Unlike that episode, things actually move forward — if abruptly at times — and several major story points are put into play, perhaps earlier than fans might have expected. (Chief among them: the resurrection of Jon Snow, which happens at the very end of the hour, followed by a brutally perfect cut to credits.)
I say "almost every way," because "Home" was also an episode that featured a woman and her newborn baby being torn to death by dogs, in a scene that had little narrative value beyond, "Would Ramsay have his newborn baby half-brother torn to death by dogs? Yeah, probably." That cast a pall over the rest of the episode, because it leaned so heavily into Game of Thrones' single biggest problem: indulging in shock for the sake of indulging in shock.
But there was still plenty of good to celebrate about "Home," including that world-renowned thespian Max von Sydow joined the Game of Thrones cast as a man who lives in a tree. Can any other show boast that? Of course not.
So here we go. Three winners and seven losers for Game of Thrones' latest episode.
Winner 1: Jon Snow and/or Melisandre's understanding of the magical arts
Game of Thrones
HBO
Go, Melisandre!
It's tempting to name Jon a winner here because, hey, he defeated death (who gets moved to the loser column for the first time in the show's history, probably). When major characters die on Game of Thrones, they tend to stay dead, and the only resurrections we've seen have been minor ones around the show's edges (seemingly just there to prepare us for moments like this one).
And in every way, Jon coming back from the dead is a high point of the episode. It's something we all knew was coming — it would have been lousy storytelling if it hadn't — but the series still managed to stretch it out just long enough to make me briefly wonder if he would stay dead. But then Ghost woke up, and Jon opened his eyes, and all was well.
Yet Jon didn't really do anything here, did he? Melisandre's the one who provides the necessary magical knowledge to bring him back from the afterlife, while Davos gives her the pep talk she needs to go through with the ritual. (It's really a nicely written little speech, presumably penned by episode writer Dave Hill, about how Melisandre made him believe in miracles. Seriously, you could drop it into the middle of a high-school sports movie, pretty much verbatim.)
And the ritual itself is filled with the sorts of physical, sensual touches that this show excels at, especially when employed in magical ritual. Melisandre tenderly washes Jon's body. She touches it. She prays. She leaves thinking none of it worked, and she, indeed, is the failure she thought she was.
But it did, and Melisandre takes the early lead in the running for the season's MVP.
Winner 2: The concept of flashbacks
Flashbacks on Game of Thrones
HBO
Time to leave your flashback, Bran.
If you hang around to watch the "Inside the Episode" sequences HBO broadcasts after every new installment, or if you've just read interviews with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, you've long heard that the two didn't want to employ flashbacks to the days before Robert's Rebellion (the war that led to Robert Baratheon's rule of the Seven Kingdoms).
Indeed, in the segment immediately following this episode, Weiss called them "lazy storytelling."
But flashbacks are sometimes the single best way to fill in back-story, especially if you can make them rich with dramatic irony or understanding of character. And Game of Thrones has found a pretty smart way to utilize flashbacks this season — by turning them into part of Bran's magical training at the side of the Three-Eyed Raven (played by von Sydow).
The two dart into the past, where Bran longs to stay, so he might continue to watch his father as a young boy, to say nothing of his Aunt Lyanna, whom he's never met. But the Raven draws the two back to the cold, foreboding present.
Considering how many secrets lurk in the Game of Thrones backstory — like a certain character's parentage — I'm hoping that the season uses Bran's training to reveal these answers dramatically, rather than through tortured monologues. And so far, signs point to yes.
Winner 3: The High Sparrow's theocracy
The High Sparrow represents the very worst aspects of unchecked religious rule, for the most part. He punishes people for offenses that are core to their very beings, and he throws the powerful in jail for the most minor of sins. And most of the time, the punishment far outweighs the crime, as we saw with Cersei last year.
But he also sells a powerful narrative of himself — and of who should be given power — as we see in this episode. When he confronts Jaime in the wake of Myrcella's funeral, he mentions that all it takes is the poor, the powerless, and the dispossessed banding together, and they can overthrow an empire. Jaime doesn't seem too impressed, but he's also outmatched by all of the Sparrows in the room, so he backs off.
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