After a series of arbitrary missteps toward the end of last season, “Game of Thrones” has almost completed a full U-turn back into its groove. You almost have to ask if it was worth having Daenerys lock up her dragons or making Arya blind or trying to shock everyone by killing Jon Snow. Yes, it was jaw-dropping when the show killed off Ned or blindsided us with the Red Wedding, but those twists furthered the plot. Last season, the writers just decided to sideline their most important characters, essentially neutering (sorry, Theon, Grey Worm and Varys) their ability to tell the tale. Hopefully the show continues to pick up steam from here.
Littlefinger once said, “Chaos is a ladder.” This season, RedEye will categorize the characters with our Westeros Chaos Ladder. Find out who’s making positive moves (climbing), who’s running in place (hanging on) and who’s taking a turn for the worse (falling).
CLIMBING
Jon Snow: He’s alive. Everybody knew this was coming. Welcome back, Jon. Your death was totally pointless.
Tyrion Lannister: The show’s shortest man has the greatest courage. How great was it to see him unchain the dragons? Tyrion seems to have tamed most of his bad habits, so he could be incredibly powerful if he can get Dany to share the dragons for a while. If the White Walkers ever do make it past The Wall, the dragons could be the only things that can stop them. Tyrion has always been one of the show’s best characters because he’s willing to think things through and justify his actions instead of randomly murdering to satisfy a whim or an oath. That makes him mighty.
Ramsay Bolton: All aboard the Ramsay Bolton express! He’s not the first character in this world to kill his father. He did pull off the rare father-stepmother-stepbrother trifecta, though. Ramsay is an idiot, so his reign over Winterfell could be an exceedingly short one. His father was really the only thing standing between him and genocide, so it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Euron Greyjoy: Now that’s how you make an entrance! He shows up on a storm-soaked bridge, disses his brother and throws him to his death. He seems crazy in a fun way. Will he get to take over his brother’s throne? Who knows? Maybe this will be his only appearance. That would be cool.
Theon Greyjoy: After killing one of Ramsay’s goons last week, Theon appears to have some swagger back. He asks Sansa for a horse, presumably so he can go home. His father’s death is probably a good thing for him, since the old man was never a big Theon fan.
Arya Stark: As blind exiles go, this one was pretty short. She got whacked with a stick twice, then Jaqen H’ghar asked her a couple of trick questions and seemingly let her out of purgatory. She’ll probably get her eyesight back next week, making the entire detour unnecessary.
Melisandre: She pulled herself out of her old lady moping phase and resurrected Jon. Her usefulness to the plot appears to be over, so we have no idea where she’s headed now, although she can probably make a good living with the whole bringing-people-back-from-the-dead trick.
Davos Seaworth: If it weren’t for Davos, Jon might be permanently dead. He gave Melisandre a much-needed pep talk and hatched the plot to bring the Wildlings to their aid. It would be most excellent if he gets to serve Jon, since the poor guy has wasted most of his life under Stannis.
HANGING ON
Bran Stark: After skipping all of last season, Bran is back with Hodor and Meera and Max von Sydow and some weird tree nymph thing. He had a nifty time-travel vision where he could see Ned, Benjen and Lyanna as kids. Hodor used to be able to talk, and everything was happy once upon a time in Winterfell. While this ability is cool, we appreciate Meera speaking for the audience, basically wondering when they can get out of the tree-cave thing to see some authentic action. Let’s get moving, “Game of Thrones”!
Cersei Lannister: It’s pretty ice-cold that Tommen wouldn’t let his mom come to her only daughter’s funeral. By the end of the episode, the foolish young king has come around, though. Cersei should be able to get her hooks back into him, leveraging the power of the throne as only she can.
King Tommen Baratheon: This kid needs some serious guidance, and it’s nice to see he’s accepting that. He seeks counsel from his father-uncle and his mom. As long as Margaery is in her cell and Tommen doesn’t have to make any choices, he’ll be a fine puppet.
The High Sparrow: It’s interesting this guy isn’t pushing for more power. Maybe he’s happy that he’s thrown King’s Landing into disarray and that’s all he wants. If “Game of Thrones” has taught us anything, it’s that you have to keep swimming unless you want to sink. You can’t rest on your laurels. He had a nice moment cornering Jaime in the crypt and rattling off a Bernie Sanders stump speech about the strength of a poor, powerless people rising up against a tyrant.
FALLING
Alliser Thorne: Whoops. That uprising was short-lived. He was in charge of the Night’s Watch for all of an episode and a half before the Wildlings showed up and seized Castle Black with minimal effort. You would think a competent commander would have been able to muster a fight against a surprise attack, but the Night’s Watch is only as good as its commander and Thorne is not very good. It will be great to see the look on his face when Jon Snow 2.0 says hello.
The Eric Idle Guy: This guy seemed to have everything going for him. He stood around King’s Landing making jokes about his penis, and a small crowd really enjoyed his vaguely Eric Idle-ish persona. Then nature called, and the Zombie Mountain splattered his head against a wall. Cersei may not be able to get revenge against the High Sparrow, but villagers without an army of religious zealots are fair game.
Jaime Lannister: A younger, more brash Jaime would have killed the High Sparrow and taken out his monk-thugs. This Jaime is more pensive, though. His sister-girlfriend is sad, his daughter-niece is dead, his son-nephew is a boat without a rudder, and he’s missing his good hand. Those kinds of things dull a man. We miss old Jaime. The entire Lannister clan has taken a serious tumble since Tywin got killed.
Walda Bolton: Good news: You’re a mom! Bad news: Dogs are eating you and your baby.
Roose Bolton: It’s always a joy seeing one of the architects of the Red Wedding get killed. While Roose seemed pretty savvy, he should have killed or excommunicated Ramsay years ago. Keeping someone that dangerous around is never good for the empire business. Roose has only himself to blame for his death.
Balon Greyjoy: It’s been a long time since we checked in on the Iron Islands. We admire Balon’s no-nonsense ruling style and the fact that he tried to knife his own brother on a rickety, rain-soaked bridge. He also got a pretty cool sea funeral.
Yara Greyjoy: Her dad dissed her pretty hard, insisting she fall in line with his seemingly arbitrary land-lust or he’d crank out another heir. In the aftermath of his death, Yara figured she’d be next in line for the throne, but it sounds like she’ll have to fight her crazy uncle for it.
Harald Karstark: We understand you’re upset Robb Stark killed your dad. We worry you’ve aligned with Ramsay. This is not wise.
That Guy Who Shot the Giant: You have to have guts to shoot a giant with one crossbow bolt and expect that to work. Those guts are now on display on the wall at Castle Black.
Game of Thrones
Season 6, Episode 2
3 stars
