Small Council: What did we think of “Oathbreaker?”

We’re three episodes in to Game of Thrones Season 6, and the show is off and running. “Oathbreaker” followed up on Jon Snow’s resurrection at the end of “Home,” set up big things for Ramsay, Sam, and others, and showed us an important moment in Westeros’ past. What did we think of it? Read our takes below, give your own in the comments, and vote in the poll!

KATIE: My overall takeaway from “Oathbreaker” was that it wasn’t as captivating an episode as the previous two. Although it had its moments, it simply didn’t pack the same punch, but rather set up for future action—a necessary route to take, if a less action-packed one. It had to happen sometime, and the episode left me plenty to mull over.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Tower of Joy flashback, which made me wonder if, assuming Young Ned really did hear his future son’s call, what Bran will do during future visions to fulfill his desire to get out of that tree for good. Arya’s scene reaffirmed her as the rough-and-tumble kid we love, although I firmly believe she’s pulling a fast one on Jaqen and that she’s not really No One, but rather doing what she has to do.

If I am robbed of a Sansa/Jon family reunion next episode because Jon stomped away to feel his Jon Snow feelings far away from Castle Black, I will scream. I know, I know, his entire worldview has been shattered, but just sit down for a second, Jon: you’ve got nowhere else to be right now.

But it’s the scene at Winterfell that gave me the most to think about. Upon first watch, I was inclined to start a full-on war against the Umbers for betraying the Starks and sacrificing Rickon. But then… maybe I’m being naive to hope that this is part of some plot to unseat the Boltons from power, but let’s look at some of the facts that many fans have already pointed out:

• Lord Umber refused to speak any vows, bend the knee, or otherwise pledge his banners to the Boltons in any traditional sense of the phrase. For how “famously loyal” the Umbers are, as Ramsay pointed out, you’d think they’d present themselves as such—or perhaps that loyalty is for the Starks alone, in which case I’m unconvinced that a possibility of wildlings could sway them (after all, Ramsay did say in “Home” that the Umbers have one of the largest armies in the North). Could Lord Umber perchance be saving himself from the dishonor of pledging an oath he intends to break?
• Although Shaggydog would, at this time, be a full-grown direwolf, the decapitated head thrust at Ramsay’s feet was suspiciously small—more like that of a regular wolf. Perhaps this was a misstep by the props department, or the Umbers are trying to throw Ramsay off the scent. Art Parkinson can deny this ‘til the cows come home, but I am a firm believer in the #ShaggydogLives movement, if only for my own emotional well-being.
• Instead of offing Osha as they seemingly did Shaggydog, the Umbers presented her alongside Rickon. Osha, who was Rickon’s protector and who would give up her life to save Rickon’s. Osha, who is fierce and clever enough to keep them both alive. Osha, who I’d bet money on in a one-on-one against the likes of Ramsay Bolton. Osha, goddess among mere mortals, so good luck, Ramsay, actual pile of human garbage.

I pray that I’m not overthinking this possibility, but only time will tell.

RAZOR: First, allow me to say, LOL OLLY. Don’t give me that nonsense of “Oh, but he was just a wee little boy who saw his whole family killed by the wildlings!” A pox on you, I say! Olly killed Jon’s love (probably unbeknownst to him), and then he watched Jon kill the Thenn that attacked and ate his parents…sooooo, mischief managed? Seriously, Olly needed to stop being so damned racist, because #WildlingsLivesMatter, #YesAllWildlings.

Wait, are we doing we bullet points again, Katie? FINE!

Anyway, Once again, Episode 603, “Oathbreaker” played like another wish fulfilment episode. And away we go:

• Jon showed some booty, people the world over swooned with delight.
• Arya got her sight back and there were some hints dropped about her next target, which you all will get in this week’s Razor’s Rant.
• Cersei got her groove back, and mentioned the much anticipated Trial by Combat.
• Qyburn has taken over Varys’ little birds, and now has made them his #Qybirds™

(The use of Qybirds is freely and openly given to the rest of the world to use at your discretion during the discussion of Game of Thrones and in particular Qyburn and his creepy little children, but created by yours truly, thus the fake trademark. You’re welcome).

• Pycelle definitely eeked out a fart, and it was hilarious.
• Ramsay got his gift. Seriously though, how much are the showrunners going to offer up to Ramsay on a silver f**king platter before they bring him crashing down in spectacular fashion? I still have hope that the Umbers and Karstarks are working in secret with the Manderlys and Mormonts to put a Stark back in Winterfell and destroy House Bolton forever. Remember Lyanna Mormont’s letter to Stannis in Season 5? Game of Thrones doesn’t show us things just for funsies.

• Finally, Jon hanged the officers who murdered him. Owen Teale will be dearly missed. Olly’s smug little face just screamed “PUNCH ME WHILE YOU HANG ME!” But alas, in the end, his face turned into a little blueberry of joy for me, and for the majority of Game of Thrones fans everywhere.

DAN: But Olly was just a wee little boy who saw his whole family killed by the wildlings!

But seriously, I wasn’t upset that Olly died, although I wasn’t jumping for joy, either. I thought the producers did a good job of drumming up sympathy for the mutineers in that final scene, first with Thorne’s well-written speech and then Olly’s angry glare. They could have done a better job of showing us Olly’s perspective earlier on, but that’s more a criticism of last season than it is this episode.

Otherwise, I agree with Katie that “Oathbreaker” eased off the gas a bit, which is fine after the action-packed “The Red Woman” and “Home.” Even the good scenes, and there were several, seemed like set-up for later developments. The fight at the Tower of Joy was terrific, but the Three-Eyed Raven pulled Bran out before we saw the end of it. I loved Arya’s training montage—that may have been my favorite sequence of the episode—but it’s another step on her journey, not a turning point. King’s Landing was fun as well—I especially enjoyed the High Sparrow talking circles around a blindsided Tommen—but again, the scenes there were transitional. I’m glad the show it taking us somewhere, but we’re not there yet.

I’m curious to hear what people thought of the scenes in Meereen. Count me among those who found them strange and awkward. I enjoyed the Varys scene well enough, but wondered why it had to be there—couldn’t we have just seen him reporting his findings to Tyrion? I wouldn’t have questioned where he got them. And then that scene between Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm…I feel like the producers wanted to give Peter Dinklage a chance to do some comedy, but that…did not work. At least the transitional scenes in King’s Landing were entertaining.

Shot for shot, the best sequence was probably the first: the immediate aftermath of Jon Snow’s resurrection. I think the show struck the right balance here. It didn’t give us what we wanted right away, but it didn’t wait too long, either. And I like that it’s drilling down on Jon’s personal journey, rather than making his revival a spectacle.

Jon’s existential crisis was very compelling—I loved his lines about there being nothing after death—and it seems to have lit a fire under Kit Harington. As an actor, he’s never better than when he was struggling to remember his own murder, a cloak around his bare shoulders, while Davos and Melisandre looked on, at a loss for how to deal with this.

CAMERON: If there hadn’t been a by-now-typically-awful Ramsay scene I think I might’ve enjoyed this episode a lot more. Fortunately, there was a lot to love, from the Tower of Joy sequence (one of the show’s best fight scenes, which is good, because how embarrassing would it have been if that fight had sucked?) to Arya’s ’80s-film training montage. I also sometimes forget how straight-up cool Davos is, but his pep talk to Jon was a solid reminder that Davos is one of George R.R. Martin’s better additions to the point-of-view cast.

I also was not surprised by the show’s decision to eschew the “Ser Robert Strong” designation for the revived Mountain (identity of both self and others is a much stronger theme in the books, and the show isn’t really subtle enough to beat around the bush like that), but combined with the focus on the Hound during Arya’s Wikipedia scenes, does this mean that Cleganebowl is indeed in the cards?

…Nah… right? Nah…

ANI: No Full Frontal Harington! We women of the Game of Thrones fandom were robbed!

In all seriousness though, I actually thought this was a strong episode, because unlike the first two, it wasn’t hampered with the WAKE JON SNOW UP ALREADY business. Jon Snow was up! Jon Snow was alive, well and leaving the Night’s Wacth! Plots are MOVING HERE PEOPLE.

Speaking of plots moving along, Arya got her sight back in what might have been my favorite scene of the week. I loved her battling with the Waif, and the fact that every time she didn’t tell the whole truth she found herself losing another fight. She sorta got the therapy she needed to work through all her trauma of the first five seasons—Game of Thrones style, of course. Dany also got therapy, although she didn’t like what her counselor told her.

And I have to argue with Dan on the Tyrion scene. It was *supposed to be * weird and awkward—that’s the whole point. We’ve been seeing Tyrion have scenes like this with his underlings for years, and in those scene, his underlings understood what he wanted from him, and he understood what he could ask from them, and everyone enjoyed themselves. Now, Tyrion is acting as he always has…..in a world where no one understands this behavior. He, like Dany, is not of this culture. He, like Dany, does not actually understand the people here, not even the ones on his side. The point is that Meereen is not King’s Landing, and Tyrion needs to learn that, fast, before the Harpies win another battle. And from the looks of things, that’s not happening, and that’s a bad sign….

RICHARD: Tower of Joy, oh, methinks I have been to the Tower of Joy! (Wow, its very bloody. And not very joyous).

I felt that “Oathbreaker” was the most uneven episode of Season 6 so far, but it had its great moments, including Jon’s opening and ending scenes, plus the Tower of Joy sequence. The Game of Thrones guys tend to do this, of course—taking time to rearrange their chess pieces in between the bigger, more narratively propulsive episodes, but it felt like there were more static placeholders in this one than usual.

I thought the scenes with Jon, from Ser Davos’ hug to the gallows scene (Razor’s comment about Olly’s “little blueberry of joy” had me rolling) to the “my watch is ended” bit, were great on every level, from the acting to the writing to the directing. The Tower of Joy sequence, as anticipated as it was, was probably doomed with many book-readers from the start, because no interpretation of it was going to please everyone and meet expectations. I, for one, was happy with the sequence. I thought Ser Arthur Dayne was well cast and the one-against-many swordfight was well-anchored in reality. But it could have been longer and featured more dialog, and I think that could easily have been achieved by trimming the placeholders listed below.

The placeholders: barfing Sam and ever-durable Gilly on the boat, was cute but it provided nothing, story-wise. Varys scored some points with his deft interview, but both Tyrion’s drinking game (barring a few good lines) and Dany’s time with the Dothraki felt like treading water, and did little to assuage my rising sense that the only way to keep Meereen from sliding down into the Dorne pit is to get Dany on Drogon and fly across the Narrow Sea already. And if Daario and Jorah manage to sneak in and punch a few guys and save Dany, that is going to feel like a we-spent-a-lot-on-other-things low budget cop out. We wouldn’t have missed anything had the sequences mentioned above been trimmed by 30 seconds or a minute each, and that’s a lot of screen time that could have been applied to the Tower of Joy.

(Insert blaring Air Horn sound here) Ramsay Bolton just exceeded the limit on how many times a villain can win. C’mon, Umber, be a good guy and avenge the Starks. Katie’s point above that the fact that the uber-protector Osha is still alive signals that she and Rickon are part of an Umber trick is a good one, and I very much hope its true.

And Ani, according to Tormund, Jon Snow is not particularly well-endowed, and we’ve all seen the rather unimpressive unmentionables on the male Greek god statues at the museum, haven’t we? Perhaps the full-frontal shot would have been a bad idea, because now that part of the Jon Snow legend can still live on without viewer disappointment.