After a relatively tame start to the season, “Game of Thrones” became a veritable bloodbath last week. This week, our perpetually unlucky cast of characters were left mopping up the blood, picking up the pieces, and strategizing about what bad decisions to make next.
Deaths: 4
1. We immediately learned that Grey Worm survived the massacre by the Sons of the Harpy, but our old pal Barristan Selmy did not. Pour one out for him tonight.
2. Dany is proving to be ruthless with the Sons of the Harpy who committed the crimes—fair trials are a thing of the past. After rounding up some potential suspects, she throws one to her dragons and we finally see the CGI beasts doing their best work: roasting a man alive and then splitting him straight in half with their monstrous jaws. Let’s just say they’re a proponent of “nose to tail” cuisine. In totally unexpected spins, Dany spares one of her prisoners, then proposes marriage to him at the end of the episode. The happy couple is registered at Bed Bath & Beyond.
3. Jorah Mormont kidnapped Tyrion Lannister and as he rows their boat merrily, merrily merrily, all the way to Meereen, they’re attacked by stone men—folks afflicted by the same scaly disease as Stannis’s daughter Shireen. These guys are much further gone, and highly contagious, though Jorah managed to knock one human statue overboard and stab another. It seems that he did not escape untouched. (Total Deaths This Season: 58)
Sex: 1
1. Ramsay Bolton and his slampiece are discussing his upcoming marriage to Sansa—in the nude, presumably in a post-coital situation—and sensing his plaything’s jealousy, he becomes possessive and tells her that “jealousy bores” him and that she “knows what happens to things that bore” him. (Our guesses: flaying, torture, an incredibly painful death, this.) She responds with a ferocious bite on the lips, and he turns her around and they have another round against the castle wall. Turns out total sociopaths need to get laid too. (Total Sex Acts This Season: 3)
Photos by Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO