After last week’s cliffhanger resurrection, we dove full force into “Oathbreaker”’s plot: Jon Snow is so woke, so bae. While we all prattled on about Melisandre’s crisis of faith and wavering trust in the Lord of Light, we should have been worried about Jon, who returned from the afterlife to inform us all that absolutely nothing was there. (“You know nothing, Jon Snow.”)
After that—and after realizing that his brethren murdered him, and Olly “put a knife in my heart”—it’s clear Jon is plunging into a deep, cold existential freak-out, one that culminates in his executing his unrepentant killers, handing over his head-crow cloak and Castle Black to #1 pal Eddison Tollett, and peacing the fuck out.
That’s how the episode ended, leaving us with the question of where Jon might go, particularly since Sansa and crew are presently en route to find him with the Night’s Watch. But as “Oathbreaker” checked in with every major character, skipping along at a pace that seemed a little bit rushed, it was clear that this was one of those plot-advancer episodes meant to motor us along to the next one (as well as prolonging the Jon Snow mystery as long as possible.) It wasn’t as satisfying as last week’s nailbiter, but it did carefully set up a little pile of Jenga blocks that will very obviously come crashing down before the end of the season.
Danaerys is locked up in Vaes Dothrak among a somewhat rad coven of former khaleesi, and yet her presence there is another testament to how misogynistic Dothraki culture happens to be. She would remain there to like, light fires in pits all the livelong day, but because she actually went out and explored the world, now her fate is up to the Dosh Khaleen? So maybe she’ll be scheduled for execution. I’m already picturing a dragon or two swooping in right as her head’s on the chopping block.
Cersei is clearly angling to queendom, as is her way, with Margaery in the clink, but most of all, she’s doubling down on her Cersei wiles and vowing to kill every Lannister enemy (particularly the murderous Sand Snakes), with the assistance of some Varys-style child labor, bribing “little birds” to become spies with sugared plums from Dorne. That’s how you know it’s rough times in King’s Landing, when eight-year-olds are extremely pumped about what are essentially prunes. Cersei’s never been good at income inequality, but yet again, it seems like maybe feeding her people is a better way to eliminate enemies.
Not that it will matter after young impressionable King Tommen gets got by medieval David Koresh, who appeals to his sense of innocence and devotion to his mom, which at this point seems to be trumping concern for his Queen, wasting away in a cave cell. King Tommen is a sweetheart, which will obviously get him killed tout suite.
Whatever, though, ARYA IS BACK, BABY! Or rather, “a girl,” who fought her way into the no-name crew and got her eyesight back after drinking water from the poison fountain. “A girl has no name,” she said, after what felt like 35 minutes of watching her spar with that truly annoying, mouth-breathy mean girl, and for now we’ve got to trust her but if Arya Stark and stabby Needle aren’t back before the end of this season there are no old gods or new.
We’re getting closer to learning Jon Snow’s true parentage—Lyanna been assumed to be his ma but it seems, via Bran’s warging time-travel exploits, like Wyld Chyld Rhaegar Targaryen is probably his rapist father, which would possibly make him somehow magic—or would at least explain why fire power had the ability to bring him back from the dead. (That would make Dany Stormborn his aunt, and Jon possibly at least lightweight impervious to flames.)
But yeah, Rickon back, delivered with the Wildling Osha and the head of his direwolf Shaggydog to the hearth of crazy (and crazy-annoying) Ramsay Bolton. Does anyone care about Rickon anymore, though? Do you guys even remember him being captured? Rickon, you pawn, nice knowing ya.
Boners: 0, but let us recognize Tormund’s contribution to our cause when the first thing he says to Jon Snow upon his RESURRECTION is that he knows he’s not a god because “What kind of god would have a pecker that small.” Post-murder tiny dick joke important clue as to why everyone hates Wildlings!
Other: Thankfully, GoT looks like it’s making good on toning down the gratuitous woman nudity—there was no real reason for a full-body (or even waist-up) nude shot of Dany in the Vaes Dothrak sweat lodge, and so there wasn’t one. (Emilia Clarke’s protestations against appearing nude in further GoT episodes were clearly the main contributing factor here, though.) We got an artful shot of from the back in order to focus on the power dynamic between her and the head widowed khaleesi, but everybody got butts—including Jon Snow, whose opening-scene butt was copious and appreciated.
Images via screenshot/HBO
Correction: an earlier version of this story said that if Rhaegar Targaryen happened to be Jon Snow’s father, that would make Daenerys Targaryen Jon Snow’s half-sister. In fact, were this hypothetical scenario true, it would make Daenerys Targaryn Jon Snow’s aunt. Jezebel very deeply regrets this error.
