Like a kid waiting on Christmas, I finally got what I wanted after a year’s wait. “Game of Thrones” returned last night to my delight, although I certainly didn’t get much pleasure from the final scene involving the Red Woman.
Melisandre undressing good.
Really good in fact!
Revealing her true self, not so much as seen in the image above.
The new season opened with Jon Snow‘s lifeless body being found by his friends. Not sure where they were while he was being shanked at the “traitor” post. Dude is really dead for those wanting to believe otherwise.
Whether he stays dead is another question, but that wasn’t answered in the premiere.
I’m no fan of Alliser Thorne. I will give him credit though for his speech to the Brothers where he admitted to murdering the Lord Commander. He says Jon Snow signed his own death warrant with the Wildlings deal but said Snow had to believe what he was doing was right.
As much as we hate what happened to Snow, it’s obvious Thorne did what he thought was right as well.
Moving on to another death, we got to see the softer side of Ramsay Bolton. Dude was tore up over the death of Myranda. He did recover pretty quickly and ordered her fed to the hounds. Coldest bastard ever.
He has to find Sansa and produce an heir to Winterfell or else Roose Bolton’s unborn kid will end up with the power if the child ends up a boy. The kid will be lucky to make it into the world with a maniac for a half brother.
Sansa and Theon’s story together will be a great one. Their escape from the Boltons looked like it would come to a quick and horrible end. Yet they were saved by Brienne and Pod who destroyed the Bolton soldiers. Theon even manned up and ran a sword through one of them.
This was a scene a long time in the making, ever since Brienne made her promise to Sansa’s mother. Brienne couldn’t save Arya, but fate made it possible to keep her oath down the road a piece from where she killed the Hound.
Sansa appeared to knight the lady warrior after she was saved from capture.
There would be no such savior for Myrcella, who arrived in King’s Landing in a coffin, adding to the misery of Cersei who’s recovering from a bad haircut and the walk of shame.
We all rejoiced when Cersei’s eldest son was murdered, but this child was different clearly. Myrcella was good and decent just like her mother told Jaime. It was hard not to feel bad for the evil Queen Mother. She told Jaime it was fate and how the witch had told her so in her youth. Jaime gave fate the finger, and we’re left to wonder if that witch could have been Melisandre.
What about poor Margaery Tyrell? She’s still locked away and refusing to confess anything. Her release may come next week as we see previews of Jaime confronting the High Sparrow in a holy place that is about to become very bloody.
Remember Jaime was away in Dorne while his sister was jailed by the religious nuts.
Speaking of Dorne. There’s a new leader there after Doran Martell is murdered by Obara Sand. The Sand Snakes then go after his son Trystane, who was about as hard to kill as a gnat.
Tyrion and Varys take a stroll around Meereen to get a feel for the people and it’s clear Dany isn’t leading any popularity polls. The Sons of the Harpy are still a problem and even worse, her fleet of ships has just been lit ablaze.
Two steps forward and three steps back for the queen who is now a captive of a Dothraki horde. All the respect she’s earned is down the drain with these savages and amazingly she’s not raped before being brought before the leader Khal Moro.
Speaking their tongue intrigued the leader, but he didn’t believe she was the Mother of Dragons. When she mentioned Khal Drogo though, he backed off his plans to “lay with her.”
Bad news is she’s to be locked away in a temple for Khal widows so she can be with her fallen husband’s spirit. “It is known.”
Not to Dany or she would’ve kept that info to herself!
There’s been some pitiful scenes in the five years GOT has been on the air. I can’t remember one to rival Arya sitting on the city streets blind, begging for money. What a terrible turn of events, when she was on her way to becoming so powerful and had just slain one of GOT’s nastiest characters (Meryn Trant) last season.
Her training / beatings will continue daily though with the young girl from the House of Black and White.
Back at Castle Black, it’s clear Jon’s friends will meet the same fate as him as soon as they allow Thorne inside their room. One of the buddies has gone for help, presumably from the Wildlings. And Davos is willing to play the one card available to him…The Red Woman.
And what a card.
But that card got turned over to reveal Melisandre as a relic. Once she removes her clothes (applause to the showrunners for having a plot allowing Carice van Houten to do so once again) and her maybe magical necklace, we see her as she truly is….ancient.
No wonder she knows so much about magic. She’s been around for centuries I would guess.
Those Dragon Glass etching nips were no more as we see a geriatric woman ready for Castle Black’s Shady Acres Nursing Home slowly climb into bed.
Incredible shock to the system!
For those of us expecting the Red Woman to bring back Jon Snow, we were not only disappointed but now will never see Melisandre the same.
Lots of fantasies were ruined with this scene.
I can’t wait for next week’s episode even though it will take me a full seven days to wash my eyes clean of the real Red Woman.
7 Big Moments of Game of Thrones 601 The Red Woman Episode
JON SNOW: STILL DEAD
Well, you didn’t think they were going to clear that up too quickly, did you? After being murdered in the Season 5 finale by the anti-immigration faction of the Night’s Watch, the crazy-sexy-broodiest member of the Stark clan is still dead, and “The Red Woman” takes pains to urge us to stop fretting about our complicated resurrection theories and accept that Jon is gone for good. Pay no attention: unlike other dead Starks who seem more and more comfortably ensconced in their graves with each passing episode (wherefore art thou, Lady Stoneheart?) Jon is sure to be coming back. The only question is when, and how.
Most of the speculation about Jon’s inevitable return centers on witchy bombshell Melisandre, and she definitely hasn’t been lost in the shuffle: Melisandre gives the episode both its title and its spooky kickerwhen she disrobes, removes her glowing amulet thingy, and reveals that while she’s still the member of theGame of Thrones ensemble who is most comfortable with her body, that body isn’t quite what we thought it was. (I still say she looks great for her age.)
But if we’re playing the How’s Jon Coming Back? game, it also seems worth it to keep an eye on his trusty direwolf, Ghost, who’s heavily featured in this episode doing not much of anything except scratching, snarling, and eating up that C.G.I. budget. Ghost has had long stretches of disappearance throughout the series, so if they’re reminding us that he exists, it’s probably for a reason.
BRIENNE OF TARTH HAS A GOOD DAY
Poor Brienne of Tarth. After pledging her eternal protection to Catelyn Stark (oops!) and then vowing to keep a careful eye on her daughters, Brienne’s been thwarted over and over as she’s ridden around the extensive forests of Westeros in a series of increasingly circular plot diversions. (“Ugh, this tree again?”) In the “The Red Woman,” she finally gets a rare victory—not to mention the episode’s most stirring moment—as she rides to the rescue of Sansa and Theon, vanquishes nasty Ramsay Bolton’s minions (pay no attention to the magically disappearing hounds, please) and lays down her sword for Sansa, who seems relieved to have finally caught a break. Now, saddle up, Sansa, it’s time to continue riding around the forest!
DAENERYS STILL ISN’T HEADING TO WESTEROS
One of Game of Thrones’ most infuriating narrative habits is to give a character a clear and well-defined goal within the story and then send them running around in circles not accomplishing it. No character has been a victim of this problem more than Daenerys Targaryen, who swears she’s planning on taking her army across the Narrow Sea to conquer Westeros and reclaim the throne she rightfully believes to be hers. Unfortunately, life just keeps getting in her way, and this episode finds her facing more pesky delays.
JAIME AND CERSEI ARE BACK IN BUSINESS
It’s been a tough few seasons for Cersei-Jaime shippers, but tragedy seems to have reminded everyone’s favorite incestuous royal lovebirds of what’s really important in life: smiting your enemies. Whether this also means a romantic reunion for the duo’s star-crossed romance is still unclear, but it’s nice, at least, to see them united once again in their scheming and thirst for domination, and Cersei back in badass mode after all her humiliations last season.
THE SAND SNAKES AREN’T MESSING AROUND
Let’s hope you like the vengeful, righteous Sand Snakes of Dorne, because it looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot more of them. After successfully poisoning Myrcella—otherwise known as the Nicest Lannister—in last season’s finale, they decide to up the ante with a murderous rampage in which they start taking down their fellow Dornishmen, setting themselves up to be firmly in charge. Whether this is appealing to you will depend on whether you wish the Dornish story line would just go away.
Tyrion and Varys Take a Walk
With so many characters to work with, it’s inevitable that some of the extensive Game of Thrones ensemble will be stuck treading water while more important business takes place. Sometimes, this means an absence from the story, but a popular character like Tyrion doesn’t have the luxury of a vacation. Instead, the show has paired him up with the perpetually scheming Varys, whose complicated machinations have historically been mostly motivated by contriving the plot as necessary. Maybe Tyrion and Varys will actually get up to something interesting this season, but for now they’re strolling around, trading banter, and bargaining that their chemistry will distract us from the fact that they’re actually not very important at the moment.
Arya Keeps On Keeping On
Cut Arya some slack, O.K.? Earning your stripes as a magical ninja isn’t easy. If this were a movie, Arya would be able to dive into a power-pop-fueled training sequence and come out on the other side with a full battery of sorceress-assassin skills, ready to dive down a garbage chute with a giant fireball on her tail at a moment’s notice. But this is Game of Thrones, which means that these things take time, and Arya’s still in Braavos where we left her, earning her keep as a beggar while she sharpens up the badass fighting skills she’s been working on since the show’s first season. But there’s a twist: now she’s blind!