Book-Reader’s Recap—Game of Thrones, Episode 607—”The Broken Man”

Spoiler Note: This post is intended for those who have read the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series. As such, the post itself and the comments will contain spoilers. If you haven’t read the books yet, you can discuss this episode in our non-book reader (Unsullied) recap. Thanks!

Welcome to our recap of “The Broken Man,” aka “A Hound’s Story.” Because this episode was all about our wayward Hound. The guy got a lot of screentime—he both opened and closed the show, and the episode kept returning to him. It’s kind of like they snuck in the series premiere of a whole different show (Dr. Sandor Clegane, Medicine Warrior) into this mid-season episode of Game of Thrones.

Also, the episode bucked tradition by starting with a cold open. That’s happened very rarely on this show, and I’m not sure it’s ever happened in the middle of the year.

The curtain rises on a placid community nestled in a rolling green valley, the show’s answer to the Quiet Isle from A Feast for Crows. People are smithing, and building a large wooden structure (a sept?), cooking, and the like. It’s bucolic and pristine and way too good to last, and of course it doesn’t.

Ian McShane leads this idealistic little band, playing a Septon Meribald/Elder Brother combination character named Ray. Ray…his name is Ray. Of all the little things they’ve changed for no reason this year (e.g. Night’s King to Night King), this one’s the worst. “Ray” just sounds silly in this world, but to be fair, his name is never actually said out loud, and now he’s dead, so I’ll let it slide.

It’s…Ray…it’s Meribald. He’s Meribald. I’m calling him Meribald.

Anyway, one worker at the commune is so big and strong that he can lift a giant log all by himself (notice that he’s limping slightly). The camera pans up, and it’s…the Hound! Sandor Clegane is the latest character to return from the dead this year, joining Jon Snow, Benjen, Walder Frey, and more. Season 6 is one big reunion.

After the intro sequence, Meribald asks the Hound what monster was strong enough to take him down, and chuckles when the Hound admits that a woman did it. Based on how furiously the Hound starts to chop wood after that, it seems he hasn’t quite let go of his anger over that, or in general.

Later, Meribald exposits about how Clegane survived his close encounter with Brienne: Meribald found him in the Vale after the fight and carted him off on a wagon. Realistically, there’s no reason Meribald should be saying this to the Hound—they both know the story—but the audience has to be filled in, and I guess you could say that Meribald was trying to get the big man to open up. The Hound does look rather surly eating apart from the other workers.

Meribald encourages the Hound to open up his heart to love and to dance the dance of joy, metaphorically speaking. What he really says is, “[T]here’s a reason you’re still here…Gods aren’t done with you yet,” which sounds like what a lot of Christian outreach types would say when angling for a conversion, but most of them don’t swear like Meribald.

There’s an interesting moment where Meribald calls the Hound “Sandor Clegane,” and while the show doesn’t make it explicit, it looks like the Hound wasn’t aware that anyone knew his true identity. Of course, there are only so many 6’6” men with burned faces walking around Westeros, so that was a vain hope. The Hound doesn’t think he’s a good candidate for redemption. “If the gods are real, why haven’t they punished me?” It’s a sincere question, and I am officially ready to take a new emotional journey with Sandor Clegane. Consider this Episode 1 of Have Axe — Will Travel.

We stop by Meribald’s commune again later in the hour, as he’s giving a sermon to his followers—it’s one of those casual sermons given by the cool minsters, the ones who play guitar during services and wanna be your buddy. He talks about his violent past as a soldier and implores that “it’s never too late to come back,” a message that seems to resonate with the Hound. It’s a nice enough speech, but I wish we would have gotten a proper rendition of Septon Meribald’s heartbreaking “Broken Man” monologue from A Feast for Crows—I mean, it was clearly on the producers’ minds when they named the episode, but apparently they didn’t wanna go all in on it. It’s our loss.

Three riders interrupt Meribald’s talk. They’re unseemly types, and are not satisfied when Meribald says he has no horses, gold, steel, or food to spare them. “Stay safe,” says one in a yellow cloak (Old Lem Lemoncloak?). “The night is dark and full of terrors.” It’s the Brotherhood Without Banners, and it seems they’ve gotten skeevier since we last saw them.

Later, the Hound is chopping wood well away from the commune. He warns Meribald that the Brotherwood will come for them, but Meribald refuses to put up a fight. Pacifism in Westeros…I don’t think there’s much of a place for it.

Down in King’s Landing, Margaery hangs out in the High Sparrow’s inner sanctum, effortlessly tossing off verses from the Seven-Pointed Star. I wonder if Bryan Cogman, who wrote this episode, enjoyed coming up with faux-bible verses—they sound pretty convincing. Crown on her head and garbed neck to ankle in a modest dress, Margaery makes with more penitent blather. The High Sparrow makes excuses for her, and if we’re assuming that Margaery is faking a religious conversion to get an angle on the High Sparrow, she has him eating out of her hand.

Case in point: the High Sparrow tells Margaery that, if Tommen can be believed, Margaery hasn’t been boinking the Little King lately. First of all, Tommen must be in agony, but more importantly, by claiming that “the desires that once drove me no longer do,” Margaery actually gets the High Sparrow to encourage her to have sex with her husband. (He puts it in the driest terms possible: “Congress does not require desire on the woman’s part, only patience.”) He wants the king to have an heir, because he wants Tommen’s holy dynasty to continue, but of course, an heir is what Margaery wants too, and now she has a holy sanction. If I’m reading this right, Margaery is playing a very smart game.

The High Sparrow also lets slip that he has plans for Olenna, and while he doesn’t say exactly what they entail, it sounds like the Queen of Thorns could be the next person bound for holy jail. Luckily, Margaery’s on the case. Later, she and Olenna talk in the Red Keep under the watchful eye of Septa Unella, and Olenna gets in the first of several good lines this week (see the Odds and Ends section for some highlights) when she threatens Unella with “a good bashing.”

We learn that Loras is still locked away, and that the High Sparrow, growing quite bold, will only release him if he confesses his sins and renounces his name and titles. Olenna is appropriately horrified, and then Margaery, acting before Olenna has Unella beaten out of pure spite, makes her move. She kneels before her grandmother and implores her to go home. Her eyes say the next part: “Or you’ll be next.” And then she presses a piece of paper into Olenna’s hand.

Olenna realizes that something significant is happening, and granddaughter and grandmother share a hug that almost causes Margaery’s facade to break—we so rarely see honest emotion from Margaery, but she loves her grandmother, and this moment is affecting. Olenna walks out of the room, and unfolds the piece of paper Margaery gave her. On it is a drawing of a Tyrell rose, growing strong.

It seems that Margaery, in her heart of hearts, is still a Tyrell, and that her religious conversion is fake. That’s what I’m taking from the note, anyway. As it often does, the show plays it subtle when it comes to Margaery.

Elsewhere in the halls of power, Cersei stalks down a corridor, thinking deep thoughts about how everyone sucks but her. She chats up Olenna about the latter’s choice to leave King’s Landing, and graciously lets the Queen of Thorns break off a few more barbs in her ass. Cersei is chagrinned after last week’s failed rescue attempt at the Sept of Baelor and wants Olenna’s help fighting the High Sparrow, but the Queen of Thorns has had enough. She’s getting out of Dodge (at this point, I think she trusts that Margaery has a plan to spring Loras), and recommends that Cersei do the same.

But Cersei has wanted power, or at least the trappings of power, all her life, and she isn’t about to leave them now. How will she get herself out of a situation where she has no support and is surrounded by enemies? I don’t know, but seeing as it’s Cersei, it’ll probably involve a sudden burst of violence.

Up in the North, Team Jon is trying to convince the wildlings to fight with him against Ramsay Bolton. Since we last saw them, the wildlings have made a ramshackle little settlement on the Gift—it’s teetering, but I guess they’re used to worse. The wildling leader, who kind of looks like a bedraggled Dolorous Edd, doesn’t want to risk what are essentially the last wildlings left alive in a fight against some southern lord he doesn’t know, but Jon rightly points out that, if Team Jon loses, Ramsay will come after the wildlings anyway.

It’s a solid argument that gives Bedraggled Dolorous Edd pause, and Tormund Giantsbane steps up to pound the party line home by calling everyone there out as a coward if they aren’t willing to help the guy who took them south of the Wall in the first place. When Wun Wun the giant stands up and says, simply, “Snow,” you know it’s over. Once the giant chooses a side, everyone else pretty much has to follow.

Plus, this means we get giant-on-Bolton action in a couple of episodes. I won’t pretend I’m not looking forward to that.

The Northern recruitment drive continues with a visit to Bear Island for what might be the scene of the episode. Jon, Sansa, and Davos talk with Lyanna Mormort, the ‘lil badass who refused to help Stannis last season. She’s played by Bella Ramsay, and instantly becomes one of my favorite characters.

Sansa, reciting what sounds like prattle she and Jon rehearsed in the car ride over, says she’s sure that Lyanna will grow into a great beauty when she’s older, but Lyanna’s got no use for that kind of compliment—she’s more interested in becoming a warrior. Jon tries a different tack and brings up his stewardship under Jeor Mormont (Jorah never comes up, by the way), but Lyanna is all business. “Why are you here?”

So Jon gets right to it: they want the Mormonts’ help restoring House Stark. Lyanna brings up something I’ve been wondering if anyone would ever point out: that Sansa, after marrying Ramsay Bolton, is technically no longer a Stark. Sansa seems to consider that a small detail, though, and if her husband is killed, I’m sure other arrangements can be made.

Jon stumbles over his words a bit more, so Davos, who spoke so eloquently in defense of Stannis in front of the Iron Bank of Braavos in Season 4, summons some of the old magic. He empathizes with Lyanna by pointing out that neither he nor she ever expected to be in positions of power, and widens the scope of the discussion by bringing the White Walkers into it. “[The real war] is between the living and the dead. And make no mistake, my lady, the dead are coming.” From there, it’s a simple matter of establishing that the White Walkers are, indeed, coming—you get the idea that most Northerners believe that in their bones—and Lyanna is on their side. When it comes to giving stump speeches, no one does it like Davos.

Still, just because the Mormonts are with Team Jon doesn’t mean they’ll be terribly helpful. Lyanna offers Jon 62 soldiers, which is a funny cap to a well-written scene. So…Lyanna as queen and Davos as hand? I’d be cool with that.

The next stop on Team Jon’s tour of the North doesn’t go as well. Lord Glover of Deepwood Motte isn’t keen to join Jon’s cause for reasons both understandable (the Boltons helped the Glovers take back Deepwood Motte from the Ironborn) and xenophobic (standard-issue wildling hatred). Sansa reminds Lord Glover of the oath he swore to the Starks, and the old man gets right up in Sansa’s face and lays out what he sees as his position: the Starks were great, but Robb Stark screwed up by marrying “a foreign whore” (unflattering Talisa shoutout!), the Starks are now dead, and you’re on your own.

I like that the show is exploring the various Northern houses after all but ignoring them last year, although it’s looking less and less likely that we’ll ever see the Manderlys. Anyway, Team Jon makes camp at the same place where Stannis burned Shireen last year and…oh, dear, that’s not going to go well for Davos, is it?

The crew take stock. In addition to the Mormonts, they’ve also picked up some Hornwoods and Mazins, although the army is still mainly made up of wildlings. Still, a storm could hit any day, so they plan to march on Winterfell soon—like, in two episodes.

After Davos leaves to break up a wildling-Northman argument, Sansa talks a little smack about him to Jon. Tensions are running high, and Sansa thinks they need more men. Determined to get them by any means necessary, she later writes a letter that can only be meant for Littlefinger and his Knights of the Vale.

Back in the Riverlands, Jaime and Bronn (Bronn!) approach Riverrun, which looks smashing onscreen, a testament to the special effects team. Jaime is at the head of a lot of soldiers—the lines stretches into the far distance—and he wants Bronn’s help organizing them. Bronn, however, is more than a little annoyed that Jaime has yet to give him the castle and rich wife he promised back in Season 5, and I can’t say I blame him—who do these noble folk think they are, jerking around a working stiff who just wants a home and a family and enough gold to fill a swimming pool? New Bronn is grumpy.

At Riverrun, Lothar Frey and Black Walder Rivers (the two guys who got chewed out by Walder Frey last week) threaten to kill Edmure Tully if the Blackfish doesn’t give up the castle. As in the books, the Blashfish is not in the least bit impressed. “Go on, then. Cut his throat,” he says from the ramparts of Riverrun. The Freys, of course, can’t go through with it, since Edmure is too valuable a hostage. I’m glad this moment showed up, although I wish they would have mined it for a little more comedy—the mishandling of the siege in A Feast for Crows was pretty funny.

Jaime, looking like a damn samurai in his new armor, says his greetings to Lothar and starts pointing out everything the Freys are doing wrong. He tells them to clean up Lord Edmure, but Black Walder, clearly the more impetuous of the two Freys in residence, is like, “You don’t give orders here! This is outside your jurisdiction!” And Jaime’s all, “Here’s my jurisdiction,” and whaps Black Walder across the face.

Having marked his territory, Jaime calls a parlay with the Blackfish. There’s a wonderfully portentous series of shots as the drawbridge of Riverrun is lowered and the Blackfish, who’s wearing some sweet scaled armor, walks out. Something about these scenes feels very Season 3-esque to me—probably the fact that we’re back in the Riverlands dealing with the Blackfish, or that we’re largely on book again, or maybe it’s that we have some straightforward politicking with no dragons or walking dead men to distract us. It’s a nice, grounded section of the episode.

“Kingslayer,” the Blackfish says by way of greeting. Bad start. What follows is a pretty faithful adaptation of the corresponding scene from A Feast for Crows. Not all of the details make it in, but a lot of lines are lifted directly from the novel. The Blackfish asks if Jaime wishes to resume his captivity, says that Edmure is “marked for death” no matter what, and at the end of the conversation, confesses that he met with Jaime in part because sieges are really dull. As in the books, the talk accomplishes nothing, as the Blackfish can’t accept any terms offered by someone as untrustworthy as Jaime. The drawbridge goes back up, and nothing’s changed.

Far away in Volantis, Theon and Yara stop by a whorehouse, where Yara is as lustful as any of her men.

Let’s just have this discussion now. In the novels, there’s no indication that Yara (or, more accurately, Asha, her book counterpart) is attracted to women. In fact, Martin details her romantic history with men. As always, I’m a little annoyed that the show is changing stuff for seemingly no reason (see also: Seastone Chair to Salt Throne), but in the end, it’s not a big deal, and I dig how the show is unapologetic about her lesbianism. The frank way Yara plans to “f**k the tits” off one prostitute, while vulgar, is a tonic to the High Sparrow’s talk about how females need not experience desire during sex.

And it’d be a shame if talk about Yara’s sexual orientation overshadowed what was a pretty good scene. I was nervous that the Ironborn stuff would be weak after the underwhelming Kingsmoot, but this was moving and strange.

Yara may be lustful, but Theon, lacking the necessary equipment, is not. She gives him one of the oddest pep talks I’ve ever heard: it basically boils down to a command to drop Reek like a hot rock and reclaim some of the confidence he had before Ramsay castrated and warped him. It’s a tall order for a victim of post-traumatic stress, and it’s not hard to argue that Yara’s being insensitive. It’s a very Ironborn sort of pep talk, by which I mean it’s kind of cruel. But there are real emotions in there, too—she tells him she needs him, assures him that he “got away and you’re never going back,” and there’s real affection in her eyes. It seems to reach Theon, too. When he looks back up at her, the always-amazing Alfie Allen brings a spark to his eyes we haven’t seen for a while. Yara kisses him on the brow and goes to find the girl she was macking on earlier, and I’m back on board their boat.

Oh, and they’re going to Meereen to make a pact with Daenerys. Obviously.

Let’s stay on Essos and visit Braaovs, where Arya has changed outfits—not sure where she got this new one. She chats up a Westerosi ship captain who’s talking to his friend about the Iron Fleet being in Slaver’s Bay, which has to be wrong, unless Euron managed to build his 1000 ships in an episode’s worth of time and sailed them to Meereen before Theon and Yara got there. Arya says she wants to book passage to Westeros. When the captain doubts whether she can pay, she plops two giant bags of money on the table. Again, I dunno how show got ahold of those, but I’m guessing it wasn’t from selling oysters, clams, and cockles.

Arya walks onto a bridge and looks out at the Titan of Braavos, contemplating her time in the city, when a creepy old lady walks into the frame behind her and the audience at large yells, “Look out, Arya!” It’s the Waif, of course, and she wastes no time in stabbing Arya through the gut, taking care to twist the knife. Arya manages to break free of her grasp and throw herself into a canal. The Waif, apparently thinking the job done, saunters off, and this story got really serious really quickly.

Arya surfaces elsewhere in the city, bleeding from the stomach, and walks through the streets of Braavos holding in her insides and getting suspicious of every person she sees. How does she get out of this one? Next episode, please!

We end where we began: with the Hound. He’s still chopping wood well away from the camp when he hears screams. Sure enough, he returns to find everyone there slaughtered, and Meribald hanged, his eyes bulging out, from the rafters of his half-made sept. The Hound grabs an axe, the better to chop up some outlaws with.

I thought this was a really solidly written episode of Game of Thrones. I liked that the stories were broken up across the hour instead of all lumped together, and how new characters like Meribald and Lyanna Mormont were folded believably into the narrative. True, like last week, the episode was mostly transitional (you notice that they assigned Bryan Cogman the two transitional episodes?), but there were still plenty of rich, layered scenes to enjoy.

Odds and Ends

No-shows. There was no sign of Bran, Daenerys, or Tyrion this week—after wondering if the show was giving Peter Dinklage stuff to do on principle during the first half of the season, I now eat my words.

More interesting were the absences of Melisandre and Ramsay. I suppose it makes sense that Team Jon wouldn’t want to take the creepy foreign fire priestess along during negotiations, and the farther away she is from the wildlings—remember, she burned their king last year—the better. Still, I miss her.

Ramsay’s absence is more notable. What is he doing in Winterfell? What’s keeping him so busy he can’t follow through on the threats he made to Jon back in “Book of the Stranger?” Maybe he’s heard that Jon’s marching south and has decided to hole up in the castle? Much as I hate Ramsay, I’d like a check-in.

Queen of Barbs. Lady Olenna was rather on fire this week, wasn’t she?

"Olenna to Septa Unella: “All I have to do is whistle and my men will stroll in here and bash you about until I tell them to stop. If I tell them to stop.” Unella maintained her game face nicely, though.Olenna getting real to Cersei: “Loras rots in a cell because of you. The High Sparrow rules this city because of you. Our two ancient houses face collapse because of you and your stupidity.”Olenna getting incredibly real to Cersei: “I wonder if you’re the worst person I’ve ever met. At a certain age, it’s hard to recall. But the truly vile do stand out through the years.”"

The damn Night King. Look, we’re all gonna have to make peace with the fact that the show is calling him the Night King rather than the Night’s King, but how did Davos even know his name to begin with? How does Jon? The Night King hasn’t said a word to either of them. Is he, perhaps, a figure of Northern legend people in the region would be generally familiar with?

Line of the night. There were some good lines tonight, but one I’ve seen getting a lot of attention is Yara’s rejoinder to Theon’s assertion that, if he were to get justice, he’d be hanging from the walls of Winterfell. “F**k justice, then,” she says. “We’ll get revenge.” Nothing like homespun Ironborn wisdom.

I really like how the show is handling the Yara character. There’s a hardness and a joy about her that’s intriguing, even if she doesn’t behave quite like her book counterpart. What with her heading to Meereen, she’s taken on parts of Victarion’s story from the books, but with her straightforwardness, she’s also taken on some of his personality.

The ghost of 20 good men. When Davos was talking about why Stannis chose that particular camp site last year, all I could think was how that made it even less likely that Ramsay and his 20 good men could somehow infiltrate it. You probably don’t wanna draw attention to that, show.

The Brotherhood Without Manners. So the Brotherhood Without Banners has turned into a band of murderous extortionists. What happened? In the books, Lady Stoneheart takes control, and their standards degrade rather quickly. I doubt she’s gonna show up, so there must be another reason for the group’s change of heart. I’m sure we’ll find out more when the Hound goes hunting.