'Game of Thrones' Recap: No Paucity of Atrocity

Oh, gosh. Well. Something pretty horrible happened this week on Game of Thrones. Yes, that phrase accurately describes most episodes of Game of Thrones, but it’s episodes like this one that make it hard to genuinely love this show across the board. Watch, respect, admire, and be entertained by it, sure. But can we really and truly “love” a TV show that so regularly traffics in atrocity? I mean, it’s one thing to invite the horrible things these characters do to one another into our living rooms, but could we ever invite them into our hearts?

I suppose there’s narrative value in, say, what happened to Sansa this week, but that’s an academic discussion at best. I’m talking actual entertainment value. Is an episode like “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” genuinely entertaining? Or is there an increasingly strong case to be made that, you know what, life is short. Maybe we don’t need to see quite so many rapes, eviscerations, and genocides. If most entertainment — especially the fantasy genre — works best as escapism, then is this a place we really want to be “escaping” into? These are philosophical questions for smarter people to answer. But for now we’re just left with another week casually ruined by events in Westeros.

“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” ended with the show’s third major female character being raped. There’s no getting around that fact. But increasingly Game of Thrones demands that we not evaluate it as a whole, but rather plotline by plotline. So while I truly don’t want to discuss that final nightmare scene too much, it would be a shame to ignore how great some of the other plotlines were. So let’s do that!

First things first: How can I get an appointment to Arya’s corpse salon? Is it appointment-only or do they accept walk-ins? Because honestly, a visit to the corpse salon seems like a very relaxing experience. Just imagine it: You get a manicure, a full sponge bath, your hair washed, there’s nice mood lighting, and also you’re a corpse. Seems like a pretty good situation! I never know whom to tip, though. Both the corpse beautician and the corpse transporters? Or just the corpse beautician? And what about the lady that comes in and harasses the corpse beautician every ten minutes? I don’t think I would like to tip her.

You guessed it, we were in The House of Black and White, Arya had spent an unspecified amount of time doing chores and cleaning corpses, and this lady was still taking every opportunity to be mean to her. In this case, Arya actually tried to reach out to her and get some info about her backstory, and the lady told this long tale similar to Arya’s, and just when it seemed like they were bonding she was all, “PSYCH!” Tricked again.

But Arya wasn’t done learning tough lessons this day. That night when she was trying to sleep in her cubbyhole, Jaqen (or at least the dude wearing Jaqen’s face) showed up with a stick and demanded Arya’s life story and would hit her whenever she lied. Which was surprisingly often? Arya, quit lying, girl. He was thwacking her right and left. But the harshest thwacks were reserved for when she claimed she didn’t love The Hound. Aw, that is heartbreaking.

But yeah: Arya suddenly learned the difference between truth and lies, and also when it’s appropriate to lie.

Specifically, it’s appropriate to lie to dying children when you are trying to talk them into drinking poison. (At least, I think that was poison. Could’ve also been Crystal Pepsi. I’m not sure if they had Crystal Pepsi in fantasy times, though.)

So I guess Dr. Arya Kevorkian’s newfound ability to talk sick children into committing suicide proved to Jaqen 2.0 that she was ready to enter the forbidden storage closet in the House of Black and White. Can you guess what they stored in it?

If you guessed ten thousand faces, you’d were right! The House of Black and White storage closet was filled floor-to-ceiling with faces, faces, and more faces. No, none of them came alive and screamed at Arya like Mombi’s disembodied heads in Return to Oz, but this is only Episode 6. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, Tyrion and Ser Jorah were scrounging for berries and bickering when Tyrion accidentally let slip that Ser Jorah’s dad had been killed by mutineers north of the wall! It’s always awkward accidentally informing someone that their dad was dead, and this was no exception.

If you had no idea that that old man who once got killed in the wildlings’ hut in the “previously on” segment had been Ser Jorah’s father, then join the club. Our membership currently includes 100 percent of people. Even George R. R. Martin was like, “Oh, right. Ser Jorah’s father.”

Later, after a riveting debate about whether or not Daenerys would make a good queen (Pro: Ser Jorah; Con: Tyrion) they were captured by a band of pirates led by Mr. Eko from Lost. Now, obviously we all saw Mr. Eko get eaten by a smoke monster a couple years ago, but again, I’m not clear on how fantasy realms work. This could possibly be Mr. Eko again; I never totally understood what was going on with that island. Something about golden tunnels and Allison Janney. Anyway, Mr. Eko and the pirates decided to let Tyrion live for the reason that, and I am not joking, they could sell “dwarf c–k” on the black market. The dwarf c–k black market.

But that wasn’t all: It appeared Ser Jorah himself could be sold as well… As a fighter who could enter the Meereen fighting pits! Which made this a double-whammy of abductors taking travelers to where they were already headed. Convenient, kinda!

I realize this is a problematic thing to admit, but these Sparrows and their new robes with chain suspenders are very bae. It’s like, save me a seat in that pew. Just kidding these guys are cretins. Cretin dreamboats.

So Littlefinger arrived at King’s Landing and barely survived a run-in with the Sparrows. 

But he quickly got to work negotiating with Cersei and it became clear he hadn’t necessarily been summoned by her, as he had told Sansa. Littlefinger was clearly here on business of his own, and suffice to say he had some major schemes up his brocaded sleeve.

In this case Littlefinger somehow convinced Cersei to appoint him Warden of the North in exchange for Sansa’s “head on a spike.” It’s a credit to Littlefinger’s essential greatness as a character that I have NO IDEA where his allegiance lies at this point. Yes, he was sort of complicit in the deaths of many of Sansa’s family members, but those may have been instances where he recognized he couldn’t help. So maybe he’s still on Sansa’s side and is merely conning Cersei? Who knows! But as Warden of the North he now has as much power as Ned Stark did when we first began this saga. That’s kind of major.

Over in Dorne, Jaime and Bronn were enjoying some Spies Like Us hijinks by going undercover as Dornish soldiers. I especially liked when they were riding horses in the hills and Bronn treated Jaime to a gorgeous a cappella hymn, he truly has the voice of an angel. But this was not the time for gorgeous a cappella hymns, it was time to rescue Jamie’s niece-daughter from a sweet-faced hunk looking to get with her!

They arrived just in time too, because just then the Sand Snakes attacked!

Bronn and Jamie tried to fight off the gals while Myrcella was snatched away, but alas, the battle was foiled by the axe-wielding royal guard. This scene was a tough one for me because I like the Sand Snakes so much, even the super mean one from Whale Rider. But at least none of them got hurt and they will live to strike yet again.

I couldn’t help but feel bad for Myrcella, though. It seemed like she had a pretty chill situation going on in those water gardens, but now her Uncle Father and a local girl gang were ruining everything!

Meanwhile, the event we’d all been waiting for: Lady Olenna’s return! Her entrance was truly great: A quick shot of her opening her caravan window and scowling that King’s Landing smelled like s–t. Minutes later, she was ranting to Margaery about how nobody cared about Loras’s same-sexy adventures back home, and the King’s Landing folks must be total backwards rubes for all this persecution. Very timely and very correct. Lady Olenna remains series MVP.

Unfortunately, no amount of sassitude from Lady Olenna could get Cersei to straighten out Loras’s situation, so to speak.

Their confrontation was extremely hilarious and satisfying — like when Lady Olenna told a scribbling Cersei to put down her pen because “we both know you’re not writing anything,” and also when she outright told Cersei she didn’t respect her — but it wasn’t as fruitful as we may have hoped. Cersei merely assured Lady Olenna that the matter would be cleared up, no big deal. 

But then later, at a behind-closed-doors inquiry into Loras’s accusations… Whoops! Things didn’t go that way. The High Sparrow first got Loras and Margaery to swear that he was innocent, then he brought in this boy hooker, who spilled the beans.

Not only did the boy hooker’s knowledge of Loras’s sexy birthmark totally incriminate Loras, it also meant that Margaery had committed perjury.

So they were both arrested! The Queen: Arrested!

And of course Tommen looked too confused to deal, and Cersei sorta pretended to be outraged before tossing a smirk at Lady Olenna.

Lady Olenna will hopefully figure this stuff out, because this scene was actually very upsetting to watch. Obviously this subplot is a rude reminder that in real life and in 2015, people are still routinely persecuted under the auspices of church-decreed laws. But also Margaery is one of the show’s best characters! 

There’s also this nagging sense that if something like this could happen to the Queen, then all propriety and civility is just a gentleman’s agreement until suddenly it’s out the window. But, unlike a certain plotline to come, this one was unpleasant yet salient. Game of Thrones had to somehow include the tyranny of religion in its saga, and by putting sympathetic characters in jeopardy its points are made all the more powerful for it.

OK, so, Winterfell. As we came to learn, it was the night of Sansa’s wedding and she received a shady visitor offering to help bathe her. It was, of course, crazy Myranda (who, I’d forgotten, had once encouraged Ramsay to hunt down and murder a girl for looking at him twice) who’d come to wash out Sansa’s hair dye and also throw shade about how Sansa wasn’t good enough for Ramsay. Fortunately, Sansa wasn’t having it.

In one of the episode’s most satisfying moments, Sansa straight-up told this girl off like it was no big deal. It was great, and I was so happy for Sansa realizing that she had zero f–ks to give anymore.

Unfortunately, the night took a turn for the nightmarish when Sansa finally walked down the aisle. The aisle, of course, was a sleet-covered path lit by rusty lanterns and surrounded by fur-clad creeps. Not very romantic, in other words. Still, after the most obvious hesitations possible, she went through with the ceremony anyway.

Which, I guess we knew the wedding was coming. Political reasons and all that. 

Maybe Ramsay Snow would at least treat his new wife with respect, right? Sansa just had to hang in there and things would be fine. Nope. Sadly, nope.

Ramsay’s list of matrimonial evils included interrogating Sansa about her virginity; rudely commanding her to get naked; demanding that Reek fka Theon watch everything; and then, well. Ugh.

If there’s any saving grace to this last scene, it’s that Game of Thrones declined to revel in assault imagery and instead put the camera on Reek. His reaction pretty much said everything. 

Except, uh, now this scene was suddenly about how hard it can be for a man to watch a rape? I don’t know, guys. I’m not sure there’s any really redeeming way to portray this stuff. Let’s just pivot to the sub-topic which is that, in a way, maybe Theon will return to being Theon now. He seemed emotional when he had to give Sansa away at the wedding, especially when he had to introduce himself under his birth name as “her father’s ward.” But maybe this last moment will jar something loose in him, will put him on the path of redemption somehow. I don’t know. And again, I’m not sure I’m comfortable seeing his emotional turning point hinge on someone else’s rape. But hold on, I just realized I don’t feel like falling for it. This is not a think piece. Much like Game of Thrones itself, sometimes I just want to irresponsibly toss an idea out there and not deal with it very much or thoughtfully. So yeah. That was a horrible scene and I’m slightly mad at this show for it. Bye!

What was your favorite moment in “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”?

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