Book-Reader’s Recap—Game of Thrones, Episode 608—”No One”

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 book-reader’s recap of “No One,” aka “Game of Thrones continues its smoke break.” Look, it’s not that the episode was bad, but after two weeks of set-up, I was ready for some momentum, especially out of an episode this long. I’m sure the remainder of the season will be Momentum Fest 2016, but I could have used a few more goings-on here.

Which isn’t to say that the episode didn’t have strengths. Case in point: the opening is pretty ballin’. We’re in Braavos, watching The Tragedy of Joffrey Baratheon again (HBO should make a fake playbill). Joffrey has just died, and Cersei is mourning him, but the lines are different than the ones we heard in “Blood of My Blood.” Apparently, Lady Crane prevailed on the troupe leader to change it, which is good, because it’s better this way. As Arya suggested, Cersei gets angry now, and I sympathize more with the fake Cersei than I ever did with the real one.

The crowd loves it, and Lady Crane walks back to the prep area. She starts to pour herself a post-show drink when she hears something ruffle behind some curtains, and for some reason, I think the Waif is going to jump out and tear her to shreds, but of course it’s Arya, nursing her gut wound.

Then we have a sweet scene where Lady Crane treats Arya’s injuries—she picked up some healcraft during the course of several extremely unhealthy relationships. “I’ve always liked bad men, and they’ve always liked me,” she says. She and her beaus would fight, she’d freaking stab them, and then she’d feel bad and patch them up. Dammit, this episode is really making me like Lady Crane, so naturally it kills her later.

Incidentally, Lady Crane messed up Bianca, the actress who took the hit out on her, such that she’ll never act again. Good on her. She again offers Arya a spot in the acting troupe, and although I would totally watch a show about Arya and Lady Crane traveling Essos and getting into misadventures, Arya fears for Lady Crane’s safety. After all, she’s being pursued by someone “who doesn’t have a name.” Lady Crane’s not from Braavos, but I think she knows that means the Faceless Men are involved, which means she has stones to help Arya. Why you gotta kill all the cool people, show?

Where will Arya go if she doesn’t travel with the troupe? She talks about traveling west of Westeros, to “the edge of the world.” I’d think she’d want to go back to Westeros and kill people, but that would be neat, too. Arya’s pain flairs up, and Lady Crane gives her milk of the poppy. She sleeps.

And now we have the first of several scenes that, while not exactly bad, are maybe a little longer than they need to be. Two of the Brotherhood Without Banners members who raided Septon Ray’s settlement last week (the bald one and the bearded one) are sitting around a fire in the woods, teaching two younger members how to kiss. That sounds odd, but just go with it. The bald one purports to demonstrate proper kissing technique on one of the younger ones, but it’s really just a set-up for some vaguely homoerotic, frat boy-type teasing. Thankfully, the Hound breaks up all the foolishness when he walks into the middle of the party and just wrecks everyone. He cuts the kissing dummy’s head clean off with one swing of his axe, and chops the bald one in the crotch. Wow, that lesson in pacifism did not take.

The Hound still needs to find Evil Lem Lemoncloak, aka the guy who had lines last episode, and before long, he gets his wish. Beric Dondarrion, who remains very much alive (well, undead-alive…whatever) is about to hang Evil Lem and two of his companions—it ends up that they acted alone in massacring Septon Ray’s community, which does not jive with Beric’s code. Thoros of Myr is there as well, and we welcome back another pair of characters not seen since Season 3.

All things considered, the reunion between the Hound and the Brotherhood goes pretty well. In recognition of his loss, Beric allows the Hound to kill two of the guilty outlaws himself, although he requires that Clegane hang them rather than chop them to bits. The Hound agrees, which is an important moment for him. By hanging the men for their crimes rather than butchering them, what the Hound does is a little less like vengeance and a little more like justice.

But as Evil Lem hangs, twitching, the Hound still pulls off the man’s boot and puts it on—he’s not a saint or anything.

After the execution, the Hound shares some food with Beric and Thoros. They want Clegane to join the Brotherhood Without Banners, and while the Hound is characteristically recalcitrant, his time with Septon Ray seems to have taught him the value of community. You can see that he’s considering it. Also, we see his penis when he goes to take a leak, so there’s that.

Intriguingly, Beric makes indirect reference to the White Walkers (“cold winds rising in the North”), so it sounds like the Brotherhood may be headed to the Wall soon. (I’m guessing Thoros saw something in the flames.) I can see that being a satisfying direction for this plotline to take, and it’ll provide opportunities for the Hound to continues the whole redemption arc he’s got going on, although we probably won’t see much more of it this season.

In Meereen, Tyrion and Varys walk the streets of the peaceful city. A Red Priestess preaches obedience to the Mother of Dragons and her followers, so it seems that Tyrion’s alliance with Kinvara held up, something he points out to Varys with no small amount of self-satisfaction. The two are taking their final thought walk together, as Varys is heading out on a “secret mission.” We don’t know exactly where he’s going, but he mentions that they need friends in Westeros and ships. If I had to guess, I’d say he was going to Dorne, the prospect of which would excite me a lot more if the show hadn’t gone against the books and put Ellaria and the Sand Snakes in charge. But he could be going elsewhere else. Let’s put a pin in that.

And here’s another scene that could have been shorter. Like, a lot shorter. After Varys leaves, Tyrion is hanging out with Missandei and Grey Worm in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, having a drink to celebrate his successful pacification of the city, or maybe because he’s awake. He encourages Missandei and Grey Worm to drink with him him, and they start telling jokes. Tyrion tells one about how dumb Starks are, Missandei tells one about translators, they talk about wine, and oh my god why are we listening to these people make strained conversation for five minutes? NEXT SCENE ALREADY!

To be fair, I liked this more than the last time the writers tried to build camaraderie between these three, back in “Oathbreaker.” Remember that? When Tyrion tried to get them to play a game? That was painful. Here, I liked Tyrion talking about wanting to own a vineyard, because I like getting insight his hopes and dreams, and I liked Grey Worm’s attempt at a joke. Still, move it on, show. Move it on.

Their little jam session is interrupted by a bell. They rush outside, and see that the slavers have arrived outside the walls of Meereen in force. It appears that Grey Worm was right, and that the masters had little interest in keeping their word to Tyrion. As Missandei says, they’ve come “for their property.” How they amassed that many ships (ships…) without Varys or anyone else hearing about it, I have no idea. In any case, they catapult flaming death into Meereen, and we get a lovely panoramic shot of the city under attack.

Grey Worm takes charge of the situation, and says that the Unsullied army should stay in the Great Pyramid, where they have a good defensive position. Tyrion, chagrined that his plan went belly-up, acquiesces, but the discussion is cut short but a rumble on the roof. A chandelier shakes, and one of the Unsullied soldiers walks out onto the balcony to see what fresh hell is this. But there’s no cause for alarm: it’s just Daenerys, dropped off by Drogon and ready to roast some Master flesh.

Back across the sea in King’s Landing, Cersei is drinking, but you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. Qyburn enters her room and says that there are members of the Faith Militant inside the Red Keep, something that could only happen if Tommen allowed it. Cersei, perturbed by this, walks out to meet them, Frankengregor at her side. One of the Faith Militant looks up at the Mountain and, by the look on his face, wets himself a little in his robes.

Lancel, who has his leadership pants on today, demands that Cersei accompany them to the Sept of Baelor, where the High Sparrow wishes to speak with her. Cersei’s all, “Make me,” and the Mountain steps between her and the Faith Militant. Lancel: “Order your man to step aside or there will be violence.” Cersei: “I choose violence.” You and the Hound, both.

As promised, there is then violence, but not as much as you might expect. One of the Faith Militant, the one who looked like he peed himself a minute ago, attacks the Mountain with his spiked club, and immediately regrets it. Speaking metaphorically, the Mountain crushes the smaller man like he’s a bug on the windshield of an eighteen-wheeler. Speaking literally, the Mountain tears the dude’s head off. The other Faith Militant scamper off to tell daddy.

Later, Cersei, Qyburn, and the Mountain walk into the throne room to hear a royal announcement. Apparently, Cersei wasn’t told about this gathering, something that Kevan makes clear was on purpose. Cersei wants to be on the dais with Tommen, but Kevan informs her that her place is in the gallery, “with the other ladies of the court.” Those other ladies scurry away like so many field mice before a hawk when Cersei and the Mountain join them.

Wasting little time, Tommen makes his announcement: as of this moment, the “brutish” practice of trial by combat is outlawed, conveniently in time for Cersei’s trial. Obviously, this law was thought up by the High Sparrow so Cersei couldn’t use the Mountain’s ridiculous strength to her advantage in her trial. Outmaneuvered again, Cersei can only watch wistfully as her son exits the courtroom, more loyal to the High Sparrow than to her.

At least she has vague conspiracies to sustain her. Qyburn sidles up to Cersei and mentions “that old rumor you told me about.” His little birds investigated and found out that there was “much more” to it than previously thought. What’s the rumor? The show is irritatingly oblique about it, but we can assume that it’ll help her when it comes time for her trial. Commenters, speculate away.

We next head to Riverrun, where we spend quite a lot of time for a storyline just introduced last week. Brienne and Pod have arrived, and are quickly surrounded by Lannister horsemen, since they, unlike the Freys, set up a perimeter. Brienne, who glimpsed Jaime while surveying the siege, demands to be brought before her old frenemy.

And now comes yet another scene that probably could have been shorter, although this one is at least fun. Bronn, happy to see his old buddy, sneaks up behind Podrick and puts him in a headlock. Bronn teases the squire mercilessly, and makes reference to the latter’s “magic cock,” but Pod’s sturdier than he used to be, and brags that Brienne’s been giving him combat training every day. Bronn rightly points out that if Pod’s so good at fighting, Bronn shouldn’t have able to sneak up on him, to which Pod responds with a variation on, “Well, yeah, but…shut up.” But Bronn must be even happier to see Pod than he lets on, since he sets about teaching the lad how to fight dirty, the demonstration of which involves tricking Pod into looking down and then slapping him in the face.

Once again, the scene is kind of pointless, but this is the most screentime Pod’s gotten all year, so I’m okay with it.

Inside a nearby tent, Jaime tells Brienn that he’s proud of her for finding Sansa, but there isn’t a lot of time for warm fuzzies. Brienne wants Jaime to allow the Blackfish and his army to leave Riverrun peacefully, and to join her as she travels back north to help Sansa win her war against the Boltons. It’s a neat plan from Brienne, since it allows Jaime to complete the technical parameters of his mission—chase the Blackfish out of Riverrun—without dirtying his hands by killing the kin of a woman he once swore an oath to. Jaime, although he doesn’t say so in as many words, agrees, and allows Brienne to enter the castle.

All in all, these two pick up right where they left off in Season 4, and I’m happy to report that there’s no hint of romance in the air, whatever Bronn might think. Sure, Jaime tells Brienne to hold on to Oathkeeper when she offers to return it to him, but I think that has more to do with mutual respect than anything else. Brienne also tells Jaime that she’ll have to fight him if it comes to battle between the Lannisters and Tullys. It’s a harsh reality both accept—for once, here are two people on opposite sides of a conflict whom we both like, and who like each other. It’s a well-done scene.

But back on the romance front, Brienne totally gives a little lip tremble right before she leaves Jaime’s tent. Hope springs eternal for these two.

Unfortunately, the Blackfish doesn’t have as much trust in Jaime as Brienne does, and flatly refuses to leave the castle on the word of a man known for having no honor. The show gets in some nice, Sorkin-esque tracking shots here as Brienne and the Blackfish argue while walking through Riverrun. They end up in a courtyard, where the Blackfish finally reads Sansa’s letter. “She’s exactly like her mother,” he says quietly. What, her penmanship? He sounds moved, but he still has no plans to vacate the castle. Brienne tells Pod to find a maester and send a letter to Sansa. “Tell her I failed.” When Brienne is sad, the world is sad with her.

But Jaime has a backup plan. He enters the tent where they’re keeping Edmure Tully and tries to talk him into cooperating. Edmure’s having none of it, and asks Jaime how he can sleep at night, after doing all the things he’s done. I’m not sure Edmure has much call to get confrontational with Jaime, given that Jaime is here to give him a way out of his predicament, but Cat’s brother never was the brightest bulb in the box, and maybe he feels that, if the Lannisters are going to kill him anyway, he might as well say what he wants.

The scene digs into Jaime’s moral ambiguity, a subject the show has been dealing with pretty aggressively since Season 3 (with a little break in Season 5 so Jaime could play with the Sands in Dorne). It makes a nice contrast with Jaime’s earlier scene with Brienne. There, his better nature was on display, as it often is when Brienne is involved. Here, his selfishness crops up. He will do whatever it takes to get back to King’s Landing and his incredibly dysfunctional relationship with his twin sister, up to and including launching Edmure’s newly born son into Riverrun via catapult. (In the books, Jaime threatens to use a trebuchet, and while this bit doesn’t have quite the impact on the show as it does on the page, I’m glad it made it in. By and large, the Riverrun sections are the most faithfully adapted scenes we’ve had in a while.)

Eventually, Edmure consents to Jaime’s plan, which is the same as it is in the books: Edmure will enter Riverrun and, in his capacity as its rightful lord, turn it over to the Freys. He approaches the entrance and requests that the Blackfish’s men lower the drawbridge, but the Blackfish isn’t biting. (“[I]t’s a trap, you idiot,” he says to the drawbridge operator.) But as Jaime predicted, some of the men aren’t as willing as the old solider to hold Riverrun against the Lannisters and Freys for god-only-knows how long, and eventually the Blackfish yields to prevailing opinion and allows the drawbridge to be lowered.

As Jaime and the Freys look on, Edmure enters the castle. He orders that the gates be opened, and lets the besieging armies inside. He also orders that the Blackfish be put in irons and handed over to the Freys, unlike in the books, where he lets him escape in a small act of rebellion. The Blackfish, meanwhile, is in the castle basement, where Brienne and Pod are boarding the first rowboat out of dodge. Brienne asks the Blackfish to come with them, but he wants to work through his Red Wedding survivor’s guilt and die defending his ancestral home.

The music swells, the Tully men file out, the Lannister flag flies over Riverrun, somewhere in the castle, the Blackfish dies fighting, at least according to what one of Jaime’s soldiers tells him later. It’s always suspicious when a character dies offscreen, but why would the soldier, who looked like he was wearing Lannister armor, lie to Jaime? But then again, if the Blackfish really is dead, it would have been nice to see him go out swinging—wouldn’t we have rather seen that than watched Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm make awkward jokes?

That oddness aside, what follows is the best moment of the episode. Jaime looks out at the river, and sees Brienne and Pod rowing away. He waves at her, and she waves back. They’re on opposite sides of a war, they’re damaged, and they’re compromised, but they see each other more clearly than maybe anyone else in their lives, and their respect for one another endures, even as their paths part.

The final section of the episode takes us back to Braavos for Run Arya Run, starring Arya Stark. While Arya sleeps, Lady Crane stands on a stool to fetch a bottle of something-or-other off a high shelf. She turns around, and the last thing she sees before she dies is a weird foppish blonde man. God, poor Lady Crane.

Arya hears a thud, and wakes up to find her new friend sprawled over the upturned stool, dead as can be. Of course, the blonde dude was the Waif. She approaches Arya, dagger in hand. Arya, wound and all, leaps out the window, and we’re off to the races.

Arya runs and slides and leaps down the streets and alleys of Braavos, and while it does stretch credulity to think that she could do all that with a would that has yet to heal, I didn’t find it hard to enjoy the sequence—remember, her wound does reopen after she makes that particularly high leap onto the steps, and we don’t know exactly how long Arya was convalescing at Lady Crane’s place before the Waif found her. Who’s to say her wound didn’t heal enough for her to pull off some of the stuff she pulls off here? Not I.

Arya’s winding path takes her through a bathhouse and a market, but it’s clear she has a destination in mind. After her wound reopens, the going is slower, and the Waif slows down the speed of her pursuit accordingly. Fans have already compared her to the T-1000 from Terminator 2, and yeah, I can see it.

Arya, trailing blood, eventually leads the Waif into the dark hole where she was hiding at the end of “Blood of My Blood,” and the two have their final face-off. The Waif, thinking to block Arya’s means of exit, closes the door to the hole, which is probably what kills her. The room is dark but for one candle, and as the Waif approaches, Arya picks up Needle and snuffs it out. The logic of the sequence may not completely hold up under intense scrutiny, but I like how they paid off Arya’s ability to fight while blind here.

Later, in the House of Black and White, Jaqen H’ghar follows a trail of blood down to the Hall of Faces. Arya must have a key, or the Waif did. Arya is waiting for him, and shows him her good work: she’s cut off the Waif’s face and mounted it on the wall. Jaqen, who’s hard to read at the best of times, is hard to read. He tells her that she has finally become No One, but she’s done with that charade. “A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell,” she says. “And I’m going home.” Jaqen smiles just a tiny bit, and Arya walks out as the music swells.

It’s hard to determine the exact rules under which the Faceless Men operate—they were kept deliberately vague on the show, I feel—but here’s how I interpreted that final scene. Jaqen marked Arya for death, but I think he was willing to except the Waif in her place for two reasons. 1) Technically, both Arya and the Waif were “No One” and therefore fungible—it’s not a mistake that Jaqen calls Arya “No One” at the end; and 2) In his heart of hearts, underneath the emotionless Faceless Men facade, he just liked Arya better. And keep in mind that, while Arya didn’t have the makings of a Faceless Man, the Waif didn’t, either—the way she disobeyed his order not to make Arya suffer was proof enough of that. Jaqen’s ready to call this a wash, and in the back of his mind, probably wishes Arya luck.

Odds and Ends

Unanswered questions. For me, there were too many unanswered questions and not enough payoff in this episode, but let’s talk about one of the questions. What rumor do we think Qyburn was talking to Cersei about? If I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with caches of wildfire stored under the city. Remember, the Mad King placed it everywhere before his unsuccessful attempt to burn the place to the ground, and although the show never went into this, not all of it was removed. Might there be a cache under the Sept of Baelor? With Cersei’s options dwindling, she might go nuclear and burn the place to the ground.

Riverran. Here’s one of the ironies of this episode: scene for scene, I thought the best stuff was at Riverrun. I liked the extension of the Brienne-Jaime relationship and I liked the grounded politicking—hell, I even liked the Bronn-Pod scene, even if it felt a bit like filler. But at the same time, we had relatively little investment in the siege of Riverrun, since it involved characters—the Blackfish, Edmure, the Freys—whom we hadn’t seen in years. As much as I enjoyed them, I think these scenes would have worked better in Season 5, when this stuff was fresher in our minds. The same goes for the scenes with the Brotherhood.

Crumpled tinfoil. This episode seemed to put the kibosh on several long-running fan theories. Let’s go through them one by one.

First up, none of the theories fans had about Arya panned out. She wasn’t Jaqen in disguise, she wasn’t using blood bags, and Syrio Forel didn’t show up. I am perfectly fine with this. Could Arya have acted a little smarter last week? Sure, but I wasn’t nearly as bothered by her actions as some. She had to go out in public to secure passage home, and now that we’ve seen how she dispatched the Waif, I get the idea that she was trying to lead the Waif back to her dark little hole before, hence the conspicuousness. It just didn’t work out at the time. No one’s perfect.

If trial by combat is outlawed and the Hound is heading north, there can be no Cleganebowl. Lose hype.

And finally, Beric Dondarrion is still around, meaning that we will never see Lady Stoneheart. Hopefully, that’ll put the endless rumors about her appearance to rest, although something tells me fans will be hoping to see her until the very last scene of the very last episode. Speaking as someone who kinda thought Lady Stoneheart was a silly idea the very first time I read about her in A Storm of Swords, I’m glad that chapter is closed.