Dan Debuf recaps Game of Thrones: Season 5, episode 4.

If you haven’t seen the most recent Game Of Thrones episode, READ NO FURTHER.

Lights up on a deserted beach – no! Wait, there is someone there! First thought – it’s GENDRY! This is where he rowed to! No wait, it definitely isn’t, it’s “Unnamed Non-Speaking Elderly Man”, who’s only role in the entire saga of Game of Thrones is to be swiftly punched by Ser Jorah Mormont and then lie quietly on the sand, up a couple of coins, down a skiff. Not going to lie though: that actor now has an excellent dinner party story to tell the kids (“yep, I was in Game of Thrones alright. Pivotal scene…”).

Tyrion has been bundled up and shipped around quite a bit this season – “DAMN my impish portability!” – but we won’t find out where they’re off to just yet – instead we cruelly cut to another boat, this one ferrying a wistful Jaime Lannister, gazing at the island of Tarth. Of course we all ship Brienne and Jaime so hard… but the awful producers will probably never let them be together again. Unless – and this is a worst fear of mine – it is for one of them to watch the other die. Until then, we have animated gifs:

Pashing and slashing are the order of the day in Dorne according to Bronn, who is definitely smarter than he appears – he knows the provenance of Jaime’s daughter Myrcella, and that Jaime helped Tyrion escape. Also we learn that Jaime is going to kill Tyrion the first chance he gets; and we know he’s serious because it’s all underscored with The Rains of Castamere, with a “give him my regards” reference too. Ladling it on.

Read more:  The Game of Thrones scene that may have gone way, way, way too far.

With a hefty dose of irony, it’s revealed the Lannisters have another problem besides fratricide: they can’t pay their debts. Cersei uses this as an excuse to offload a Tyrell (Margaery’s Dad Mace) to Braavos, and then pops in with her new bestie the High Sparrow to lock up another – Loras. She does this by legitimising the Sparrows as the Faith Militant. This cannot be a good idea.

Cersei’s using dangerous terminology: a sinner “shielded by gold and privilege”? Any vaguely suspicious High Sparrow’s mind would bypass Loras and start considering her as a potential transgressor… and if there’s one group you don’t want questioning your morality, it’s a mob of armed religious fanatics who gouge their own foreheads out. Not speaking from personal experience or anything, but, hey, you know, common sense.

Tommen is fast learning that all his sudden blissful and rapid-fire lovemaking comes at a cost – the other side of the Tyrell-Lannister beef, Margaery, has now played him against Cersei. Note the cries of “bastard” from the crowd – it seems that Bronn isn’t the only one who has twigged to Cersei and Jaime’s… dalliances? Incest? Sibling diddling?

Things are going to get tough in King’s Landing.

At the Wall, Stannis and Selyse are watching Shirreen… but Melisandre only has eyes for Jon Snow. And boobs. She has boobs for Jon Snow too. The boobs got a little too much for Jon – he’s refused to become a Stark, to ask Roose Bolton for help, to give Melisandre a good rogering… will he refuse to go to Winterfell? He claims he loves another… but then Mel hits back with the best “oh, just one more thing before I leave”: YOU KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW. What the WHAT?

From Shirreen to another royal daughter – she almost married the king, remember! – Sansa, is lighting candles under Winterfell. We get some important exposition here – more on that later – but we also get a bombshell: The Finger is doing a runner. Given the extreme level of awfulness that emanates from every tiny corner of Ramsay’s body, this is bad news for Goth Sansa.

The Finger is positive that Stannis will take Winterfell… and Brienne is just around the corner… but still, any time with Ramsay is bad for Sansa, and considering that the writers of GoT aren’t exactly known for avoiding icky canoodling, I fear a creepy kiss from The Finger is the least gross thing that will happen to her this season. Gulp.

Let’s go somewhere a little warmer shall we?

How fun is it when a new little mini-village appears in the title sequence! Dorne! The sexiest, stabbiest place in the seven kingdoms according to Bronn, and it doesn’t let us down in the latter: the stab count includes a snake (yep, this is definitely Dorne),  two Dornishmen, a horse, the other two Dornishmen, and a guy buried up to his neck in the sand. If Dorne is anywhere near as sexy as it is shabby, whoo mama, this peninsula is going to go off harder than a Christmas party at Littlefinger’s place.

Let’s chat about the Sand Snakes. What could be cooler than Oberyn Martell, skull-crushed before his time? Allow me to introduce: his three bastard mini-Xenas, equipped with their own unique exotic weaponry and hairstyle. Each has a Salma Hayek accent and a thirst for vengeance.

IT. IS. ON.

So things aren’t going to be all snake snacks and free Dornish stallions for Jaime and Bronn. Are our other boat buddies, Tyrion and Jorah, going to have it any easier?

Tyrion is employing the same “I have to get out of this wheelhouse” tactic for captives we saw last week: make enough noise, and you get what you want. In this case, a de-gagging.

More: “Why aren’t there more willies on Game of Thrones? It’s not fair”.

Tyrion’s Heroic Ability is “brains” so it isn’t too hard for him to figure out who Jorah is, despite, as he drolly mentions in Dan’s Quote of the Week™, being “drunk for most of the small council meetings but it’s all coming back”. Clap emoji martini emoji.

Should Tyrion be so chipper about the speedy approach to Mereen? Mereen is basically the King’s Landing of the East – massive, messy, and a goddam powder keg. Barristan Selmy tells Dany it might be a good night for a stroll.. and then this already excellent episode reaches it’s intense and brutal conclusion.

Through this whole fight, all I could say was “he’ll make it! He HAS to!”. Even the ambiguous ending – surely he will survive! But the more I think about it… Barristan’s being dead raises the stakes for Dany. It leaves her so alone. And with Jorah rowing his way to her… it would be the perfect reason for her to welcome the exiled knight back into her pyramid. I really think Ser Barristan has swung his last sword. Still: an epic fighter until the end.

Fun detail: the woman who pointed Grey Worm into the direction of the death corridor was the same prostitute who lured the Grey Worm lookalike to his death with her boob-lullaby in episode one. INTRIGUE!

FINAL THOUGHTS

BASTARDS. This episode was all about bastards: Jon Snow, the Sand Snakes, Cersei’s kids… Ramsay wasn’t seen but he was a key player in the power dynamic… which begs the question: WHERE IS GENDRY? Surely he has rowed to somewhere by now.

PENISES. A fair amount of boobs this week, but also – unless they were modesty pouches – a couple of penises in the brothel murder scenes (classic Game of Thrones sentence there). Given the media discussion of the lack of dong in Westerns – seriously, even Anna Kendrick has weighed in on it – this could be a major development. Or, like I said, modesty pouches. OK I have discussed penises for way too long here.

DEATH. The scenes of Jaime and Bronn chatting about how they want to die was of particular interest to me. It was when Bronn remarked “I want my death to be boring,” I thought “well I don’t mate!” I have grown to accept that our beloved characters will die. Valar Morghulis. I just hope for epic deaths for my favourites, which is why I could deal with Barristan no longer being with us. It reminded me of a quote from the books I quite like:

“All men die,” he could almost hear her say, “and women too, and every beast that flies or swims or runs. It’s not the when o’ dying that matters, it’s the how of it.”

Sums it up quite nicely I think. I think these two might be the “Hound and Arya” of season five. Also seeing Jaime sword fight was a nice treat – I hope the lack of hand doesn’t mean we’ll miss seeing him battle for too long, he is so good at it. However I don’t think he can count on his gold prosthesis to save him every time.

ARYA. No Arya – but still an interesting mention of Braavos. Meryn Trant is off there on Meryn and Mace’s Bravoosi Getaway™… let’s all remember that Meryn is on Arya’s kill list. Could she be ticking another name off soon? Will Jaqen give him to her as some sort of homework assignment?

PLOT PREDICTION WITH A SPOILERY FLAVOUR. So what I’m about to talk about, I don’t class as a spoiler. But it might be. It’s a VERY heavily implied and widely discussed theory. So maybe you might want to skip the next paragraph – but it only contains stuff that (a) hasn’t happened in the books but probably will; (b) is widely written about on the internet; and (c) has been basically confirmed by George RR Martin, the show runners, and the cast… so here we go.

The fact that we’re getting heavy references to Rhaegar and Lyanna – from Selmy AND Littlefinger – seems to be a pretty heavy hint that the R+L=J theory could well be proven this series. It’s been famously referenced that GRRM signed over the rights to GoT to HBO when David and Dan, the two show runners, correctly identified this theory. You can google the theory if you want. But I reckon in the next six episodes we’ll get more hints, and maybe even some exciting plot twists in this direction. Stay tuned.

AND FINALLY… WHERE IS VARYS? Last we saw him, Tyrion had just ducked off to have a piss in a Volantene canal…

That’s all for this week! Theories, observations, corrections and curses in the comments please! Until next week you sers, squires, septons and sellswords!

What did you think of this week’s episode?

Missed Dan’s recaps for the past three weeks? Check them out here. 

Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 3

Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 2

Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 1