'Game of Thrones' Recap: Sins of the Mother

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What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in a jail cell? (We all know you’ve done weird things that landed you in jail cells, but that’s a separate question.) Specifically, have you ever flashed your junk at a singing mercenary while he slowly died from poisoning simply to make a point? Also were your two sisters watching? And did the entire scenario have a Cinemax-quality vibe? If you answered yes to all three of these questions, then at least one scene from this week’s episode of Game of Thrones was very boring to you! “Been there,” you sighed to yourself while sewing up the dagger holes in your gauzy kimono. “Done that.”

Second question: How many think-pieces did you personally write after last week’s episode? Eleven? One hundred thousand? By this point we have to assume that HBO and the producers of Game of Thrones are well-aware of how provocative their storytelling decisions are, and that perhaps the outcry over a certain scene was exactly the kind of thing they wanted? No matter where you fell in the debate over whether beloved characters should be raped on television or not, it was one of those things were everyone’s right in some way, but the arguers of one particular side should maybe sit down and question whether writing think-pieces defending rape in entertainment is how they really want to be spending their time. Like, we get it, reality in entertainment and all that. But vociferously protecting the virtues of rape-tertainment is not exactly the coolest take, maybe. Which, uh-oh, is this a think piece? Dammit, you win again, HBO.

Related: ‘Game of Thrones’: DeObia Oparei on Playing the Most Dangerous Man in Dorne

I bring it up because the aftermath of that traumatic scene very much informed the tone of “The Gift,” and arguably contributed to how good the episode was overall. Despite the fact that much of “The Gift” continued the scourge of bad times that has made this season feel aggressively dark, it ended on a note of such righteous, crowd-pleasing karma that it was hard not to feel grateful and satisfied. Like, sometimes bad things happen to BAD people too. What a refreshing change! Let’s talk about it.

We began at Castle Black, where Jon Snow was just about to shove off for deeds most dreadful north of the wall. Before he jumped on a horse and trundled off, he removed Gingerbeard McAngry’s handcuffs, which makes them best friends now. But now who was going to look after the castle in Jon Snow’s absence?

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As if on cue, Maester Aemon immediately started dying ASAP. But before he made that big leap, he had some charming advice for Samwell, Gilly, and their baby: Get the f–k out of there. Which, considering Sam had once seen an army of white zombies marching in the castle’s direction, this should not have come as a surprise. But what DID come as a surprise was that Maester Aemon actually did go on to die of natural causes? Is that even allowed on this show? Truly a landmark day.  

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But now TWO authority figures were gone, so that meant that a couple of soldiers immediately began to get rapey with Gilly. 

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Sam had no choice but to stand up to those jerks! It did not go well.

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But don’t worry, after the jerks punched Sam in the face ten thousand times, he discovered he had surprise backup!

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GHOST! Yes, Jon Snow’s rarely seen direwolf ran out of the shadows and barked at the aspiring rapists! Good dog.

Because Game of Thrones is not above trafficking in even the tiredest tropes, of course Gilly made love to Sam as a thank you for preventing her rape. I suppose it should’ve been a more sweeping and romantic moment, coming as it did after many seasons of platonic buildup. But here we were, with a roughly 45-minute long scene of Gilly awkwardly scooting all over Sam while he bled from his face. This scene was almost TOO sexy, just kidding.

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Speaking of sexy, Stannis had been informed that tons of his soldiers had up and quit the war, plus the snow was killing all the horses, and worst of all, Melisandre had a very bad idea. That’s right, she wanted to use Princess Shireen’s blood for some kind of magic curse against their enemies. But she couldn’t just use a few drops like that one leech spell she did; Melisandre wanted BUCKETS. Which was quite a quandary for Stannis, obviously. Exactly how power hungry WAS he? Enough to murder his own daughter? I guess we’ll find out!

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Here’s a shocker: Sansa was not doing great. I can’t remember why. Anyway, Reek brought food into her room and she attempted to appeal to his inner-Theon and get him to help her send a message to outsiders, via that old woman’s instruction to light a candle in the tower. And to Sansa’s credit, it looked like Reek was maybe kinda sorta going to help her? 

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Haha just kidding, of course he wasn’t. On the upside, Ramsay let Sansa leave her room for a grim stroll through her snowy estate. She even got in a few harsh burns about how Ramsay will always be considered a bastard, especially if his stepmom births a new boy. But then Ramsay got the last laugh.

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Because, you guessed it: Reek had betrayed her and had ratted her out to Ramsay.

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So yeah, the old lady was tortured and killed. If you were wondering if the camera would linger on every part of the dead woman’s bloodied, flayed body, yes. Yes it would. Duh.

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And yet again, Reek was a contemptible mess. Real talk: This plotline is very, very tiresome. Get on with it, show. Winterfell is the new Meereen. Just a bare minimum of entertainment value.

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Meanwhile outside of Meereen, Ser Jorah was getting bought and sold like a common street hooker! Well, OK, no, he was being sold as a soldier to rich dudes who buy soldiers. I am not clear on how the economy works in this part of the world, or any part of the world, including my world, but that seemed to be what was going on here.

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What was especially cute was when Tyrion decided he needed to be sold alongside Ser Jorah, so he started WHALING on the nearest slaver.

And it worked! Suddenly the two were a package deal and headed toward the fighting pits of Meereen.

If Daario was being honest, he was not extremely comfortable with Daenerys marrying some rando. I mean, the proof was in the pudding (what is pudding proof?): He was all up in her bed and they were clearly in love, so why was she marrying that sniveling ambassador dude? Dany claimed that even queens had limits to their power — an argument Cersei would attempt to make later in the episode — but he wasn’t having it. In fact, in Daario’s opinion, Dany should trick all of the lords of Meereen to attend the fighting pits and then murder them all at once! Dany didn’t love the idea, but credit where credit’s due: Daario is ambitious and possibly psycho! Handsome, though.

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Later, Dany and her new fiancé attended a lower level pit fight because tradition, and she was clearly disturbed by all the violence. But then Ser Jorah ran out in his helmet and non-fatally punched everybody, which impressed Dany. But then he took off his helmet and she was super steamed at him.

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I guess Dany was still sore at him for possibly planning to assassinate her back in the day, but Ser Jorah quickly told her that he’d brought her a gift: A certain very crowd-pleasing little person.

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YES. Dany and Tyrion have officially laid eyes upon one another! She definitely looked intrigued to see him, but we haven’t seen them exchange words or anything yet. Gotta save that for Episode 8.

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Meanwhile in Dorne, Myrcella barely recognized her Uncledad. But she knew that she was tired of getting hassled from afar by her mother, and was perfectly happy staying in Dorne with her boyfriend. This teen did NOT want to be told what to do.

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The main thing we learned about this whole thing was that Jaime’s secret entry into Dorne while wearing a disguise was really stupid? Even after that whole courtyard skirmish the Dornish guards were treating him super well and he could freely talk to Myrcella. Couldn’t he have just arrived in an envoy and pretended to whisk her away on vacation? I guess maybe he just really wanted to be a spy. Fair enough!

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This whole scene was crazy. First, Bronn was singing a lovely tune, then this one Sand Snake decided to prove she was the most beautiful woman in the world by taking off her clothes and possibly hypnotizing Bronn into dying. 

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Except it was really just the poison on her dagger that had caused him to become sick, and she ended up just giving him the antidote, which was a bead on her necklace.

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Just going to be real with you: At first I loved the Sand Snakes — they were like baby Michelle Rodriguezes! — but now it’s becoming clear that I was wrong and maybe they are terrible. I don’t know. This scene in particular felt so sleazy and lame. The camera just scanned and rescanned this girl’s naked body with the same relish it had with that skinned-alive dead woman earlier. So just to keep score, the camera absolutely lingered on two things in this episode: a dead woman and a naked woman. (You know, in case you were in the mood to write a think-piece about any of this.)

One of the most upsetting things from last week was when Lady Olenna lost a debate with Cersei. Well, she lost another one this week with the High Sparrow, who was not sufficiently impressed by her threats to withhold food from King’s Landing in exchange for her grandchildren’s release.

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But what made this scene so well-written was that the High Sparrow made some good, even sympathetic, points about how the highborn should be held to the same standards as the lower class when it came to the law. Putting aside the fact that these supposedly sacred laws are based on a ludicrous fairy tale, I think we can all agree that hypocrisy is worth rooting out. Still though, watching Lady Olenna struggle to get results has been a major bummer. She is too amazing for failure!

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Fortunately, Littlefinger was Team Olenna this day. After he convinced her that he’d had nothing to do with the Tyrells’ incarceration, he tipped her off to the fact that he’d already given her “a gift.” In this case it was the gift of “a handsome young man.” Littlefinger was cryptic about what this meant, but we knew something very interesting was in store!

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Poor Tommen was still very upset about Margaery’s imprisonment, and all he could do about it was throw tantrums in front of Cersei.

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She lied a ton about how she’d do her best to help out however she could, but it did seem a least partly genuine when she looked pained by his pain. Her face even got real wet right beneath her eyeballs, I’m not sure what that was though. Tears? Possibly!

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So then Cersei paid Margaery a visit to bring her a doggie bag of deer meat she hadn’t eaten at the previous night’s dinner, and also to deliver some snide remarks and false empathy.

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Margaery called her out BIG TIME for being an evil liar, and even threw the food back at Cersei, and both things were very satisfying to me as a viewer. But not as satisfying as what happened next.

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That’s right: Lancel stepped up and NARC’D on Cersei as having been her incestuous lover in the past, an incestuous lover who’d contributed to the death of Robert Baratheon. So yeah, Cersei was BUSTED.

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Next thing we knew, a super tall nun barged in and dragged Cersei away!

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And our last, amazing moment was Cersei lying on the prison floor threatening revenge on all comers. Seeing as she’s one of the main villains, it’s easy to believe she probably will somehow get out of this jam. But still, after weeks and weeks of sheer malice on Cersei’s part, it’s truly glorious to see her realize the fatal mistake she made in giving the Sparrows power. 

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Ultimately her biggest mistake was in installing a religious group who weren’t quite corrupt enough. If this plotline means we’re headed for a trial in which Cersei’s crimes are aired in public, it could change the power dynamics of Westeros completely. In a word, I’m riveted.

Again, despite the continuation of several dark plotlines, “The Gift” was itself a gift to us viewers who’d maybe started to feel we were having to endure this show more than enjoy it. And it came at just the right time, too: With only three more episodes to go, we needed something compelling and important to happen to take us to the end. Let’s do this, show.

What was your favorite moment from “The Gift”?

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