“The Red Woman” – Recap and Review

Like half the world’s population, I couldn’t wait for April 24th to get here…because “Game of Thrones” would be back on the air.  I didn’t understand all the hoopla for the show until last summer.  I’ve always been in love with Jason Momoa, and when I learned that he played the sexy Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo in the first season of the show, it piqued my interest.  The second I started watching the first few episodes on HBO Go, I was hooked.  I watched seasons 1-5 in the span of three weeks, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for the season six premiere ever since…and now it’s here.  For my readers that haven’t watched “Game of Thrones,” I can’t give a backstory.  There’s too many stories and characters that are intricately weaved together and explaining what’s been happening for the last five seasons would take way too much time.  I highly suggest going back and watching the past seasons like I did.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.  As for everyone else, let’s get to the recap!  By the way, this post contains SPOILERS!!

The Wall

Since “Game of Thrones” has so many characters in so many different places, I’ll recap region by region.  Basically, the new season picks up right where the old one left off.  We start with Jon Snow’s dead body lying on the ground.  Ghost is heard howling in the background, knowing his master is dead.  Apparently, Thorne, Olly and the others just left him there to rot.  Bitches.  Ser Davos hears Ghost howling and sees Jon outside.  He and Jon’s closest confidantes grab the body and take it inside, ready to wage war.  Thorne admits to the murder the next day, and even names his accomplices.  He proudly states that although he had no love for Jon, he always obeyed him when he was the Lord Commander, and he killed him because he put everyone at risk when he allowed the Wildlings to enter the Wall’s gates.  When those White Walkers come, you’ll realize you have more to be scared of than the Wildlings, idiot.  Olly stood nearby, looking proud of himself.  I couldn’t help but notice that he grew a little since the last season.  I hope puberty is truly awful for him.  Meanwhile, Ser Davos and Jon’s people stay holed up in that some room with Ghost as backup, getting ready for the fight that’ll soon be coming.  Davos mentions they can get further help “from others that owe their lives to Jon Snow.”  I can’t wait for these “others” to show up.  It’ll be on and poppin’!  More happens at the Wall, but I’ll speak more on that later.

The North – Winterfell

Ramsay is standing over Myranda’s dead body, waxing poetic about how he first met her and she wasn’t afraid of him…blah, blah, blah.  Last I checked, psychos weren’t scared of other psychos.  After he finishes his little eulogy, his maester asks if he wants to have a burial or a funeral pyre made for her.  His answer is, “This is good meat.  Feed it to the dogs.”  WTF?  Really?  That’s love right there.  He then meets up with his crazy ass dad, Roose Bolton, who tells him that if he doesn’t get Sansa back, they’ll lose rule of the North, and Ramsey will be disowned.  Ramsey deduces that his vicious hounds will catch up to Sansa and Theon in no time flat.

The story then cuts to Sansa and Theon running from Ramsey’s men.  They cross the river safely, but sure enough, the hounds sniff them out, just as Ramsey figured they would.  Theon tries to sacrifice himself by going out in the open to surrender, but the hounds soon find Sansa’s hiding place.  One of Ramsey’s men gloats and tells Theon, “I can’t wait to see what Ramsey cuts off you this time.”  Ramsey already cut off Theon’s dick.  What more can he take from him?  Just when I thought all was lost, Brienne and Podrick ride up and take Ramsey’s men out!  I know some of y’all out there talk crap about deus ex machina,  but I’m sure there’s not one fan out there that didn’t cheer when Brienne and Podrick came on the scene.  After killing the Insane Clown Posse, Brienne pledges to be Sansa’s protector once more, and this time (with a brief second of hesitation, I noticed), Sansa agrees.  Yay!

King’s Landing

Cersei and her new haircut are sitting in her bedroom when she hears that a boat from Dorne has arrived.  She jumps up to greet Myrcella, but her joy is short lived when she sees that Jaime is bringing a coffin home.  As much as I hate Cersei, I really felt bad for her in this scene.  She’s lost not one, but two children, and she’s realizing that the witch’s prophecy about her outliving all her kids is coming true.  What I really loved about this scene is how Cersei talks about how good Myrcella was, and how surprised she was that she could actually create something good and sweet.  Cersei knows she’s an awful person, but deep down, she may want to be good, and was actually happy that she had a child that was kindhearted.  Jaime comforts her and promises that their enemies will pay for all the hurt that they’ve caused.  My thing is this, why didn’t Jaime just turn the boat the around and go back to Dorne when he realized that Myrcella was poisoned?  The boat wasn’t far from shore, and Bronn (who was absent from this episode) knew what the poison was.  He could’ve killed Ellaria and her no good daughters right there and have been done with it.

Margery (who’ll always be Anne to me, thanks to her role in “The Tudors”; I loved that show!) is still in prison and still being harassed on a daily basis by that psychotic nun.  She demands to know how her brother is doing, but the nun refuses to tell her.  All she wants to hear is a confession.  Margery then tries to “demand” speaking with Loras because she’s the queen.  You think she’d learn by now that that doesn’t work.  Right before the nun is about to beat her ass with the bible, the High Sparrow walks in, apologizing for the nun’s awful behavior.  Margery asks him how Loras is, but he doesn’t tell her.  He asks her to confess too, just in a nicer way, so to speak.  Margery says she has nothing to confess, but the High Sparrow doesn’t believe her.

Meereen and Beyond

Tyrion and Varys walk around Meereen, surveying what’s going on with the city since Dany disappeared.  It’s pretty much gone to shit.  The streets are empty, save for the occasional starving mother or beggar.  Graffiti dissing Dany is sprayed all over the walls, there’s some folks that are following the “Lord of Light” religion in light of Dany leaving, and the Sons of the Harpy are still lurking around the city, awaiting their next move.  Some idiots set all the ships in the bay on fire, preventing anyone else from leaving the city.  Tyrion really has his work cut out for him, especially given the fact that he doesn’t speak the language that well.  There was a funny scene where he tries to give a woman money for her baby to eat, but he accidentally says that he wants to eat the baby.  Poor Tyrion.

In the meantime, Dany is still held captive by the Dothraki, and Daario Naharis and Jorah are still trying to rescue her.  They found the spot where she was taken, along with the ring she purposely left behind.  Once Jorah saw all the hoof tracks in the ground, he immediately knew it was a Dothraki hoard that captured her.  Drogon, on the other hand, is still MIA.  At the Dothraki camp, the fellas are talking about how they plan on raping her and this and that, not realizing that Dany speaks Dothraki fluently.  They take her to their Khal, who pretty much tells her the same nonsense.  He even goes so far as to say that he’ll impregnate Dany that very night.  What’s with these dudes and the rape culture?  Dany surprises them all when she tells them in Dothraki that they’re not doing a damn thing.  She goes on to let them know that she’s a former Khaleesi and was the wife of Khal Drogo.  That changes their tune, and the Khal lets her know that she’s no longer a captive and no one will touch her.  Dany tells them if they escort her back to Meereen, she’ll give them about a 1,000 horses.  The Khal’s nasty wives tell her that all widowed Khaleesi have to go to Vaes Dothrak to spend their lives.  Dany may not be a prisoner anymore, but she’s still not going anywhere any time soon.

Dorne

The second news of Myrcella’s murder comes to Dorne, nasty behind Ellaria Sand and her equally nasty daughters kill Prince Doran and his son because “weak men will no longer run Dorne.”  That’s it.  The deaths were brutal, naturally (especially Prince Doran’s son.  His death was just rude and wrong).  I can’t stand Ellaria or her daughters, and I can’t wait for them to get theirs.  They have the right name.  Sand Snakes.

Braavos

Poor Arya is now a blind beggar living on the streets.  That blonde heffa from the House of Black and White approaches her, and challenges her to a fight.  Arya refuses at first, saying that she can’t fight because she can’t see, but the blonde chick isn’t trying to hear that, and starts pounding away at Arya with a stick.  Arya picks up the other stick and tries to fight back, but seeing as how Arya isn’t used to using her other four senses to survive, she gets her ass handed to her.  The blonde chick walks away, saying that she’ll see Arya tomorrow.  I can’t help but wonder if this is the actual blonde chick, or if it’s actually Jaqen H’ghar in disguise.  These faceless assassins never are who they appear to be, and the real blonde chick didn’t seem to give a damn about Arya, no less be interested in teaching her how to fight while blind.

Back to the Wall!

Davos and the others are still holed up in that room with Ghost, and Jon’s still dead.  I was really hoping that Melisandre would bring him back to life by now.  Thorne and his flunkies knock on the door and let them know that if they surrender now, no harm will come to any of them.  But, if they don’t, a civil war will officially be declared and they’ll all die.  Davos tells Thorne he’ll give him an answer later.  Knowing they can’t trust Thorne, Davos suggests asking Melisandre for help.  The other men question the idea, but Davos lets them know that he’s seen what Melisandre can do.  For God’s sake, he watched this woman give birth to a demon baby!  Now here’s where it gets…weird…even by this show’s standards.  On second thought, I take that back.  The weirdest thing had to be the demon baby.  Anyway, Melisandre is kooked up in her room, moping.  Despite her prophecies and multiple human sacrifices (and giving birth to the spawn of Hell), Jon is dead, Stannis is possibly dead, and the Baratheon army has been decimated.  Instead of her making herself useful for a change and bringing Jon back to life like we all hoped, she strips in front of a mirror, looks at herself for a while and then removes the necklace she always wears.  She places the necklace on the nearby table and the reflection shown in the mirror is that of an old, naked woman.  And when I say this woman was old, I mean old.  Naked 90 year old Melisandre continues to mope, walks over to the bed and lies down.  Let’s hope she doesn’t die of old age before she can resurrect Jon.

Although there wasn’t as much action taking place in this episode, I still enjoyed it, and I have so many questions awaiting next week’s episode.  Can Tyrion rise to the challenge of governing Meereen?  Will Dany get away from the Dothraki Hoarde?  Will Daario and Jorah find her and help her escape?  Will Arya’s skills with her other senses improve each day?  When the hell will Ramsey and Ellaria die?  How old is Melisandre exactly?  Her boobs were down to her knees!  I will say that I was a bit disappointed at some aspects.  I was expecting to see a few episodes of Dany being reduced to a slave for the Dothraki and how she would handle being in that situation.  I wanted to see more of Sansa’s predicament (I really hope she’s not pregnant).  And speaking of Sansa, I still can’t believe she hesitated for a few seconds when Brienne pledged herself.  The woman just saved you!  What do you have to think about?  Then again, Littlefinger saved her life, then he turned right back around and sold her to Ramsay Bolton.  Now, that I think about it, after all the shit Sansa Stark has been through, she probably distrusts everyone at this point.  Back on subject, my biggest disappointment about this episode was basically…I wanted Jon not to be dead!  I get that those assholes stabbed him about fifteen times, but I really wanted Melisandre to bring him back.  Girl, get off your ancient droopy behind and get to work!

All in all, this episode was interesting, and I know that the best is yet to come.  I for one, can’t wait to see it.  I really hope that Jon comes back to life (and not as a White Walker)!

—Written by Nadiya

So, what did y’all think of “The Red Woman” episode?  Was the big reveal at the end a shocker?  I know I was surprised!  Give me your thoughts!