QuickBlog

Ready to talk about the season five finale of “Game of Thrones?” If you’re a book fan, be sure to check out Alyssa Rosenberg’s review. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the five key takeaways from Sunday’s action-packed, cliffhangeriffic episode, “Mother’s Mercy.” In fact, we better make it six takeaways.

1. Jon Snow is dead (maybe)

Jon spent the early part of the episode looking morose and singing “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms” before getting cheered up a bit by some locker room talk with Sam. Jon is amused to learn that his buddy finally got lucky. “I’m glad the end of the world is working out well for someone,” the sad-eyed loner says with what passes for a smile.

You know who it isn’t working out for? Jon Snow. And it’s only getting worse. Jon says goodbye to Sam, who takes Gilly and Little Sam to Oldtown to learn the tricks of the maester trade. And no sooner does Jon’s only ally leave, but things turn bloody. Olly, acting so innocent, lures Jon outside with the promise that one of the wildlings may know where Jon’s uncle is.  But it’s all a ruse. Where an informative wildling should be, Jon sees nothing but a sign that reads “traitor,” and as the truth is dawning on him, he turns to see the villainous grin of Alliser Thorne. Old Thorny takes the first shot at Jon, stabbing him in the stomach and saying “for the Watch,” and a few other men do the same. As if this mutiny isn’t depressing enough, even Olly joins in on the stabbing.

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[Here’s who has died on ‘Game of Thrones’ this season]

The episode ends with Jon laid out on his back, staring lifelessly skyward while a pool of blood grows around him. In any other show, the Lord Commander would be dead, no question. But this is “Game of Thrones!” Melisandre is around and there’s a direwolf just waiting to be warged. Is he gone or isn’t he? Let the debating begin.

2. Stannis is dead (probably)

Melisandre looks awfully pleased with herself. As she sees icicles melting, she’s sure that the Lord of Light is responding to her sacrifice of Shireen, Stannis’s daughter.

Stannis looks less certain. He’s suffering from sacrificer’s remorse, and while torching his sweet daughter to death may have seemed like a good idea at the time, the One True King has his doubts. For one thing, his wife is found hanging from a tree. And then there’s the fact that half his army has gone AWOL. It turns out even trained killers aren’t crazy about the ritual burning of an adorable little girl.

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[An illustrated guide to all 456 deaths in ‘Game of Thrones’ in the first 4 seasons]

No matter, he’s off to Winterfell to take on the Boltons with all of his 13 or so remaining men. Stannis thinks he’s going to catch the Boltons unaware, but that’s just another of many miscalculations and his mini-army ends up surrounded almost as soon as they get in spitting distance of Winterfell.

After his army is routed, Stannis ends up propped against a tree, bloody and broken, which is where Brienne of Tarth find him. Revenge has never been so easy. She informs Stannis that she used to report to Renly Baratheon, and she accuses Stannis of using crazy witchcraft to kill her former employer. Any final words?

“Go on. Do your duty,” he replies. We don’t actually see Brienne kill Stannis, but his fate seems fairly clear.

3. Cersei takes a walk

Cersei is so desperate to get out of jail that she decides to confess to the High Sparrow. And by confess, we mean admit to a small percentage of her sins. She’s willing to acknowledge that she had sex with her cousin, Lancel, but she still denies that her brother is the father of her kids. It looks like she’ll still have to go to court to defend herself against the latter accusations, but in the meantime, the High Sparrow allows her to see Tommen, because the Mother is merciful. And how merciful is she? That depends how charitable you think public shaming is. Cersei’s atonement is ripped from most people’s nightmares: Getting all of her hair chopped off and walking from High Sparrow HQ to the castle naked. All the while, she’s surrounded by an angry mob calling her names plus an escort chanting “shame. Shame. Shame” and ringing a bell. And it’s not even a cowbell.

Cersei arrives at the castle looking like she’s on the brink of insanity. Her feet are bleeding, her nerves are frayed and she’s covered in all kinds of disgusting garbage the mob has been hurling at her.

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But, as always, Cersei may rebound yet. She’s greeted by her favorite mad scientist, Qyburn, who introduces Cersei to the newest member of the King’s Guard. He’s a giant who doesn’t speak, and he’s wearing a mask that mostly covers a suspiciously blue complexion. This is the Mountain come back to life, of course. And he literally sweeps Cersei off her feet like they’re starring in a zombie romance.

[‘Game of Thrones’ recap, season 5 episode 9: ‘The Dance of Dragons’ and a great escape]

4. Daenerys is surrounded by another angry mob

It looks like someone jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Dany managed to avoid all those Sons of the Harpy by jumping on the back of Drogon and flying off into the sunset, but happily ever after may not be in the cards. Her dragon-son has whisked her away to god-knows-where and he doesn’t have any intention of taking her back to Meereen, where the city is now improbably in the hands of Tyrion, Grey Worm and Missandei. At least Varys is back in the picture to secure all the good gossip.

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Dany tries jumping on Drogon’s back and steering him in that direction, but he’s less of a horse or an airplane than a typically emo adolescent boy. He just shrugs her off and goes back to his video games (or whatever it is he does in his spare time). So instead she goes for a walk, looking for dinner. She doesn’t get far though. She’s soon spotted by some kin of her late husband, Khal Drogo, and by the way they wield their sickle-shaped swords and ride their horses in circles around her, it doesn’t seem like they’re too excited to see her. At least not in a good way.

5. Arya gets sweet, bloody revenge

Do not mess with Arya. Her methods of revenge are getting more Ramsay-like by the day. She manages to cross another name off her kill list by posing as the type of young girl Meryn Trant likes to torture. She does this by borrowing a look from the Many-Faced God, but as soon as Meryn Trant starts whipping her, she turns the tables on him. She takes out a knife and leaves him with bloody holes where his eyes used to be. Then she gives him a good talking-to before taking her sweet time slitting his throat.

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Of course, Jaqen H’ghar isn’t too stoked that the Nobody Formerly Known as Arya is still doing Arya-like things. To teach her a lesson, he pretends to kill himself, but the dead man turns out to be someone else with many layers of faces that Arya starts pulling off, one at a time. It’s all pretty trippy, especially when Arya pulls off the face of an old man to reveal her own dead face staring back. And then, she starts losing her eye sight. For a non-Nobody, the faces are “as good as poison,” the faceless man tells her. What does it all mean?

6. Reek/Theon and Sansa may or may not be dead

There’s still some Theon left in Reek after all.

Sansa put that stolen corkscrew to good use by breaking out of her cell and lighting a candle in the broken tower. Sadly, Brienne of Tarth was too busy killing Stannis to notice. Seeing how badly Stannis’s army is outnumbered, Sansa starts to worry that Littlefinger’s scheme is flawed, so she starts to make her escape, but she’s stopped by Ramsay’s sociopath girlfriend. Myranda, who is with Reek, has a bow and arrow, and prepares to use it on Sansa. But before she can, Theon/Reek grabs Myranda and throws her over the side of a very high wall and she lands with a sick thud. So long, scary lady.

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Now Sansa and Theon/Reek can escape. Except, they can’t really. Who can possibly escape from Ramsay? So they fling themselves from another very high wall, holding hands. Could anyone possibly survive such a fall? Well, Bran did. We don’t see the two land, so add them to the list of characters who may or may not be alive.

Plus: This whole Dorne subplot was kind of a non-event, but it ended with a bit of bloodshed. As Jaime and Myrcella are leaving Dorne for King’s Landing, Ellaria plants a big wet kiss on Myrcella’s mouth. So that’s how they do things in Dorne. Actually there was a nefarious reason for the PDA: Ellaria had poison on her lips.

Once Jaime and Myrcella set sail, they have a touching heart-to-heart and Myrcella admits that she knows her uncle is also her father. She’s even pretty happy about it. But as soon as uncle/father-daughter bonding has commenced, Myrcella’s nose starts bleeding and it looks like she won’t be long for this world. Does Jaime know CPR? Did Bronn save some antidote? So many questions.

Just add her to the list of characters who may or may not survive to see season six.

[‘Game of Thrones’ prince’s gout may be a bit exaggerated]

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