Game of Thrones 6x05 The Door

One episode. That is the duration in which I liked Sansa in 6th season. After this episode she is my least favorite character again. Fortunately everything else was fantastic. Well other than the writers forgetting about some things about their own show. Again.

Sansa receives a letter from Littlfinger and goes to meet him in Molestown brothel. Brienne is accompanying her. In a thrilling scene (Sophie Turner's acting is great. Her character is not) Sansa interrogates Littlefinger about whether or not he knew about what kind of a man Ramsay was. Littlefinger looks genuinely sorry and it's gross. He tells her he has he Knights of the Vale but Sansa tells him she doesn't need his help to take back the North. Before leaving Littlefinger reminds Sansa that Jon is only her half bother. What was that? Is the show setting up Sansa to betray Jon? Jon is more of a Stark than that girl ever was and will be but more on that later. After promising last episode Sansa is an idiot again. Littlefinger has not forced her to marry a Bolton. And now she throws away military support. Facepalm.

Seriously though up until now it was possible to salvage Sansa. But the writers apparently are going with Littlefinger really not knowing about Ramsay. See if he knew they would share the blame. But he didn't. It's asinine that he didn't but he didn't. So we have Sansa being presented with stupid idea of marrying a son of a man who killed her brother and agreeing to it. She then meets Ramsay and sees he keeps Theon in the kennel. And then it's "oh how shocking our wedding night was like this"? She got herself in this situation and now she blames everyone but herself. And then later in the episode it got even worse.
In Braavos Arya is getting her ass kicked by Waif. Jaqen then gives Arya a vial of poison and tells her she is to kill an actress. Arya then watches the play - the play depicts the death of King Robert. At that point Arya finds the play amusing but then an actor shows up in the role of Ned who is depicted as an awful person. The play also includes Cersei, Sansa, Joffrey and Tyrion. Arya looks very sad watching an actress play her sister.

Arya than sneaks in backstage where we get a gratuitous dick shot of the actor who played Joffrey in the play.

A moment of silence that we got a close up shot of some random guy's dick and Arthur Dayne was not even shirtless.

The actress Arya is to kill (played by Essie Davis) drinks rum which Arya then talks to Jaqen about. Arya plans on poisoning the rum.
Then we see another of Bran's visions - a monumental reveal in which we see Children of the Forest....created White Walkers! One of them stabs a tied up guy with dragonglass and his eyes turn blue. Bran awakes and asks Leaf why they did that and Leaf says they were at war with men and needed to create a weapon. This is some strong Prometheus rip off right here. Also it's a fairly big problem because the lore videos have repeated the book myth about the Night King's being a Lord Commander who fell in love with a female White Walker.  And now there is this...I think they maybe should have a chart or something to keep track of their own characters.

On Iron Islands we get Kingsmoot where the iron born decide who will rule them. Theon gives a speech that Yara should be the one. Then Euron, that Paddington bear looking fuck, shows up, admits to killing Balon, gives a speech where he reveals he wants to ally with Daenerys and they pick him as the King. Because apparently in Dorne and Iron Islands kinslaying = fuck yeah. Yara and Theon haul ass out of there and board the ship. It was a great sequence and it was aided by one of the show's better themes - the Greyjoy theme which is frankly one of the few cool things about them.
Then we see a scene where Jorah reveals his greyscale to Daenerys and tells her he loves her. Daenerys tells him he must find the cure (how? where? what?) because she wants him by her side when she rules Westeros. Dany leads Dothraki to Meereeen and Jorah heads somewhere else, presumably Oldtown.

In Meereen Tyrion and Varys meet with new red priestess Kinvara. She believes in Daenerys and wants everyone to believe in her and the Lord of Light. She knows tons of private shit about Varys and makes everyone uncomfortable.
Bran has another vision - of an army of White Walkers. The Night King sees him and grabs his arm. Bran was up and Bloodraven tells him he was seen.

In Castle Black Sansa, Davos, Jon and the rest are looking at the map and wondering where to get an army from. Sansa is acting all haughty and knowledgeable. She then drops the intel that Blackfish has an army in Riverlands. Jon asks her how she knows it and Sansa lies telling Ramsay had a letter. I reality Littlefinger told her in the beginning of the episode. I hated Sansa being so haughty to everyone and lying to Jon. Last episode when she took charge I was cheering because I thought she will assume a role of someone simply backing Jon. But apparently she wants to be the one in charge. You married a traitor. You are in constant need of a rescue. Shut up, Sansa.
Sansa then tells Brienne to go to Riverlands to convince Blackfish to join them. Brienne doesn't want to leave Sansa because she doesn't trust anyone but Jon. Sansa then hands Jon direwolf embroidered belt and furs and she herself is wearing a dress with direwolf embroidered on it.

Let's pause. Dear writers - you can have Sansa sew direwolf symbol on many clothes and have her act all "I'm a Stark" but all it does is make me cringe. You had her marry a son of a man who killed her brother and a king out of her volition. You are not salvaging that. She is less of a Stark than Jon. She ought to stay silent instead of talking about the North. The North remembers and the audience remembers you married a Bolton. You aren't lady Stark, you are LADY BOLTON. Jon should be the one talking about the North and Stark pride, not you. Sansa is no Catelyn. Catelyn was proud but dignified. Sansa is acting like an entitled brat.

I read today she is evolving into a leader. Who did she ever lead? She cannot even follow - Theon, who has been tortured for such a long time, can be brave but she freaks out about an icy river. Sansa's whole idea of moving forward is finding a sugar daddy to keep her safe so that she has the time to make dresses and cosplay as Seductress or Heiress.

If Catelyn is still in that river she is rolling in the deep. Sansa is an embarrassment to the Stark family.

If she is the one trying to convince the Northern lords to join them and they do....awful. Jon is Ned's son and a hero. She is a traitor who married a Bolton. The northern lords should execute her, not join her. Let's hope it's Jon and Davos making their case while Sansa puts lip gloss on in the background.
And on the subject of hypocrisy - Brienne, who kneels and pleads her services to absolutely everyone, dares to call Davos and Melisandre opportunistic. Good God, the audacity! Thankfully we got another moment of Tormund leering at her to her dismay. God, Brienne. Improve your character, please. Sansa called Littlefinger an idiot which he is but she is dumber than he is. Brienne run. Run from that.

In the last 10 minutes of the episode we are back to Bran's cave. The White Walkers and their army of wights find the cave and attack it. Bran and Bloodraven are warging and are back in Winterfell in the past. Meera frantically tries to wake up Bran. Bran hears her and warges into Hodor who starts pulling Bran's body away. Meera and Leaf follow. Night King's kills Bloodraven and in a horrible moment Summer is killed by wights. It was traumatic to hear her whimper.
Leaf allows the wights to capture her and pulls Vasquez and Gorman. Meera is getting Bran out of there and Hodor is blocking the door. Meera yells "hold the door!" And because Bran is warging him, in the past young Hodor hears it and experiences the seizure. We see him convulsing and repeating "hold the door" until it morphs into the word "Hodor" and in the present time we see Hodor heroically holding the door and then sacrificing himself so that Bran and Meera can escape.

Not a great episode for the Starks. Sansa - let's just not comment further. Bran - gets everyone in trouble. Arya - still getting her ass kicked. Jon - acts like a lackey. Also let's take a moment here because Dabid and Dan brought Max von Sydow in to give him 10 lines.

The ending was the most heartbreaking thing since Red Wedding. Hodor went down like such a hero after a life of serving the Starks. But the more of Starks we see the less of such heroism they deserve. I'm hoping Jon snaps out of it and puts Sansa in her place. Considering who Jon really is, Sansa should be bowing to him. Ah yes. Even though Bran is out of the cave, we are going back to the tower. Somehow. In finale.

The events in this episode gave more credibility to the spoilers available online. I am hoping that the person who leaked them is mostly just guessing what happens in Riverlands storyline. Game of Thrones has an uncanny ability of fucking up an entire season with spectacularly bad final episodes. All they need is to fuck up Riverlands and they fuck up this whole season. The good news is that no one knows what is up with Brienne in the end of the season. The bad news is that no one knows what happens to Arya so she can get Frey revenge storyline. Do. not. do. that.

Next week in Blood of my Blood - a familiar face returns in the North, Jaime faces High Sparrow, Cersei gets her groove back and the Freys reappear.
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