'Game of Thrones' Recap: Insurrections and Resurrections
Warning: This recap for the “Home” episode of Game of Thrones contains spoilers.
When a show boasts several thousand characters and twelve million plotlines, it can be easy to overlook recurring themes and trends. But in “Home” there were at least two scenes involving literal giants standing up to bullies. There were two scenes in which an elderly father was viciously murdered. There were two bad wigs worn by both Cersei and a goblin woman who lives in the bushes. There were also two extremely attractive corpses (though only one of them was given a shampoo and nude sponge bath before coming back to life). Still, good things must come in pairs, because “Home” was filled to the brim with good things.
The two major themes of “Home” would have to be resurrection and insurrection. The first in a literal sense as a popular character you may have heard of — Jon Snow — came back to life! Even storylines were resurrected, as this episode saw the return of Bran Stark, who hadn’t been seen in over a season. But insurrections were also going on right and left, as Ramsay Bolton forcefully took over his father’s reign in Winterfell, while Theon’s dad was thrown off a bridge, and the Lannisters and the Sparrows each made moves to overthrow the other within King’s Landing. Yes, it’s all still a throne game (which is a term I just came up with) and there were now more players than ever!
Let’s talk about “Home”!
We began inside a weird cave that smelled like bird droppings and old people.
We were back inside the lair of the Three-Eyed Raven, and at some point the thing had begun to look A LOT like Max Von Sydow, who is a famously scary actor most recently seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Which meant that the actor time-share between the two franchises worked in BOTH directions.
Although Bran was still paralyzed and spending most of his time all white-eyed and passed out on a pile of roots like a typical teenager, apparently the Three-Eyed Raven was showing him tons of time-travel-y things. Like in this instance when it whisked him back to Winterfell to a time when Ned Stark was a child having pretend sword fights with his brother and sister Lyanna. Also it was a time when Hodor was named Willis and seemed at least medium-intelligent!
So what had happened to him since then? And also why was the show suddenly trying to remind us who Lyanna Stark was? Couldn’t possibly have to do with Jon Snow’s secret parentage, right? These are questions for another time, because suddenly the vision was over and it was time for Bran to figure out why Jojen’s sister was pouting outside.
Meera was a warrioress, so she was getting antsy about not getting to bust more skulls on the regular. What was all this sitting around and meditating with birds nonsense? Even the weird goblin girl who looked like the winner of a RuPaul’s Drag Race mini-challenge was like “Relax, Winter is coming, etc.” Anyway, it’s been a while since we’ve seen any of these people, so welcome back, guys! (Miss U Jojen.)
Meanwhile, things were coming to a head at Castle Black. And by that I mean the murderous traitor crows were about to bust down the door to the room where Jon Snow’s corpse and Jon Snow’s friends were holed up. But just before those jerks could “Heeere’s Johnny” their way into the situation, guess who showed up to interrupt them?
THE GIANT! Also, the Wildlings. But most importantly THE GIANT.
He made his presence clear right away, and the Crows had no choice but to drop their swords as the murderers were taken into custody. Yes, there was a tiny bit of hand-wringing over whether a thousand years of tradition should be overturned by letting Wildlings help run the castle, but these were obviously desperate times, and desperate times call for A GIANT TO WHAP MEN AGAINST WALLS.
Over at King’s Landing, it was funeral day for poor Myrcella Lannister. She was being buried in her best gold dress and fanciest eye stones, and if I’m being honest she was now one of the luckiest characters on the show. Things were obviously not great in Westeros and were only getting worse, so at least she was getting to sit out all that drama, you know? For example, her mother Cersei had been banned from attending her funeral for security reasons, plus barefoot religious fanatics were able to freely enter the funeral whenever they felt like it!
I loved that Jaime Lannister immediately drew a line between himself and the High Sparrow, and he seemed ready and willing to murder the guy right then and there for all the Sparrows had done to the Lannisters lately. But when dozens of Sparrow goons showed up holding intense-looking weapons he decided now wasn’t the time. Also, just a reminder, the Sparrow goons are still uncomfortably sexy.
CONVERT ME, guys. Just kidding, don’t. But maybe? I’m free this weekend.
I loved that we finally got to see Zombie Mountain in action. This poor villager made the mistake of playing The Dirty Dozens in public, and his snaps were all directed at Cersei and her family. Suddenly Zombie Mountain appeared and crushed his skull against a brick wall! But honestly, when has it ever been a good idea to trash-talk Cersei? Maybe don’t do that, everyone. She already has it hard enough now that she has to wear that Carol Brady wig.
But yeah like I was saying, she had been forbidden from leaving her room, on Tommen’s orders. She wasn’t happy about it, but his reasoning was simply that he didn’t know how to keep her safe otherwise. But I did love when he went to her and apologized for seeming so weak, and could she please teach him to be more of a hardened bad-ass, or at least more ruthless and Joffrey-esque? That is probably exactly what she wanted to hear, so it should be exciting to see what kinds of lesson plan she’ll draw up for him. Love these two.
Back in Meereen where a group of characters were still hanging out for some reason, Tyrion wondered why the dragons hadn’t been eating, and they all decided it was because Daenerys was gone and also dragons don’t like being chained up. So I guess they drew straws and Tyrion drew the short one (height joke) and he decided to sneak into their dungeon and remove their collars.
And he did so! And they were now both free. It was cute! Thus concludes our quick trip to the worst city in Game of Thrones.
Over in Braavos, Blind Arya got her ass handed to her once again by that girl with the stick, but she managed to get a few licks in this time. That’s when Jaqen (or someone wearing his face) showed up to test Arya once again, asking what her name was. When she refused to admit she even had one, he welcomed her back into training at the House of Black and White. So yes, we could now rejoice at the fact that Arya had regained entry into her secret death cult that almost certainly would not be among the good guys when the battle of the living versus the dead finally happens. But at least she wasn’t a hobo anymore, that was something.
If you were wondering if Ramsay Snow was still the worst, this episode provided a huge reminder that yes, he was still the #1 worst guy. First he murdered his own father!
Then he turned wild dogs on his father’s new wife and her newborn son! That’s right, in this episode a mother and her newborn were eaten by dogs while Ramsay watched. The sound effects alone were enough to turn your stomach. What a sweetie Ramsay is. But now he was Lord Sweetie and was an even more formidable threat than he was before. Hooray?
Now that Sansa was in the safe hands of Brienne, Reek f.k.a. Theon decided he should part ways and return home to Pyke. This was going to be a more agreeable situation than swearing an oath to Castle Black, which was Sansa’s suggestion of how he might be absolved for his sins against the Starks. But no, Pyke was where his bedroom was, and even though his family was a bunch of soggy dicks, at least he could work through his issues in the comfort of his own (wet) home. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, sh*t was going DOWN in Pyke.
Theon’s crabby old man father had just gotten done shouting at Theon’s sister Yara, then he went outside onto a slippery bridge and was confronted by someone who appeared to be the old man’s brother but who was claiming to be the Drowned God himself. So, a crazy person. But a crazy person who threw the old man off the damn bridge!
The next day at the funeral, Yara was throwing around bold proclamations about catching her father’s killer AND taking over his throne. This random spindly old man was not super into that idea.
Obviously Yara was the only competent Greyjoy in existence, but even medieval fantasy tales have their glass ceilings, you know? Better luck next century, Yara.
We were then treated to the sequence we’d all been expecting and had even been demanding since last summer: Jon Snow getting a sponge bath! Yes, he was technically now a corpse, but we’ll take it. Just kidding but seriously if there is such a thing as necrophilia softcore, Game of Thrones nailed it. I liked that Melisandre wasn’t super convinced she was even able to do such a thing as resurrect a dead hunk, but Ser Davos had faith in her and gave her a stirring inspirational speech like something out of Rudy and suddenly she pulled it together and next thing we knew she was manscaping Jon Snow’s corpse and sponging him off and groping him a ton. Unfortunately after yammering out a spell for a while, there was no sign of life and everyone left the room bummed. That’s when Ghost woke up from his nap and was like “Wuzza?” — and then Jon Snow woke up too!
And while I was super happy to see Jon Snow alive again, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. His temporary death must have been the best and most restful sleep he’d ever gotten, yet now he was awake again and forced to head up some kind of army against the living dead. That sounds horrible and exhausting! Plus, now he probably owes Melisandre a sexual favor or two, but hopefully she’ll leave the necklace on. Anyway, welcome back, Jon Snow! Now all we need to know is who your parents are, and we’ll be square.
“Home” was great. This show is great. I realize it’s not based on the books anymore, but who can tell? It seems just as dramatic and compelling as it’s ever been. If the second episode of the season was this jam-packed with occurrence (meaning mostly ‘murder’ in this context), I can’t even imagine what the rest of the season has in store. I just know that I am all in. Truly what a show.
What did YOU think of “Home”?
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO
