The past is coming back to haunt folks…

We begin in The Reach with Jamie and Bronn overseeing the sack of Highgarden with the increasingly gross Randyll (and the increasingly endearing Dickon) helping. Bronn is trying to figure out why Jamie is a grumpy pants not knowing that Jamie is still reeling from that last L that he took from The Queen of Thorns (RIP). Jamie’s like, ‘Let’s just get this money back to the Iron Bank and go home because I’m just done with life,’ but Bronn wants to know where his castle is.  Jamie hands him a sack of gold and tells him to get over it and Bronn is disappointed. Honestly, Bronn should’ve taken the money and ran but we’ll get to that in a bit…

Over in Winterfell, Littlefinger is desperately trying to ingratiate himself to Bran by giving him the dagger that Joffrey’s assassin tried to kill him with but Bran is A: so far into the Matrix he doesn’t give a frell and B: knows all Littlefinger’s dirt even if he hasn’t fully accessed it yet. Aiden Gillen and Isaac Hempstead Wright give some wonderful moments as Littlefinger tries buttering Bran up but instead ends up shook when Bran starts casually dropping Littlefinger’s entire bio on him. However The Shookening is only beginning because guess who comes bopping through the front door? Arya ‘Shapeshifting Assassin’ Stark. After some back and forth with the Mutt and Jeff of the Seven Kingdoms regarding her identity, she ghosts on them down to the crypts to stare at Ned’s sarcophagus and get all in her feelings. Sansa, after getting the lowdown and realizing where she is, finds her and, at first, it’s another awkward Stark Reunion as they size each other up. It works out in the end though as they break through the barrier of time and past rivalry to have some real talk about what survivors they are. Not going to lie, I was bawling through this whole thing even as I laughed at Sansa not taking Arya’s ability to murder people with the quickness seriously.

We get a three quarter Stark reunion as Sansa takes Arya to meet up with Bran in the Godswood where he’s been communing with nature aka being terrifying. He’s genuinely surprised Arya didn’t deliver her gift to Cersei and proceeds to weird both girls out by bringing up shite he absolutely shouldn’t know. After that creepiness passes the first of two utterly epic things happens: Arya requests to be trained by Brienne, the woman who beat the brakes off The Hound. Guys, this fight was something I didn’t know I needed in my life but it is everything. The best part of which is watching the faces of Pod, Sansa and Littlefinger once Brienne stops holding back and really goes all in and Arya keeps up with her. It’s amazing and awesome and I could’ve watched it on loop.

Finally, on Dragonstone, Jon and Dany smolder all over each other, much to the amusement of Missandei and Davos. They discover some etchings in the dragonglass that show the First Men and The Children of the Forest united to fight the Whitewalkers and Dany almost gets over herself long enough to pledge to help Jon. However, she still demands he bend the knee, trying to play the ‘Don’t let your pride get in the way of what’s best for your people’ angle. Ugh. Dany is one to talk because it’s her pride that’s going to get everyone murdered by ice zombies if she doesn’t get past her need to rule the Seven Kingdoms. It doesn’t help that, right after she tries her gambit, Tyrion and Varys show up all, ‘There’s good news and there’s bad news’. Dany has had enough and wants to kill everyone in the Red Keep, damn the consequences but Jon, the actual multiple battle tested commander tells her to take a third option.

So…she does.

We get Field of Fire 2.0 as Dany, the Dothraki and Drogon show up to EFF UP EVERYTHING. They literally set every Lannister and Tarly they see on fire and it’s glorious.

A combination of the Battle of Blackwater Bay and the Battle of the Bastards it doesn’t quite reach the heights of pure chaos that the latter does but it does convey just how formidable a Targaryen in full command of a dragon and the Dothraki truly is. Watching the realization hit first Bronn, then Jamie, then everyone else of what’s coming at them gives you a true sense of the kind of damage Dany could do if she choose to and she didn’t even bring Viserion and Rhaegal.

Maester’s Notes:

• The Iron Bank cracks me up, I love that their motto is basically: How can I help you, help me, make more money?
• Theon’s ‘Jon?!’ was friggin hilarious as was Jon’s completely silent Terminator-like walk up to him before he jacked him all the way up and told him Sansa was literally the only reason he was alive. I wish I could feel bad for Theon but….
• With Randyll Tarly being such a tool and the people of The Reach  still loyal to the Tyrells Dany’s intervention isn’t going to look like an invasion, it’s going to look like justice for the murdered Tyrells and protection from the Lannister invaders and the Tarly traitors…
• Dany really needs to learn how to fight, how she spent all this time with the Dothraki and the Unsullied and still doesn’t know how to defend herself is beyond me.

Game of Thrones was truly lit tonight…

This episode was fantastic, though far too short, Four burnt Scorpions out of Five.