It Can Always Get Worse - Game of Thrones - Season 5, Episode 7

If there is a Murphy's Law of Westeros, it's that things Can Always Get Worse.  You can be a teenaged girl imprisoned in your husband's bedroom, covered in bruises and raped every night.  But it can get worse, because you can be hauled out of your prison to see your partially flayed maid and the candle you thought was going to save you in your cruelly abusive husband's hand.

Sansa appears to have only two things in her favor right now; Ramsay still doesn't know it's Brienne of Tarth who waits for a signal, and Stannis is coming.  She also has a bit of hard-lost knowledge: Reek is not her ally, even if it could mean his own freedom.    When Ramsay showed her the bloody, strapped up body of her maid, complaining the woman died before his torture could get any information, who wasn't reminded of Joffrey showing her Ned Stark's head?  Sansa certainly was.

Stannis and Davos bitch and moan about the weather holding up their march towards Winterfell, killing horses, and driving sellswords to sneak away.  Stannis is desperate not to spend winter at Castle Black.  He's also desperate to win, because while he rejects Melisandre's request for Shireen as a human sacrifice to the Lord of Light, he knows that Melisandre's last spell with king's blood killed two of his enemies.  Or, so he thinks.  Is her magic worth his daughter?  Not only is Shireen his beloved daughter, which we know; he's also Stannis' only legal heir.  If he wins the Iron Throne by spilling Shireen's blood, who will reign after him?  Stannis has shown himself a good long-term thinker; surely, this occurred to him?

The Queen of Thorns tries to have it out with the High Sparrow.  It take a few seconds to register that King's Landing's Pope is scrubbing floors, but is that really a surprise?  We saw, last week, that he still dresses in the same simple coarse and loose clothes he wore on the streets.  The High Sparrow, who still lacks an actual name, wields moral authority likes it's the King's Seal.  The High Sparrow threatens to expose that the noble families of Westeros don't really believe in the gods they appear to worship, if Margaery and Loras don't go to trial, and don't pay for crimes that have nothing to do with the running of the Realm.

Olenna Tyrell tries every trick; she tries to see if the High Sparrow can be bribed.  Look at him, Olenna, what do you think?  She tries pointing out how little she cares about the rules they broke.  To be fair, Loras's homosexuality isn't a crime anymore and the audience completely understands why both he and Margaery have lied about it.  But, the High Sparrow is obsessed with using the gods' laws to bring down the nobles of Westeros who think they're above those laws.  He makes that clear when Olenna threatens to stop feeding King's Landing.  High Sparrow points out that class warfare won't go well for her.  When desperate, hungry people outnumber you 100 to 1, don't stop feeding them.

Olenna, brushed aside by the guy scrubbing the floors, sneaks off to Littlefinger in his vandalized, closed brothel.  Olenna wonders what the point of killing Joffrey was if her own grandchildren face execution by religious fanatics.  Littlefinger offers her something to prevent her despair. Does he have Olyvar, the prostitute who incriminated Loras?  Without Olyvar, High Sparrow has very little of a case.  Notice how everyone has to go to Littlefinger to get their problem solved.  Olenna is right to suspect Littlefinger's appearance in the capital just as she needs a favor.

Tommen appears just as lost as Olenna, fasting and brooding about his own helplessness while he beloved wife rots in prison.  Cersei tries to rein Tommen back in as her baby boy, but Tommen openly declares his love for Margaery and that he can't live without her.  Cersei's face visibly cracks as she realizes Margaery can work on Tommen even when she's languishing in a prison cell.

Cersei decides to visit Margaery herself, to make sure that Margaery really is in prison and not traipsing around Tommen's chambers.  Margaery is bitter and dirty and angry and defiant, throwing Cersei's leftover venison back at her, openly calling her Dowager Queen Mother-in-law a bitch.  Cersei is riding high as she returns to the High Sparrow, as the two confer on whether the Tyrell kids will get the Mother's Mercy or the Father's Judgement.  Cersei is all for Judgement.

The High Septon may scrub the floors of the main, ornate, Sept above-ground.  But it's in the dark and dank-looking stone chamber underground that he actually worships in, and it's here that he and Cersei confer.  High Sparrow has shown in two episodes that he's not the kind of guy to be used by the powerful; he all but declared moral war against the rich to Olenna.  So, why is he so nice to Cersei?

Oh, it's so he can do what we've been waiting for for four seasons now:  throw Cersei into prison.  Lancel, who we all know was going to confess the affair and the murder of Robert Baratheon, stands next to his new leader while septas (basically, nuns) drag Cersei away.  They are stern and unafraid when Cersei threatens them with death for having the nerve to make the shows' audience wildly happy.  One wonders when Margaery will know that Cersei is her new neighbor.  One wonders when Tommen will find out his whole family has either left him or been thrown in prison.  Will he turn to Olenna for advice?

Jaime, while his son Tommen struggles in King's Landing, must now deal with his daughter while calling her his niece.  Jaime insists that she's not safe in Dorne; Myrcella tells Jaime that she's done obeying her mother.  Juliet, I mean Myrcella, insists that she loves Romeo- I mean, Tyrstane.  Notice how both Baratheon kids are pulling away from their elders to favor their own loves.

Bronn thinks he's making a similar love connection with Ellia Sand, who turns out to be quite the poisoner.  Bronn nearly dies in a Dornish prison, saved only because he knows when to tell a woman she's the fairest of them all.

Dany is enjoying some pillow talk with Daario, despite being engaged to Hizdhar zo Loraq.  Daario admits being jealous, but Dany reassures him with promises and nuzzling that he's still the man she wants.   Dany thinks marrying Loraq will cement a bond with Mereen's old families.  Daario suspects Loraq is running the Sons of the Harpy himself.  Now that he's got an impressive fiancee, Loraq would suspend the gang's violence to cement his bond with Mereen's new ruler.

Dany isn't convinced Loraq is her secret nemesis, but it's entirely believable that Loraq's willingness to get along with the new queen and new order is an act.  Maybe his act is believable enough to keep Dany from considering Daario's advice to simply murder all of the old, noble families of Mereen when the Main Fighting Pits re-open, and they're all assembled out of tradition.  Dany doesn't want to be her father.  Daario insists that playing fair will get her killed.

Jorah and Tyrion are still alive, thanks mostly to Tyrion's quick thinking and talking.  When Jorah is auctioned off, a humiliation he bares stoically, Tyrion manages to convince Jorah's new owner to buy him as well, by managing to beat his young captor with the chain holding him.  Mildly impressed, the new owner buys Tyrion on a whim and hands both new slaves some pocket change that's supposed to last them...  forever.

We soon learn that forever isn't supposed to be that long, maybe a day at most.  Jorah and Tyrion will be the opening act of the big Games of Mereen.  These opening acts are expected to kill most of the "fighters", while the truly brutal will survive to be the Main Attraction.  The Games are probably held in honor of the re-opening of the fighting pits, and it's important to see how Mereen has just ignored Dany's rule that only free men can fight there.

In fact, Dany would have little idea of how The Games actually go if Hizdhar hadn't cajoled his new fiancee into going to these introductory "fights".  Hiz insists that Mereen's leaders always go as a PR stunt for the fighters who are hastily assembled for her, their "manager" completely desperate to please Dany.  Dany walks in like a fashion designer attending a WWE event.  She's bored at first, until the blood is spilt so close her it's a wonder her dress isn't stained.  Mereen's noblemen, including Hizdhar, enjoy the slaughter.  Dany is horrified, and is about to walk out in a huff when one fighter decides to emerge from the dugout in an unholy rage that defeats every other warrior in the pit.

While Jorah fights his way back to his Khaleesi, Tyrion fights to get off the bench and to see the queen he's journeyed so far for.  He flails until an enterprising fellow helps him with his chain.  Tyrion manages to emerge from the dugout just in time to save Jorah; Jorah and Tyrion both insist that Tyrion is Jorah's offering to Daenarys Targaryen.  She's repulsed at first, until she hears the name "Lannister".  She may not know much about Westeros, but she knows the family name of the Kingslayer.

Sam Tarwell manages to do well at Castle Black, even after Jon parades a peaceful and unchained Tormund Giantsbane to the ships that will bring the Free Folk to Westeros.  Alliser seems content to just air his opinion, one last time.  When Aemmon Targaryen's watch ends during the night, as he mistakes Sam for his younger brother, Aegon The Unlikely, Sam knows that Aemmon's death is the end of an era for Westeros.  Aemmon would be Dany's great-great-uncle, the brother of her great-grandfather.  He would have remembered hearing of not just the fall of the Mad King, but the fiery death of Aegon The Unlikely, with most of the Targaryen royal family, almost two generations ago.

Alliser decides to bully Sam a bit about losing his mentor, but the real trouble comes from two of the younger Brothers, who decide that it's time to rape Gilly.  Both she and Same try to fight them off, and fail.  Her spirit and Sam's bravery are the only good things happening until Sam stands and shows them that he was just stalling for time.  Jon may have left, but Ghost didn't!  Maybe realizing how vulnerable his friend would be, Jon left someone behind to guard his allies.

Despite the fact that Ghost saved them, not Sam, Gilly decides that tonight is the night for Sam, and we leave them having the first consensual sex either has ever had.  Will their love last?  Or, will Gilly be driven away?

And, where the fuck is Rickon?  We know, from a season and a half ago, that he was bound for Last Hearth, the home of the Umbar family.  Hasn't Stannis reached that place, yet, to discover there's a Stark to put back in Winterfell?  Rallying for Rickon has the potential to put the North in Stannis' hands.  The bold and tough men of the North haven't risen against Roose, but would they if they all knew a male Stark lived?