By Holly Hill (@hollishillis)

In a nutshell:

Okay, quick recap.

Tyrion has had a bad week. He backed the wrong person, watched a bunch of people burn alive, found out he was not as smart as he thought he had always been and then found the last of his entire family dead and buried. Yikes. This kind of seemed like the end for him and Dany sent him to rot for a bit until she can have him executed. 

Daenerys has this great scene coming out from the ruins to talk to her people with Drogon’s wings behind her. Emilia Clarke’s acting through her facial expressions have been everything this season and she did not fail us in sending off Daenery’s properly. Her speech in Dothraki was truly awesome. I don’t have a problem with how her arc turned out I just feel like it needed to be done over the course a few more episodes and not completely normal to absolutely fucking mad in two episodes. 

Jon has turned out to me to be the biggest disappointment of all the characters. Even after he watches Dany burn everyone to the ground it takes a talk with Tyrion to convince him that MAYBE his queen is a bit psychotic. I was shocked he was even still defending her at this point. Seems like Jon’s purpose to coming back to life was to just murder Dany in the end. It wasn’t that shocking, but there you go. I think the saddest part was how quick it all happened. All that power, all that time spent getting here only to die at the hand of her lover feet from the throne she hoped to rule. Then Drogon is all ‘fuck that chair’, grabs a dead bitch and fucks off to Essos. Jon is redeemed only when he is forced to go back to Castle Black and give Ghost the pets he deserves. 

With Dany gone – who will rule? Jon is the most worthless choice at this point and I’m just thrilled no one else even brings up the idea that he should rule. I mean he did kill the queen so that might have something to do with it, but damn he has been the worst this season. 

Sam suggests democracy….lol

Sansa waits for everyone to name her Queen…nope. 

Grey Worm tells Tyrion to shut up – he agrees and then makes a speech. 

His speech essentially is that someone who knows all the stories should rule – to bind us together. He means Bran The Broken. And Bran’s all ‘yeah dude I didn’t just come all the way down here for fun with my dozens of furs and vacant expressions’. 

Sansa makes the North an independent nation and is Queen of the North. Bronn gets all the titles he ever needed. Davos is somehow still alive. The breast milk kid got taller, but still looks like a kid that drinks breast milk. Yara is there complaining. Grey Worm fucks off with his unsullied on the water. Tyrion becomes Hand again as punishment for sucking at being Hand. Arya sails west of Westeros. 

Perhaps the most touching of all the scenes this episode (besides Drogon nudging Dany’s lifeless body OH MY GOD WHY YOU MAKE ME CRY), was Brienne writing in the book of knights – a book made of paper that was somehow not destroyed with all that dragon fire. She writes of all of Jamie’s heroic deeds – leaving out his incest and the crippling of a child. It was rather touching. 

And finally, the greatest quote of this episode the one that explains how everyone is probably feeling right now: “No one is very happy. Which means it’s a good compromise I suppose.”

I see what you did there you little shitheads David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. I see what you did there. 

Best Quotes:

• Tyrion: I freed my brother. And you slaughtered a city.
• Tyrion to Jon: You have to choose now.
• Dany: When I was a little girl my brother told me it was made with 1000 swords from Aegon’s fallen enemies. What do 1000 swords look like in the mind of a little girl who can’t count to 20?
• Jon: Have you been down there? Have you seen? Children burned. Little children BURNED.
• Dany: We do it together. We break the wheel together.
• Jon: You are my queen. Now and always.
• Arya: Say another word about killing my brother and I’ll cut your throat.
• Tyrion: Bran is our memory. The keeper of all our stories.
• Bran: Why do you think I came all this way?
• Sansa: Tens of thousands of Northmen fell in the great war, defending all of Westeros. And those who have survived have seen too much and fought too hard ever to kneel again. The North will remain and independent kingdom, as it was for thousands of years.
• Jon: There’s still a Night’s Watch?
• Sam: A Song of Ice and Fire. Archmaester Ebrose’s history of the wars following the death of King Robert. I helped him with the title.
• Tyrion: Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Reach, and Master of Coin. Would you say the crown’s debt you has been paid?
• Davos: These projects will begin as soon as the Master of Coin and Lord of Lofty Titles provides funding.
• Bronn: Are you master of grammar now too?

By Holly Hill (@hollishillis)

Okay, so I was half joking about the mad queen stuff last recap. Because why would a character that has always been fair and merciful suddenly want to burn an entire city to the ground with innocent men, women and children inside just because one of her people was killed? Why would someone who stayed behind in a city for two seasons to learn how to be a fair and compassionate ruler suddenly throw all that knowledge out the window? Now that Jorah is dead can we just go do whatever we want? Just because she has a tendency toward ‘madness’ in her blood? A tendency that has shown no signs of developing until an episode ago? People don’t LOVE her so she burns an entire city to the ground so she can rule? Her people loving her was something she understood for the last eight seasons (until this episode apparently) that she would have to earn. Suddenly she’s impatient for it and just needs to destroy everything in her path? 

I have almost no words for how much complete shit writing that is. Who is this dumbed down, idiot version of Daenerys Targaryen that we are forced to deal with suddenly?  

Also, Greyworm be like, ‘Oh are we killing and raping everyone now? That’s cool.” 

Gotta love Jon’s face when he realizes that he’s on the wrong side of all this. 

Tyrion. WTF. Tyrion who has seen over and over again that Cersei will NEVER yield, even for her unborn child, and yet he still frees Jamie to go and get her to surrender and ring the bells. It’s a nice thought but holy shit he used to be the smartest person on this show? Did he leave all his brains at Winterfell with Sansa to take them? A very heartwarming goodbye between Tyrion and Jamie though. 

And Jamie…..Book Jamie > TV Jamie. That’s all I have to say. Looks like Cersei and Jamie went down together. A bit anticlimactic, but you have to give it up for Lena Headey. Over the past eight seasons, that is some of the best damn acting I’ve ever seen in a TV series. 

Clegane Bowl was just as cool as promised, but after watching Dany fall from grace it didn’t have the same excitement to it. The Hound stopped Arya from killing Cersei and told her to leave before she died and became consumed by revenge. Only to see Dany go full psycho and have her turn right back around on that mythical white horse to go kill a different queen. The scene of her running through the streets was actually pretty cool.

You know my girl Sansa is just sipping wine at Winterfell reading these reports coming in about King’s Landing like, ‘I fucking told you so’. As Arya said….the smartest person we know. 

Honestly, I’d be fine with this story line if what Dany did made ANY sense with what we’ve learned about her in the series so far. NOTHING indicates she’d ever so something like this so suddenly. There was no build up for her to make these choices, nothing she chose to do made any sense in regards to who we know her to be. You don’t just flip from completely normal to insane because one or two things don’t go your way. Not with at least a TON of foreshadowing about her father going mad over just one thing. It is said over and over again that her father SLOWLY descended into madness. All it takes for Dany apparently to go insane is the non-threat of a guy who doesn’t want to be king, the death of one friend in a WAR where people were bound to die, and the fear that no one will give her love she hasn’t sought to earn at all. 

Best Quotes:

• Varys: I hope I deserve this. I hope I’m wrong.
• Dany: Far more people in Westeros love you than love me. I don’t have love here. I have fear.
• Tyrion: The people who live here are not your enemies. They’re innocents like the ones you liberated in Mereen. Please, if you hear them ringing the bells, call off the attack.
• Tyrion: Tens of thousands of innocent lives, one not particular innocent dwarf….seems like a fair trade.
• Qyburn: Obey your Queen, Ser Gregor.

Also, I stole this from reddit, but damn it made me laugh.

Dany this episode:

By Holly Hill (@hollishillis)

This show can still surprise me, which…quite frankly surprised me. I feel like ever since Jon was resurrected there has been so much fan service of this show everything feels pretty predictable. OF COURSE the dead were going to be defeated. OF COURSE all our favorite characters survived. Just like the first 45 minutes of this episode, everything was predictable. Then the last 20 minutes were some really great storytelling that threw some major anxiety in and really gave us some surprises. Mainly, slowly watching Dany go full fucking mad king, which I am loving. 

But let’s recap the first half of the show. 

Gendry is made Lord of Storm’s End by Dany. He inexplicably and rather heart warmingly asks Arya to be his Lady (uh, dude…why would you think she’d say yes to that?). Arya is flattered but would obviously rather go kill Cersei so she heads south with The Hound who also needs to extract his revenge on his brother *CLEGANEBOWL IS A GO MF-ERS!*.

As for Three Eyed Bran, I swear to God those piles of furs on his legs get larger every time the camera is on him. One day the camera will turn on him and he’ll just be buried in animal fur. Bran mostly just wheels around saying weird shit all episode and just confirms to Sansa and Arya that Jon is in fact heir of the Iron Throne.

A fact that Dany begs Jon not to tell anyone about because she knows that they all prefer him to her. Jon, being Jon, of course cannot keep this secret from his family because family is everything to him. Sansa swears not to tell anyone and then promptly tells Tyrion, because Dany is being kind of a psycho lately. 

Here’s some weird shit: Jamie and Brienne go to doin’ it town. Only for Jamie to leave to either be with Cersei or kill her (not sure) once he realizes she might actually win this thing. 

Sam and Gilly say bye bye because they’re useless. The Wildlings head back north with Ghost because fuck your dog who has been with you through everything, amiright Jon? Not even a goodbye pat. Terrible pet owner. 

Bronn finally shows up to kill Tyrion and Jamie and they promise him High Garden if he doesn’t do it. Whatever. 

Now that Tyrion knows there’s another option besides Dany, he’s desperate to get her and Jon to marry, but it’s too late. Vary’s knows that now that eight people know, everyone will know. Now that the idea is out there, it will be impossible to quell. Dany knows it too. She begs Jon not to say anything and he does it anyway and I think she knows he has too. She starts to unravel. She cannot hold a kingdom that does not love or respect her. 

Then shit starts to get kind of crazy. Dany and Jon are on their way to King’s Landing to fight Cersei. Dany is at sea with Tyrion and Varys who are discussing Jon’s legacy and what this means for the future. They are both unsure who would be a better ruler. Dany is flying out at sea with her dragons and runs right into Euron Greyjoy with his dragon killing arrows. Boom…dragon down. Didn’t see that shit coming. The entire fleet is destroyed and Missandei is captured. The raw fury in Dany’s eyes is…unsettling. 

Her fury increases. She’s barely able to listen to reason. She’s ready to burn the entirety of King’s Landing to the ground. Cersei is a ruthless badass bitch who sees her weaknesses and huddles the men, women and children of the city into her keep. Now Dany has to decide if she would like to burn down innocents to get what she wants. She is honestly BARELY STRUGGLING with this concept, something we would not have seen her do in previous seasons. She is unraveling. You can see it in her decision making, her movements, her eyes. She thinks it is her destiny to rule, to free people from tyranny….while she speaks of doing tyrannical things. 

At the end of the episode when Cersei BEHEADS Missandei you can feel Dany unraveling. Things are not looking good for our Mad Queen. 

• Dany: I think you should be Lord of Storm’s End
• Bran: I don’t really want anymore. You shouldn’t envy me, mostly I live in the past *Wheels away cryptically*
• Sansa: Without Little Finger and Ramsey and the rest, I would have stayed a little bird all my life.
• Dany: I saw the way they looked at you. I know that look. So many people have looked at me that way. Never on this side of the sea…
• Sansa: What if there is someone else….someone better.
• Varys: She’s his aunt.
• Tyrion: Maybe Cersei will win and kill us all. That would solve all our problems.
• Varys: I worry about her state of mind…
• Varys: Tens of thousands of innocents will die. These are the people you came here to protect. I beg you, Your Grace, do not destroy the city you came to save. Do not become what you have always struggled to defeat. 
• Dany: I am here to free the world from Tyrants. That is my destiny. And I will serve it no matter the cost.
• Dany: They should know who to blame when the sky falls down upon them *WHAT THE FUCK*