‘Game of Thrones’ Recap: Epic Thrill of the Terribly Unchill

Warning: This recap for “The Door” episode of Game of Thrones contains spoilers.

The greatest trick the Game of Thrones ever played was convincing everyone it wasn’t necessarily a fantasy show. It presented itself as grounded, gritty, political, and had next to none of that weird hooey we all imagine a typical game of Dungeons & Dragons to devolve into: “Your haunted amulet shields you from being thunder-dazzled by Gimlord, the ogre sorcerer of Moon Storm Bog.” Nothing like that. Instead we were lured in by ripped-from-the-history-books, serious-minded political maneuverings and inter-family disputes. Respectable things!

But then, after ten episodes of restraint, slowly and at a reasonable pace… Magic arrived. Baby dragons hatched. A shadow baby murdered a king. Throughout the next several years Game of Thrones steadily upped the number of fantastical elements, never faster than its cynical, fantasy-wary viewership would accept. But the time for restraint is officially over. This show has begun its end-run and if “The Door” was any indication, it’s now incredibly — and unapologetically — jam-packed with ludicrous fantasy elements and it feels GREAT.

Rivaled only perhaps by last season’s White Walker-pocalypse or Dany’s arena dragon rescue, “The Door” contained Game of Thrones’ most insane and fantastical action sequence in its run so far. Impeccably filmed and laced with just enough TOTAL HEARTACHE to leave us devastated, that attack on the Three-Eyed Raven’s giant Weirwood tree was unfathomable. It also lead to, unfortunately, the most poignant death in the show’s run yet.

Let’s be clear: "The Door” was one of the great episodes of Game of Thrones. Let’s talk about it!

We began with an angry woman yelling at her former bestie in a barn.

The best new character of Season 6 is definitely Angry Sansa, and while it wasn’t clear whether this scene was a direct reaction to fan backlash over her sexual assault last season, or if it was always in the cards, Angry Sansa had some WORDS for Littlefinger about what had happened to her.

He’d reappeared to offer his help (and Knights of the Vale) for whatever her current cause might be, but Sansa needed him to know the full extent of the mental — and physical! — pain she’d endured under Ramsay Bolton. The scene was unflinching and powerful and Sophie Turner was straight-up incredible in it. Angry Sansa did not forgive Littlefinger for pawning her off to the Boltons, and she certainly was not about to accept his help in any way. For his part, he seemed awful sorry, but then again he’s a proud liar, so.

Meanwhile Arya was still getting her education at the House of Black and White, which mostly meant she was still getting her a** handed to her by a filthy, frail-looking urchin with a stick. But Jaqen decided to cut her some slack by first giving her a lecture on the origins of their particular death cult (a former slave started collecting faces a while back) and then offered her a gig. She had to murder an actress in town!

Then we were all treated/mistreated to Braavos’ finest sketch show, Westeros Night Live or whatever. Basically a bunch of low-rent actors re-enacted Season 1, which Arya found amusing and all… Until a cross-eyed yokel named Ned Stark came out and pranced like a buffoon.

Arya did NOT appreciate seeing this, nor did she enjoy seeing an actress playing Sansa getting her top ripped off onstage. Mostly because it was bad comedy, but also because it was making fun of her family. Clearly she was going to probably enjoy poisoning the actress who played Cersei.

Another long-time viewer complaint about Game of Thrones has been the gender imbalanced nudity, so here comes THIS episode with A CLOSE-UP of a d*ck! An actual d*ck. It feels nice when the showrunners seem to be listening to us. (Just kidding, this was weird. I mean, that d*ck belonged to the actor who played Joffrey! And it had warts on it! No me gusta. Points for trying, though.)

Oh this was interesting. Back in the day the child goblins created the White Walkers! They just gathered around for an unusual craft night and turned a hunk into a glowing-eyed jerk!

When Bran found this out he asked one of the goblins about it and she was like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apparently the White Walkers had been created by the goblins to protect them from, you guessed it, humans! So that was not a great idea on their part, as they would come to discover shortly.

Theon followed through with his promise to help his sister run for King, but the rest of their terrible countrymen were not quite as comfortable with a lady king. What did you expect from a bunch of people who smell like beach garbage?

Also their campaign was interrupted when Theon’s uncle showed up and started bragging about how he’d murdered his own brother and he should be the king now so that he could go find Daenerys and do sex to her. (This was his actual campaign promise.) Everyone there was fine with this idea, so then he was coronated (which involves drowning and then coming back to life). But since Theon and Yara had lost their campaign they had no choice but to RUN FOR THEIR LIVES. Their uncle wanted them dead now, but at least they stole the fleet on the way out. Classic Greyjoy move.

Ser Jorah finally admitted to Dany that (1) he loved her with all of his heart and (2) he needed some lotion possibly.

Daenerys seemed very touched and moved by his admission for love, but she was not impressed when he insisted on walking off alone to die somewhere. Instead she commanded him to go find himself a cure for greyscale, Queen’s Orders. Will he do this? Probably. I don’t know. It was a cute moment either way.

Over in Meereen, which is a city that forever begs to be burned to the ground, Tyrion and Varys decided they should spread the religion of the Lord of Light so that the citizens would consider Daenerys their savior or whatever. Who knows. But it meant we got to meet another red priestess, who was also sexy, and who also wore one of those age-defying chokers. And when Varys made the mistake of getting all atheist on her, she countered with tons of intimate knowledge about the time a wizard cut his junk off and threw it in a fire.

She mentioned something about how he’d heard a voice in those flames (the flames that were burning his junk) and he looked really troubled by this. WHO shouted at him through that fire? I feel like that will come into play later and you can quote me on that. Anyway, welcome, girl!

Angry Sansa had had ENOUGH when it came to not murdering Ramsay Bolton. So the gang got together and started brainstorming which houses would back them up if they decided to invade Winterfell. In the end she used one of Littlefinger’s hot tips and decided she should appeal to her uncle The Blackfish, and most of the gang decided to set out for a visit. Also, look at these two:

Thus includes our weekly check-in on the sensual, steamy love affair between Tormund and Brienne.

So, here’s where things got wild. Like a typical bored teen, Bran decided to go off on his own and explore the world of astral projection (or whatever this is called). But right away he ran into trouble when he encountered an army of wights and then, at the back, the actual White Walkers. But as had been hinted at in the past, Bran wasn’t simply invisible to them… The Night’s King actually saw him and grabbed his arm like some kind of icy Freddy Krueger! When Bran snapped out of his trance, he had an icy handprint on his arm and the Three-Eyed Raven was like “You done f*cked up now.” Apparently now the White Walkers would be able to track Bran.

And about twenty minutes later, guess who showed up?

Thus began one of the more elaborate and expensive-looking sequences in the show’s history. I’m talking goblins throwing light grenades, hordes of CGI zombies, a dire wolf biting heads off, and, of course, DEATH.

Despite the gang’s best efforts, the wights had busted into the underground tree room! Meera was trying to wake Bran up from his trance (which, to be fair, was intended to be his ‘final lesson’ so that he could officially take over for the Three-Eyed Raven).

But it still felt so stressful to see all this carnage happening in the present tense while Bran was just chilling in a flashback watching his dad become a man.

To be fair, Meera and the goblins and the dire wolf did a surprisingly good job of keeping the wights at bay. Meera even killed a White Walker!

Take that, you cold bozo. Unfortunately, the White Walkers then evened things up by murdering the Three-Eyed Raven!

That’s how he disintegrated in Bran’s flashback, all gorgeous and scary-like.

I loved that when Bran, Hodor, and Meera were trying to escape, this one goblin held off hundreds of the wights and then suicide-bombed herself with her last grenade. Sometimes this show is even more intense than, like, Saving Private Ryan. And sadder!

But in the end it all came down to Hodor, the beloved behemoth who’d been the Blaster to Bran’s Master since Season 1. Bran had been forced to warg into him in order to carry his own body out of the underground tree room, but Bran had done this from within his flashback, meaning Bran now had multiple warg situations happening simultaneously. And when Meera pleaded with Hodor to “hold the door,” the message somehow traveled through Bran back into time and caused child Hodor (then named Wyllas) to seize up as his brain became damaged by the directive and fated him to a life of a single vocabulary word — and purpose. In both the present and past, “Hold the door” slowly morphed into “Hodor,” and that awful, constricted feeling in your ribcage was the realization that Hodor had been forced into a destiny that he later bravely and finally fulfilled.

With this moment, Game of Thrones attained that particular sublimity where a devastating turn of events also had huge and beautiful implications about the narrative from here on out. As I’d suspected, Bran hadn’t just been experiencing visions, he’d been participating in them. Bran can TIME TRAVEL. Furthermore, he’s far more powerful than we’d imagined, especially now that the Three-Eyed Raven had passed the proverbial torch to him. But also, the White Walkers’s powers include telepathy and the desire to destroy Bran, placing him at the center of this entire saga to an extent we hadn’t expected. Here, halfway through Season 6, Game of Thrones is finally signaling its desire to bring this conflict to a head. And it took the noble death of a beloved character to get us there. Together we cry forever, but Game of Thrones has never been better.

Truly brilliant.

What did YOU think of “The Door”?

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO