At the conclusion of every Game of Thrones episode, the production airs and then releases a spate of videos detailing the behind-the-scenes work that went into making it. These videos explore the thought process that went into the creation of particular scenes, and highlight what the writers and directors see as the key moments of the episode. This week’s “Inside The Episode” for “The Door” are a little more in depth, due to the subject matter tackled, the death that no one saw coming, and the amount of spoilers for the A Song of Ice and Fire series that were contained within.
In this “Inside the Episode” installment, the producers highlight both Sansa’s standing up to Littlefinger and the Kingsmoot, as well as that tragic finale. We also have two actor deep dives, one focusing on Dany and Ser Jorah’s parting and the other focusing, naturally, on the death of Hodor.
I’ll admit that I half-hoped they would break the no-George R.R. Martin trend and have him do his own deep dive into Hodor’s death, and tell us himself he came up with the idea. No such luck, I’m afraid. (Though I suppose if Hodor’s death comes about differently in The Winds of Winter, that will be understandable.) Instead, the bulk of this week is given over to Bran and his visions. Also, Benioff and Weiss talk about learning from Martin himself about the meaning of Hodor’s name, and how he would die.
Of course, our first actor deep dive is with Kristian Nairn and Isaac Hempstead Wright, discussing the passing of Hodor. Note that Hempstead Wright continues to blame Bran for this unequivocally.
Are you crying yet? No? Here, let’s fix that.
Looking at to characters who survived this week, our other deep dive is with Emilia Clarke and Iain Glenn, who talk about Ser Jorah’s quest to find greyscale.