Unsullied Recap—Game of Thrones, Episode 605—”The Door”

Spoiler note: “A girl says nothing. A girl keeps her mouth closed. No one hears.” —Girls, boys, and everyone alike, Jaqen H’ghar has spoken, so please remember: This recap is primarily for non-book readers (book fans can discuss the show here). If you’re a book reader, please avoid posting any spoilers here so as not to ruin the fun for those who don’t know what’s coming next. Thank you!

I started this episode with tears of glorious triumph and ended with tears of the most potent grief. My body is drained of fluids and now I must celebrate the victories and ease the pain with the same bottle of wine. Good thing I bought the big bottle.

At the top of the episode, Sansa is summoned to Molestown to meet Littlefinger. Once there with Brienne in tow, she tears him a new one for his carelessness with her life. Her disgust is such that he can’t manipulate her the way he used to, and indeed there’s a distinct air of “Oh, shit” when Brienne follows Sansa inside and Littlefinger realizes he’s just been pushed down that ladder he’s usually on top of. The double-trouble dream team stares Littlefinger down like they’re Wonder Woman and he’s just another misogynistic cry-baby trying to prove that he’s better than they are—not that Littlefinger’s quite that thick-skulled at this point, but all the same, Sansa and Brienne could have Z-snapped him right out of the North.

Sansa is calmly indignant, her rage apparent but controlled as she lays her pain for Littlefinger to hear, so he knows what his negligence cost. Give it to me, queen babe—all your righteous anger, your cool detachment that sizzles just beneath your unyielding exterior, the horrors and tragedies you’ve faced at the hands of men because of the negligence of others, all summed up in Sophie Turner’s at once chilling and dazzling line, “I can still feel it. I don’t mean in my tender heart, it still pains me so—I can still feel what he did, in my body, standing here right now.”

To his credit, Littlefinger does seem ashamed of himself. He admits he underestimated Ramsay, and swears his service to Sansa, who has found better with the likes of Brienne and Pod (who doesn’t appear for reasons unknown, but his pure and adorable spirit is still with us). He tells Sansa that her uncle the Blackfish has reestablished the Tully forces and retaken Riverrun, and suggests that she’ll need an army of her own. He ends their meeting with a little jibe, referring to Jon as her “half-brother” as though to insinuate that Sansa can’t trust Jon because he’s not her “real” brother. If that’s his game, then Littlefinger needs to take a good long look at what he is to Sansa—her dead mother’s unreciprocated love interest; not exactly a “blood is thicker than water” relationship basis there. I don’t think Sansa trusts him, but she does realize she needs forces loyal to her specifically, because she’s learned not to rely on help from others.

During a team meeting to discuss how to handle the upcoming wars (against the Boltons and the White Walkers, respectively), Davos and Sansa debate the North’s devotion to the Starks. While Davos doesn’t doubt the North’s famed loyalty, he does doubt men—loyalties are compromised when lives are on the line. But even without the Umbers and the Karstarks, Jon claims that the other Northern houses will make up for those lost numbers, and Sansa tells the group of the Blackfish’s victory—just not how she learned of it. She tells Jon that Ramsay received a raven prior to her escape from Winterfell and leaves Littlefinger’s name out of the mix entirely.

Although reluctant to leave Sansa alone with the likes of Tormund and his untrustworthy beard, Brienne is to head to Riverrun to recruit the Blackfish to Sansa and Jon’s cause. Although Sansa says she trusts Jon, she can’t answer Brienne when she asks why Sansa lied to him. I too worry about this; Sansa doesn’t even seem to know why she did it, only that she needs as many men as they can get, and that means relying on Littlefinger longer than she would like. He’s really shaped her way of dealing with people, but more than that, Sansa has learned to not put her trust in anyone fully, even her own family. After all she’s been through, it’s no wonder that Sansa isn’t quite there yet, but better get there quick, queen babe. At the very least, we’re offered another tender moment between Sansa and Jon when they’re about to head out on their mission to remind the North: she stitches a direwolf on her dress and gives Jon a handmade cloak much like the one Ned used to wear, and smiles are exchanged with it. I’ll take it.

The youngest Stark daughter, meanwhile, has also taken up lying. Arya and busted Kimmy Gibbler duke it out and, no matter how ardently I instruct Arya to “Sweep the leg!,” once again Kimmy comes out smirking. She claims that Arya isn’t ready, and a watching Jaqen agrees. (What is it with her and Jaqen, anyway? They seem like they’re trapped in a marriage of convenience and don’t really care for each other, and Kimmy’s always trying to prove to him how right she is about everything when he’s foolish enough to bring another wannabe around.)

During a stroll around the Hall of Faces, Jaqen is vague about the history of the Faceless Men, as he’s vague about everything, and we can all thank whatever god Jaqen wants that he doesn’t have access to Facebook so he could inundate us with more vagueness and general passive-aggressiveness. He gives Arya her second and final chance to become a member of the Faceless Men by bidding her poison an actress who calls herself Lady Crane. During a trip to check out Lady Crane’s filmography, Arya is forced to bear witness to a truly inaccurate portrayal of the events at King’s Landing from Season 1: her father is misrepresented as a boorish fool, her sister is mocked, and her family’s griefs are put on as a comedy. Arya looks on at a reprisal of her father’s death, and it is the furthest thing from the truth; she didn’t see Ned’s head fall, but she knew who he was, and it’s not the man blundering about onstage.

It’s clear that Jaqen is testing her dedication to the Faceless Men by aiming her at a target who has the means of eliciting an emotional response from Arya Stark, who is supposed to be No One. But although she asks more questions than Jaqen is comfortable with, Arya keeps up the game and tells him that she’ll poison Lady Crane’s rum, which only she drinks.

Far off on the windy banks of the sea, there’s a lot of heteronormative drama during the Ironborn election for class president. Someone protests Yara’s claim to the Salt Throne because “we’ve never had a queen,” but Yara points out that they’ve never had any respect either, so take a seat. Someone else nominates Theon, but he passes to endorse his sister, who is “your rightful ruler,” and he reminds them of all she’s done and all she means to them. All seems well until Euron Greyjoy shows up to place his own bid, which Yara contests on the basis that he murdered her father. Who knows how she found out about that, but it hardly matters since Euron owns up to it like Alliser Thorne owned up to knifing his Lord Commander. We can only hope that Euron meets a similar end. Although I don’t quite hate him the way I did Thorne, Yara has more than earned her right to rule this thankless band of Poseidon’s groupies (Poseidon, the Drowned God…tomato, tomahto).

Euron runs through Theon and Yara’s failures, but he hasn’t proven himself any more than they have; if anything, he hasn’t proven himself at all since, as Theon points out, he was never around. He may have knowledge of the world, but where’s his knowledge of leadership, of his people? Euron tells the Ironborn of Daenerys Targaryen across the Narrow Sea, and declares that he’ll win her favor with the biggest fleet the world has ever seen so she’ll have to marry him, and I laugh and laugh and laugh. I’m no advocate for Daenerys to take the Iron Throne, but Euron is even madder than he seems if he thinks Daenerys is going to board his crazy train. She’s going to take his ships and his men, and then she’s going to whistle for Drogon and tell him she fancies a bit of Greyjoy toast. The Ironborn don’t seem particularly loyal to any one person, rather to themselves, so I don’t see much of a mutiny if Daenerys were to take charge.

But Euron wins the vote, anyway, because he’s a cock-of-the-walk kinda man. During his royal baptism, Yara and Theon are like, “LOL peace out” and, along with a few good men, steal all the best ships and leave Euron with nothing but his stupid plan and his own poorly measured self-confidence. He’s not discouraged in the least, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

Meanwhile, Euron’s future wife (HA!) lets go of her anger towards Jorah and accepts him back into her circle, only for him to jump right back out like he’s doing the Hokey Pokey. He does indeed shake his greyscale all about, and then confesses his very obvious love for Daenerys in an effort to finish off his bucket list. He prepares to leave her service once and for all when, in her grief and determination, Daenerys orders him to find a cure for greyscale, utilize it, and come back to her. It seems an unreasonable demand, but for the sake of Handsomest Man On the Planet Ser Jorah, I too will keep hope alive. Daario looks on awkwardly the entire time while this more handsome man who makes him question his own sexuality romances his friend with benefits.

Back in Daenerys’ sweet digs, Tyrion, Varys, Grey Worm, and Missandei discuss the general peace that has settled over Meereen since Tyrion struck the seven-year bargain with the masters. Despite such good fortune, Tyrion says that “it’s not enough for Meereen to have peace. They need to know Daenerys is responsible for it.” As usual, he has a point—while the people know that Daenerys won them their freedom, they also know that she inspired violence in the city. To restore faith, the people have to be made to believe that Daenerys made peace with the masters for the sake of their safety. I’m not sure that Daenerys will approve this plan once she gets back, but Tyrion’s already enlisted the help of the red priests and priestesses, so what’s done is done.

High Priestess Penélope Cruz shows up for a little tête-à-tête with Tyrion and Varys and gives everyone the heebie-jeebies. Varys challenges her claim that Daenerys is the one who was promised, as Melisandre swore the same of the since-fallen Stannis, but Penélope pulls some state fair fortune teller tricks and reminds him of the night of his mutilation, of how he heard a voice in the flames and he knows what it meant. “If you’re [Daenerys’] true friend, you have nothing to fear from me,” she promises, but I think she might try to murder everyone, anyway. She’s just too sinister and fabulous to be trustworthy.

In the less fabulous confines of Bran’s cave, we learn that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers in an attempt to protect themselves from man: once upon a time, they dug a magical dagger into young Christopher Eccleston’s chest and voilà, one Night King, made to order. I was just as surprised as Bran at this new tidbit; I’d never given much thought to the White Walkers’ origins, but rather accepted them as an eternal force of evil—tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, and all that.

Later, Bran takes an ill-advised solo vision quest in which, as luck would have it, he walks amongst the White Walkers and is spotted by the Night King, aka Big Daddy White Walker. Big Daddy grabs Bran’s arm and marks him within the vision. He can now find him in the present. What does it matter to the Night King if a disabled young lord in a tree knows that he exists? Who knows, but the Three-Eyed Raven claims that now that it’s been done, Bran must leave; he’s not ready yet, but he must “become me” (the Raven), and so he begins the overexposure of knowledge that Bran will need to continue on his journey outside the cave. This is explained in the “Inside the Episode” featurette, so we can assume that’s why, in the final scene, Bran and the Raven are back at Winterfell at a seemingly inopportune time—because Bran must be shown everything before he can leave.

During this jaunt back to ye olde Winterfell, all hell breaks loose when Meera, Hodor, and the Children are left behind and faced with the sudden appearance of the White Walkers and an onslaught of wights. The Children throw magical nature grenades at the horde of oncoming beasts while Meera and Hodor try fruitlessly to rouse Bran, who’s too deep in happy visions of a lost home to hear Meera’s pleas—that is, until her screams break into the past and shake him to the core. She shouts for him to wake up, to warg into Hodor because they need his size and strength to escape the cave.

Unable to wake, Bran stays put in the vision, and Meera obliterates a Fabio-looking White Walker like she’s the warrior goddess Athena, but another one digs into the Three-Eyed Raven’s body. In the yard at Winterfell, the Raven tells Bran to heed Meera’s call, and then he explodes into a million fluttering black pieces, much like Voldemort in the last Harry Potter movie but more effective because it actually makes sense. And he’s not the only one to go: Summer dies protecting his master, with a yelp like Lady’s when Ned was forced to kill her; Leaf (chief of the Children) sacrifices herself with a magical grenade and takes as many enemies as she can with her; and, due to some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey business, Bran warging into Hodor in the present is what affected Hodor in the past.

Bran watches as young Hodor’s eyes roll back into his head, as he falls, shaking, to the ground, all the while shouting “Hold the door! Hold the door!” as memories of Meera’s own shouts overtake him. In the present, Hodor does as Meera instructs and holds the door to the cave shut against the force of the and wights on the other side, and loses his life in the truly heart-wrenching process. Meera and Bran disappear into the swirling snow ahead, and it’s no wonder that Leaf told Meera that Bran would need her in the wars to come—she’s his last remaining protector, the only one left.

Dry your eyes, my fellow Unsullied, and let’s look at the questions this episode offers: Now that they only have each other, what will Meera and Bran’s next move be? Do Yara and Theon have a plan, or are they just trying to piss off their jerk uncle (either way, well done)? Can we trust High Priestess Penélope Cruz? Will Sansa tell Jon about Littlefinger’s involvement, or will it matter either way once they have the armies they need? Will Arya kill Lady Crane, or does she have another target in mind? Did Daario braid Daenerys’ hair and is that why she likes him so much?

And now, let’s toast to Summer and Hodor alike—protectors of and friends to the Starks, loyal to the very end, even when it meant giving up their lives. When the North remembers the Starks, the Starks will remember you.

Remember—speculation is encouraged, spoilers aren’t! Please refrain from posting book spoilers here! Feel free to discuss the episode in the comments or Tweet me @kattymaj, but don’t ruin any surprises for the viewers who haven’t read the books. While the show has largely diverged from its source material, you never know what details will crop up later. Thanks, and see you next week!