by Sharon Mineo
Oh, HELL NO. Hell. No. Nope nope nope. I’ve never been the biggest Sansa fan, but no one deserves Ramsay Bolton.
This week’s episode of Game of Thrones starts out deceptively light — well, light for GoT, by which I mean a young girl is peacefully washing dead bodies. You may recall Arya was admitted to Door #1 in the House of Black and White, but is still barred from Door #2. The path to get there apparently involves long games of lying vs. truthing, occasionally punctuated with physical violence as the penalty for lying. Though not good enough for the waif and Jaqen, she lies well enough to comfort a sick girl and give her the gift of a peaceful death. Somehow this translates into hitting the jackpot, as Jaqen finally allows her though Door #2, which leads to a chamber of faces — endless columns of faces, like the “real human” harvesting fields in the Matrix movies but with less technology and less live bodies. So now you know what happens to all the dead people after they get washed. And even though Arya is not yet ready to be no one, she’s ready to be someone else. Makes perfect sense.
Jorah and Tyrion are still travelling Essos on foot, swapping dead dad stories, as you do on a road trip. Their run of good luck continues — last week stone men, this week they’re captured by slavers. Tyrion’s quick thinking and smooth tongue not only save his own neck (and non-dwarf-sized party bits), but convince the slavers to take both of them to Meereen and attempt to sell Jorah to the fighting pits.
Meanwhile, Petyr Baelish, who I am hoping was unaware of exactly what he was leaving Sansa to with Ramsay Bolton, has returned to King’s Landing only to be waylaid by Lancel and the Sparrows, managing to weasel his way out by dropping Cersei’s name. Slippery as ever, he assures Cersei that the Vale is loyal to the throne — notice he didn’t say to Tommen — and actually admits that he found Sansa and she’s at Winterfell. Again, this slick SOB manages to relay her story — impending marriage to Ramsay Bolton, the Boltons’ grand plans for the North — while conveniently omitting the fact that the whole thing was his idea. Cersei is pissed at Roose, and Littlefinger advises caution by letting the Boltons and Stannis exhaust themselves fighting each other, then swooping in and routing the victor while they’re tired. He volunteers the Vale’s army for this purpose, for the small price of being named Warden of the North. I’ve gotta give Littlefinger credit — he’s weathered the game of thrones better than anyone so far, fomenting the overthrowing of Robert Baratheon, moving up in the world from Master of Coin to Lord of Harrenhal, Lord Protector of the Vale, and poised to become Warden of the Effing North, not to mention inventing the concept of sexposition in the process. Can his luck hold out?
Speaking of luck, Bronn and Jaime have enough of it to survive signing “The Dornishman’s Wife” in Dorne without loss of life and limb, and breezing their way into the Water Gardens in disguise behind a merchant train. There they find Trystane and Myrcella happily betrothed, just in time to fend off an abduction attempt of Myrcella by the Sand Snakes. Cue fight scene until Areo Hotah spoils the fun, hauling everyone off to the clink and worrying about sorting everyone out later.
Then we’re back in King’s Landing, all hail the Queen of Thorns! Olenna Tyrell is back to stick some barbs in Cersei’s craw, and it’s a thing of joy to watch. She plays along with the High Sparrow-ordered inquest, but the HS is one step ahead of everybody (except the viewer, who sees what’s coming a mile off). He sets up both Loras and Margaery for lying under oath, bringing in douchebag Olyvar to testify that he was banging Loras and Margaery knew it. Poor sweet Tommen, father of Ser Pounce, can’t muster up any more than a dumbfounded look when the Sparrows take away both his BIL and his wife to await a full trial. One can only hope the Queen of Thorns has a trick or two up her sleeve, because unlike book Margaery, this one is not innocent of the charges brought against her.
Whatever the High Sparrow may be, he’s no Ramsay Bolton. We return to Winterfell and Sansa, where crazy Miranda has come in for happy fun bath time ahead of Sansa’s wedding day. She washes the dye out of Sansa’s hair, and gleefully regales her with tales of Ramsay’s abuse and dismemberment of past women — you know, girl talk. Badass Sansa sees right through her, including the fact that she’s in love with Ramsay, and basically calls her out with “I’m Sansa Stark of Winterfell and you can’t scare me, bitch!” This is where book fans began to have a glimmer of hope. MAYBE badass Sansa can survive Ramsay (preferably by preemptively murdering him). MAYBE since he’s marrying Real Sansa instead of Fake Arya, and since HBO is pretty much doing whatever the hell they want, this Ramsay will understand the importance of treating his wife neutrally decently at the very least. This latter hope is shattered when he orders Theon to stay and watch him de-virginize his new wife — but MAYBE Sansa’s going to pull a dagger out of that sleeve that she’s ever so slowly unlacing??? Alas, no. Poor Sansa may have grown a little wiser in the ways of the world, but she’s still ignorant of the worst things of which people are capable. She sure as hell wasn’t expecting to spend her wedding night being raped while Theon watched.
So congratulations, HBO, you’ve made me actively angry two weeks in a row. This is not cool. We’ve weathered boobs and vaginas galore, and twincest and murder, but this may be the straw that broke the camel’s back. What do you think, Thronians — did HBO go to far? How pissed are you?? Screw this, I’m gonna go watch Mad Max: Fury Road again.