This Week in Westeros: "Stormborn" (Season 7, Episode 2)

WARNING: This Post is Dark and Full of SPOILERS

A.K.A. “The One Where Theon Goes for a Swim.”

The episode opens at Dragonstone, where Daenerys calls into question the loyalty of Varys. She brings up some good points. After all, Varys had conspired against monarchs in the past and had a hand to play in Dany’s attempted assassination. So why would she want someone as sneaky as that in her council? But Varys brings up some good points too, specifically how he never serves a ruler, but the people and what he thinks is best for them. It makes sense given Varys’ slavery upbringing and how close his ear always is to the streets. Dany also brings up her master plan for taking Westeros: Instead of nuking the country with her dragons – which would only leave ashes to rule over – the armies of Dorne, Highgarden, and the Iron Islands will attack King’s Landing, while the Unsullied and Dothraki take the source of the Lannisters’ power at Casterly Rock.

After that, Olenna gives Dany a pep talk about how she needs to stop acting like a sheep and start acting like a dragon. As far as I know, Daenerys has never really had a mother figure in her life. She’s had plenty of father figures – Jorah, Ser Barristan, and even Viserys in a twisted sense – but never a strong matronly voice to guide her. It’ll be interesting to see how this relationship unfolds.

Then Melisandre – whom we haven’t seen since Jon exiled her last season – comes to visit Dany. She informs the Mother of Dragons that she has a part to play in the wars to come, and along with Jon Snow, they make up the prophecy of “the Prince Who Was Promised.” I don’t really know why Melisandre kept switching between speaking in Common (English) and Valerian. It really only serves for a gag where the Valerian form of “Prince” is gender neutral, meaning a more literal translation would be “the Prince or Princess Who Was Promised.”

Oh, and Grey Worm and Missandei have sex. They are one of the more interesting couples on the show, especially since Grey Worm is a eunuch, so sex for them is…you know.

"The meeting of the 'We Hate Cersei' club will now come to order."

Over at Oldtown, Jorah’s greyscale treatment isn’t going so well. The Archmaester gives him 10 – 20 years left to live, but only about six months before the greyscale consumes his mind. Sam brings up his research and how he found two recorded cases of cured greyscale, but the Archmaester tells him that the technique is forbidden and dangerous. But Sam decides to do it anyway when he finds out Jorah is the son of former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch Jeor Mormont. This is one of those details that I often forget because 1) this show has a ton of characters and it’s hard to keep track of everyone, and 2) Mormont being Lord Commander was so long ago. Anyway, Sam’s cure involves peeling the infected greyscaled skin off of Jorah, which starts off horrifying and disgusting, but then turns oddly humorous with Jorah’s expressions and dog-like howls of pain. But don’t worry, Jorah, because if the easter egg from last week’s episode is to be believed, ingesting ground-up dragonglass can cure greyscale. I’m beginning to think that dragonglass may be very important to several different characters this season.

At Winterfell, Jon receives a message from Tyrion inviting him to Dragonstone to meet with Daenerys. After receiving another message from Sam telling him about the mountain of dragonglass underneath the Targaryen stronghold, Jon decides to head out there. Literally none of his cohorts think this is a good idea, since all of them think it’s a trap due to their mistrust of the Targaryens. And with Jon leaving, he dubs Sansa as the ruler of Winterfell while he’s away. This scene has more of the conflict between Sansa and Jon’s political viewpoints, with Sansa being more cautious about this meeting since the last Targaryen who invited a Stark over to chat burned him alive. Jon’s more optimistic, but hopefully he’s not falling into the same pitfalls that Ned and Robb fell into by relying too much on their nobleness. But whatever, now we’ll be getting a Stark-Targayen family reunion.

At the Riverlands, Arya reunites with Hot Pie, who informs her that the Starks have taken Winterfell back from the Boltons and Jon has been named King in the North. This is apparently news to Arya. I get that she’s been out of Westeros for a while, but she already seemed to learn pretty quickly that Cersei had taken the throne for herself, so I don’t really know how something as been as a new King in the North never appeared on her news feed. This wasn’t something she picked up in a conversation with Sir Ed of House Sheeren? After that, she encounters a pack of wolves led by a direwolf that Arya recognizes as Nymeria, her wolf she abandoned way back in Season 1. It’s a contrived coincidence that she would just happen to stumble across her very same wolf in this random area after six seasons of separation, and it’s incredibly sappy, too. But it winds up being a heartbreaking moment, owing mostly to Maisie Williams’ performance. The wolf abandons her just as she abandoned her. And she even says, after the wolf leaves, “It’s not you.” So the ambiguity of whether or not that was Nymeria helps to stomach this coincidence better.

Nymeria ur doin me a frighten, doggo

At King’s Landing, Cersei rallies her lords and bannermen – including Randyll Tarly, Sam’s father – about the incoming attack by Daenerys and her army. During a conversation with Jaime, Randyll says how the Tarlys have always been loyal to the Tyrells of Highgarden, and wouldn’t turn on them even for the queen. This scene made me respect Lord Randyll a little bit. In the only bits we’ve seen of him, he’s acted like a colossal asshat towards his least favorite son, but at least he’s a loyal and noble asshat. However, Jaime’s oh-so-sweet promise of offering him the title of Warden of the South may end up causing the Tarlys to betray their alliance to the Tyrells. After that, Qyburn takes Cersei down to the dungeons of the Red Keep to reveal his plan for defeating Daenerys’ dragons: a giant crossbow. Well, technically it’s a ballista, but “giant crossbow” just sounds cooler. And then they demonstrate its effectiveness by spearing a dragon skull. Didn’t plan on the Lannisters having a countermeasure against an unstoppable force like the dragons, but I guess I underestimated Cersei’s paranoia and craftiness.

And on her ship heading towards Dorne, Yara and her fleet are ambushed by Euron’s. What follows is the season’s first big battle, and it’s a doozy. Ship-to-ship combat, with Ironborn warriors boarding Ironborn ships to brutalize Ironborn warriors. The Greyjoys haven’t had much focus in…well, ever, but this episode showed where their skills lie: on the sea. The battle is bloody and brutal, headed by the crazy berserker pirate that is Euron Greyjoy. While the rapid editing and quick camerawork help showcase the brutality of the battle, sometimes the shaky-cam and quick edits make it hard to figure out what’s going on and who’s battle who. Then again, this has always been a problem with me with nighttime battles. Also, Euron runs the risk here of being presented as an unreasonably tough villain, as he takes, like, a lot of stabbings and doesn’t even seem phased.

By the end of it, countless soldiers under Yara are dead, their fleet – Daenerys’ fleet – has sunk, and two of the Sand Snakes have been murdered by Euron’s hand. Which, if you had unpleasant feelings towards them after Season 5’s polarizing Dorne subplot, this was probably the best part of the episode. And as Euron holds a knife to Yara’s throat and taunts Theon to come and save her, Theon abandons ship, as well as his sister. People have apparently had problems with this act, as it undoes a lot of character development Theon has had since escaping from Ramsay. People think that he should have proved his heroism and saved Yara. But here’s the thing: this is Game of Thrones. It’s not every other high fantasy show; it’s more realistic. Theon had gone through torturous act after torturous act under Ramsay. He’s not the same man he used to be. He’s utterly broken, even after being released from Ramsay’s control for as long as he has. When presented with the stress of the ambush and Euron threatening his sister’s life, of course he’s going to have an emotional breakdown and try to escape. I’m predicting he’ll probably have some atonement at point later in the season, but for right now he is – as Euron puts it – a “cockless coward.”

Plus, I never really liked Theon, so if he continues to act like human garbage, I’m not really going to care too much.

"You will always remember this as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow."

Season 7 continues on a high note with “Stormborn.” We’re getting a lot of new alliances and interactions from character combinations we’d never seen before, like Sansa and Olenna, Sam and Jorah, and Jon and Littlefinger. You know you have a good show when you can take any two characters, but them in a situation together, and it’ll be interesting no matter what. The battle at the end with Euron was definitely the highlight of the episode. Not only did it give the Ironborn time to shine, but it was a pretty good surprise to end the episode on. Now with Yara and the rest of the Sand Snakes kidnapped by Euron, I’m interested to see if this is the “gift” he promised Cersei. And Jon will be meeting Dany, so there’s plenty to be exicted for come next Sunday. Unfortunately, there was nothing on the storylines for the Hound or Bran in this episode; disappointing because of the good stuff we got with the Hound last week and how we didn’t really get anything of substance with Bran and Meera at the Wall. (And did none of Jon’s friends at Castle Black even think to send him a letter about his own brother being with them?) But these storylines probably have less scenes to them, and will probably be spread throughout the season. Let’s just hope Bran doesn’t go missing for a whole season again like he did with Season 5.

Final verdict: 8/10.

So anyone else watch this show and randomly get wistful over characters that have died? Like, for instance, I miss Balon Greyjoy. He never did much, but at least the Iron Islands weren’t fighting each other when he was around. *sigh*