OVER. Hey let’s talk about “The Spoils of War”!
We began in a rare green area of Westeros where a certain conflicted soldier was frowning at gold.
Frowning at gold is arguably Jaime Lannister’s third favorite activity, after doing sex with his sister and bonking gophers with his metal hand. But he was frowning especially hard this day, perhaps because he’d just murdered an old lady and she’d reminded him that his inbred son had been a sack of beach trash and that his whole life was pointless basically. But a job’s a job, and it was time for him and his army to return to King’s Landing for more sister sex and gopher bonking. Onward!
Back at home, Cersei was still hanging around with that creepy banker, who seemed utterly stoked that she wasn’t broke anymore. Classic banker friendship! Sure he’s there when you’re doing well and need to party, but where will he be when you need a ride to the airport or a shoulder to cry on. Invest in his mutual funds but do not invest in his friendship, girl.
Up at Winterfell, Littlefinger rubbed up on “Bran” and attempted to be his bestie by gifting him that Valyrian dagger a dude had once used to try and kill the boy back in Season 1. That was very much a cool gift, but considering Littlefinger had directly caused Ned Stark’s execution, maybe Bran should zap himself to that reality and get that info? On the other hand, when Bran repeated Littlefinger’s mantra back to him (“chaos is a ladder”) there’s a chance he already DID know what Littlefinger had done, and now just simply didn’t give a s***. What I am trying to say is, Bran Stark sucks now and somebody should put his new wicker wheelchair to use by rolling him into that fire.
Look at how he dismissed Meera and her years of service and sacrifice!
Justice for Jojen! Justice for Hodor! Yeah, let’s not talk about that anymore. Let’s talk about what REALLY mattered in Winterfell… Arya’s return!
After a slightly frustrating scene in which the Winterfell guards wouldn’t let Arya through the front gate (all while dropping a notable number of F-bombs for a fantasy nether-realm), Arya finally snuck in and reunited with Sansa in front of the tomb of their father, which had been sculpted by someone who hates sculpting. I loved that Sansa’s initial hug to Arya went unreturned, but then Arya finally warmed up and grabbed her sister hard. Jeez, finally a satisfying reunion! The most emotional part of their meeting was realizing just how much these characters had experienced and changed since the last time they’d seen each other. Sansa was, of course, 1 million percent cooler than she was in Season 1. And because nature demands balance, Bran was now 1 million percent less cool.
Still though, nice to see all three of them walking/rolling through Winterfell. Sometimes it’s the simple pleasures, you know? Everybody pls stay alive now.
Hey, remember that 45-minute soft-core love scene two weeks ago when Missandei and Greyworm put on a Sade record and got it on a ton? Well, Missandei had a great time and everyone could tell. Even Daenerys took a break from pretending she’s not horny to be superhorny and ask exactly WHAT had happened. “Many things,” Missandei answered, but for a minute there I thought she said “mini things,” which would’ve been a sick burn considering her man was currently AT WAR. Anyway, Daenerys was so horny from this that she ended up following Jon Snow into a moist cave.
He had discovered the trove of dragonglass, but even more importantly, he’d discovered a trove of sh***y graffiti. Was that supposed to be a sun? And we’re to believe the Children of the Forest carved polka dots into a cave full of valuable minerals? Also I almost died laughing at this:
It wasn’t even in the same style as the other drawings! Can we be certain Jon Snow didn’t come in here 10 minutes earlier and go wild with a piece of chalk? Whatever the case, these ancient pictures of White Walkers got Daenerys fully on board to protect the North, but only if Jon “bends the knee.” In this case it could be safely assumed that it was perhaps a sexual innuendo, but he still declined. Classic Jon Snow. Still knowin’ nothing. Anyway, at this point Daenerys found out that her allies had all been killed and her naval fleet destroyed. Like most teenage queens she just wanted to burn down the world and go hang in her room for a while, but everyone (including immortal party-ruiner Jon Snow) advised her to NOT use her dragons, because it would be, like, uncool. Ugh, then what is even the point?
Back at Winterfell, Arya decided to show off her new assassin skillz by challenging Brienne to a sparring match. She sort of just ran around and did flips and waved all her swords everywhere, and everyone watching was like “DAMN. SHE DID THAT.” I loved that Sansa and Littlefinger were watching from above looking like they now had a lil dragon of their own. Arya was going to come in handy probably! (Just wait till they see her surgically remove a face from a skull.)
The Stark Reunion-palooza had one last encore, and it was the unexpected arrival of Theon Greyjoy at Dragonstone. Jon Snow knew Theon had saved Sansa’s life, but he also knew that Theon had, like, mega-betrayed the Starks back in the day, so he had mixed feelings about seeing his sorta-brother again. Still, so many original Starks, bastards, and wards were all finally seeing each other again, and the full-circle-ness was so fun. Anyway, Theon had simply shown up to alert everyone to the fact that he was a failure and that Euron had taken Yara and also his dignity. Daenerys was like THAT’S IT.
Then, by the grace of the almighty, we got some more Dickon. This was back at the Lannister camp, where the remaining section of the army was traveling back to King’s Landing with their ill-gotten spoils. Dickon was confessing to Jaime and Bronn that (a) murder sucks and (b) poo smells bad. In other words, Dickon was out there learning valuable lessons about being both a soldier and a man of conscience. In many ways they were all Dickon this day. But hold up! What was that sound?
It was a platinum-braided teen queen on a dragon and she was tired of losing these damn battles!
This happened. Plus some Dothrakis ran in and yelled at everyone and a horse got his leg chopped off. Pretty boring stuff overall, hope you brought a book to read.
In my opinion I just told a joke and here’s why: This scene was very good and exciting! It looked expensive and it was terrifying and most importantly we finally got to see what a BATTLEDRAGON looks like. That column of hellfire left rows of ash-statues in its wake, like something out of Pompeii! (Too soon?) And when a thousand soldiers shot arrows at the dragon and they clinked off of it like pine needles off the Batmobile? I nearly collapsed to the floor and rolled into a storm drain to be with my family again. What I’m trying to say is, this scene was very wonderful and terrifying, and it feels like an impossible task to even describe it properly. I needed it, friends. This guy was a little less into it, though.
It was, essentially, his new bestie incinerating his family’s army (including possibly his own brother!), so Tyrion wasn’t quite sure how to feel. I get it. He’s had a complicated life, I’ll explain later.
Bronn nearly got his ass handed to him by a Dothraki, but he battled back to become the first person to shoot Cersei’s giant dragon-killer crossbow! (Why did they bring it to attack Lady Olenna? Nevermind.) And in case you were wondering if there was something extra special about this weapon, the answer is no. It just simply shot a spear instead of an arrow, and Daenerys’s dragon ended up getting a boo-boo in its shoulder. I felt bad for that dragon. Shame on you, Bronn! Anyway, with the dragon grounded and Daenerys trying to pull out the spear, the fool Jaime Lannister tried to run up and kill her! Her dragon had other ideas.
And at this last moment Bronn jumped off a horse and knocked Jaime Lannister — full armor and gopher-bopping hand and all — into the depths of a nearby bog.
And he slowly drifted deeper and deeper into darkness. The silent end credits suggested he might be gone forever. But also, we aren’t dummies? If he really died, this show would TELL US. (Also note that the music eventually came in at the end). So yeah, expect Jaime to be saved by, like, the Drowned God, or a merman, or a mystical beaver, or shirtless Gendry for some reason. Jaime’s gonna be fine. But not as fine as WE are after all that glorious dragon carnage!
“The Spoils of War” made me very happy, so happy it didn’t even bother me that the episode was 10 minutes shorter than usual. They probably couldn’t afford more minutes after all that sweet dragon action. But episodes like these fully explain why the last two seasons are so short. When every episode feels like a climax, who needs filler?
What did YOU think of “The Spoils of War”?
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
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