Book-reader’s recap—Game of Thrones, Episode 502—The House of Black and White

Spoiler Note: This post is intended for those who have read the A Song of Ice and Fire series. As such, the post itself and the comments will contain spoilers. If you haven’t read the books yet, you can discuss this episode in our non-book reader (Unsullied) recap. Thanks!

After sitting the premiere out, Arya Stark kicks things off by finishing the sea voyage she started at the end of “The Children” and arriving in the free city of Braavos. The boat’s captain rows her through a series of criss-crossing canals, and the first thing that hits me is how drop-jaw gorgeous the place looks. There are homes and hovels built right up on the edge of the water, the docks bustle with activity, and the cinematographer goes wide on several shots so we can see the full expanse of the city and what look like foothills beyond. The show seems to be putting its increased production budget to excellent use this year.

Anyway, the captain drops Arya off in front of the House of Black and White, which looks like a big foreboding brick. She screws up her courage, knocks on the giant black-and-white door, and is answered by a wizened old man. She tries every trick in the book to gain admittance (“Hello,” “Valar morghulis,” “Jaqen H’ghar gave me this cool coin”) but is turned away. Discouraged, she sits on the steps of the House and runs through her death list (“the Red Woman” no longer makes an appearance) while a rainstorm rages around her. Did I mention how good this episode looks? It looks really good. After the storm has passed, she gives Jaqen’s coin a long hard look before tossing it into the canal.

Later, Arya is accosted by a couple of ruffians while pigeon-hunting on the streets of Braavos. They’re about to rob her at knifepoint but turn tail and run when the wizened old man walks around a corner. He must know their moms. Arya follows him back to the Brick of Black and White where he reveals himself to be…Jaqen H’ghar, returned from Westeros and dressed like a warrior nun. Jaqen claims to be “no one,” and Arya accompanies no one inside.

Meanwhile, back in Westeros, Brienne and Pod share a frosty meal at a roadside inn. Littlefinger and Sansa are eating just a few tables away, talking vaguely about some marriage proposal of Littlefinger’s being accepted. This time, Pod and Brienne actually spot Sansa, so their near run-in with her last week wasn’t just some cosmic joke at their expense. Brienne marches over and pledges her service to Sansa, but Littlefinger immediately starts undermining her credibility. He gets Brienne to admit that Renly was killed by “a shadow with the face of Stannis Baratheon,” which, yeah, sounds pretty crazy when you say it out loud. His dressing down of Brienne is enough to convince Sansa to reject Brienne’s offer of protection. Poor Brienne, turned down by two Stark girls in a three-episode span.

Littlefinger notes that the road can be dangerous and asks Brienne to stay. Brienne reads this as, “I will have you killed in your sleep,” so she elbows her way past his guards and hops on her horse. What follows is a thrilling sequence where Brienne and Pod are chased on horseback by a bunch of Littlefinger’s goons. At one point, Pod tumbles off his mount and is about it get run down by some floppy-haired jag-wagon before Brienne shows up and starts stabbing throats. For a minute there, I was genuinely afraid Pod might be killed, which must be how the Unsullied have felt throughout the length of the series. They’re the strong ones. After the dust settles, Brienne announces that they’ll follow Sansa. Apparently, she’s resolved to take Sansa’s rejection of her help less personally than she took Arya’s.

In King’s Landing, Cersei and Jaime open up a gift from the Martells of Dorne: a petrified viper with a Lannister medallion in its jaws. Only Cersei and Myrcella wear such medallions, so the twins interpret this as a threat against their daughter. As harsh as Cersei can be, it is sorta sweet that she and Myrcella wear matching medallions. Predictably, she freaks out, and Jaime—now playing the part of the voice of reason—has to calm her down. Still feeling guilty over releasing Tyrion, he volunteers to smuggle himself into Dorne and retrieve Mrycella.

And now for the comedy showcase of the episode: Bronn and Lollys Stokeworth, his betrothed, take a walk on the beach. We met Lollys only glancingly in the books, but this actress does a great job of portraying the simple, dull, cloying girl often described by other characters, if not quite to those extreme lengths. She babbles nonsensically about wedding preparations while Bronn, who’s just happy to be marrying rich, skips rocks on the water. She has ratty hair, pasty makeup, and constantly looks like she just smelled expired milk and isn’t sure how to feel about it. It’s wonderful.

Their conversation, if that’s what you want to call it, is cut short by the arrival of Jaime Lannister, who strong-arms Bronn into accompanying him to Dorne by arranging for Lollys to marry someone else. He promises Bronn an even richer girl upon their return, but if I were Jaime I wouldn’t lean too far over the railing of whatever ship they take south.

Next, we check in with Ellaria Sand, last seen covering her eyes in horror as Oberyn got his head smashed in last year. She’s at the Water Gardens in Dorne, and just as it did with Braavos, the production went all out to get the look of this place just right. If tropical resorts existed in medieval times, they’d probably look something like this.

Anyhow, Ellaria bullies her way past surprise guest Areo Hotah and asks Prince Doran Martell, Oberyn’s brother, what he plans to do about his brother’s death. Doran assures her that while he is anti-Oberyn getting his head crushed, taking revenge on the Lannisters would mean war, something he’s not willing to do. Frustrated, Ellaria storms out, but not before implying that she may attempt to depose Doran and install a ruler who’s not such a total wuss.

There was only one scene with Tyrion and Varys this week, and besides the fact that they’re now slowly making their way to Meereen, nothing much has changed. Even so, Benioff and Weiss should be commended for compressing what was a very drawn-out journey in A Dance with Dragons down to a couple of scene’s worth of Tyrion getting drunk and Varys trying to convince him that he’s better off alive than dead. Also, the scene gave us this little bon mot:

Varys: Are we really going to spend the entire road to Volantis talking about the futility of everything?

Tyrion: You’re right. No point.

Back in King’s Landing, Cersei is meeting with some gentlemen who have brought her a random dwarf’s head, a morbid bit of humor from A Feast for Crows I’m glad the show kept in. It’s not Tyrion’s head, so Cersei dismisses them. Before she leaves, Qyburn asks to keep the head for use in his “work,” because Qyburn is a really creepy guy.

Next, Cersei strolls into the Small Council chamber and takes her place in the Hand’s chair. Kevan Lannister, Mace Tyrell, and Pycelle gape at her stupidly. She claims that she’s acting on King Tommen’s behalf, but Kevan sees the writing on the wall and leaves for Casterly Rock rather than “serve as [her] puppet and…watch [her] stack the Small Council with sycophants.” Cersei keeps her cool, more or less, but you can tell she wishes she had some wine to throw in Kevan’s face.

At the Wall, Shireen is teaching Gilly how to read. It’s adorable. The two get to talking about Shireen’s greyscale, and the amount of time they spend on the topic—not to mention Sam’s spooked reaction to it—makes me wonder if it’s not going to be a big deal somewhere down the line. An epidemic, maybe? Afterward, Selyse Baratheon commands her daughter to stay away from Gilly because she’s a filthy, no-good wildling. I’m still really enjoying how the arrival of Team Stannis is shaking up the character dynamics at the Wall. I demand an episode where Gilly and Melisandre play Cyvasse or something.

Stannis’ arrival is doing wonders for Jon Snow’s storyline, in particular. First, we get a scene where Stannis chews Jon out for euthanizing Mance Rayder in the premiere, but it’s clear than Stannis has a certain amount respect for the boy’s boldness. As he did last week, Stannis gives Jon a dilemma to puzzle through by offering to erase his bastardy and make him a Stark, which would give Jon a claim to Winterfell and give Stannis a valuable ally in his quest to sit the Iron Throne. Jon looks conflicted, which is to say he looks the same as he always looks, but there’s some dramatic string music playing in the background.

In this case, the dilemma is solved for him thanks to the grassroots organizing efforts of Samwell Tarly. The Night’s Watch is voting to elect a new Lord Commander, and while Alliser Thorne and Denys Mallister both make their cases, it’s Sam’s stumping on behalf of Jon that wins him the post. Maester Aemon breaks the tie. And just like that, Jon’s finally through his material from A Storm of Swords, and ready to start telling people to fetch him a block.

Meereen. Daario and Grey Worm are on the hunt for the Sons of the Harpy. They do this whole ‘I’m a blustering bad boy, I’m a castrated hardass’ routine for a minute before finding one of their marks hiding behind a really cheap wall in a shoddy-looking apartment. He is indeed one of the Sons of the Harpy, and Team Daenerys has to decide what to do with him. Barristan Selmy recommends giving the guy a fair trial, but Mossador—a minor character from the books who’s been drastically repurposed to serve as one of Daenerys’ advisors—insists that nothing but a summary execution will convince the wealthy families behind the attacks to back off. After chatting with Selmy about what a power-mad psycho her father was, Daenerys decides to give the man a trial.

Mossador, however, takes matters into his own hands and lynches the guy before displaying his body in the streets for all to see. Daenerys is not pleased, and decides to have Mossador executed after he confesses that he committed the murder for her, since she apparently wanted the guy dead but her “hands were tied.” Daario chops off Mossador’s head while a crowd of former slaves look on. They are unhappy, and express their displeasure in the traditional Meereenese way: by hissing at Daenerys until the city comes alive with the music of tea kettles. “This may have been an error,” Dany thinks as her beloved subjects pelt her with rocks.

In the final scene, Daenerys stands atop the Great Pyramid and contemplates what a sucky day she’s had. Does she have to climb an enormous staircase every time she wants to go to bed? That pyramid looks tall. Anyway, Drogon is waiting for her on the roof, and it’s a tender moment as she reunites with her huge, scaly, fire-breathing baby. She’s just about to touch his snout, but right before she’s makes contact, Drogon spreads his wings and flies into the night. It’s a magnificent-looking shot. A musical track I’m going to call “Dany’s contemplative theme” plays in the background as we go to black.

Odds and Ends:

This episode is really pretty. Between the beautiful exterior shots of Braavos and Dorne, Drogon’s appearance, and Brienne’s high-speech horse chase (is that the horseback equivalent of car chase?), there was a lot of money up on screen this week. Game of Thrones has always been a good-looking show, but it seems like this season is giving us more eye-candy per minute than it did in previous years. I approve.

Dark Sansa watch. For all the talk of Sansa becoming a more of a player this season, it pays to remember that she’s still quite young. When she and Littlefinger are dining at the inn, she orders some ale (Littlefinger abstains), and it plays a bit like a teenage girl who’s traveled somewhere with a reduced drinking age ordering a beer just because she can. Sansa is showing a willingness to control her own destiny, but she still has to grow into the role. Littlefinger seems to be eating it up, though, which might have been her intent all along.

Down and out in Dorne. We only got a fleeting glimpse of Dorne this episode, but what we saw looked promising. The producers appear to have cut Arianne Martell completely, and are putting Ellaria into the driver’s seat of the plot to circumvent Prince Doran’s decree that there be no retaliation against the Lannisters. There are smaller changes, too. In A Feast for Crows, for example, Arianne wanted to instigate war by crowning Mrycella queen, whereas Ellaria wants to chop the girl up into little pieces and mail her to Cersei. Potato, potatoe, I guess.

Generally, these seem like smart attempts to compress what was sometimes a meandering storyline from Feast. The plot involving Jaime and Bronn sneaking into Dorne, on the other hand, seems like an attempt to give a fan favorite character something exciting to do. As long as it actually ends up being exciting, I’m fine with that, but I hope their little adventure doesn’t end up feeling tacked on.

Also, the fact that Jaime will be in Dorne completely forecloses the possibility of him running into Lady Stoneheart in the Riverlands. I know that we’ve all pretty much accepted the idea that Stoneheart isn’t going to show up, but this should crush any remaining hopes you may have.

Adaptation station. So we all know that the series is diverging from the books in some pretty serious ways at this point (e.g. Bronn and Jaime going to Dorne, Tyrion’s story shedding ancillary characters left and right), so it’s interesting to see other stories stick pretty close to the books. Jon and Cersei’s plotlines, in particular, are being adapted fairly faithfully, although certain details have been left out. For example, this episode cut out a lot of Sam’s political maneuvering, while characters like Aurane Waters have yet to make an appearance in King’s Landing. Still, it’s good to know that Benioff and Weiss aren’t throwing the map out completely.

Also, as far as the reappearance of Jaqen H’ghar goes, let’s remember that we’re dealing with a group of people who can change their faces at will. Who’s to say that the kindly man, Arya’s guide around the House of Black and White in the books, isn’t really Jaqen in disguise? Until we know Jaqen’s exact whereabouts in the books (I know popular fan theory puts him in Old Town, but it’s not confirmed), I’m not prepared to label this a huge change.

Mossadon’t. Apart from Barristan’s story about the Mad King and the majestic visit from Drogon, I wasn’t crazy about Daenerys’ subplot this week. Her execution of Mossador was seriously reminiscent of the time Robb beheaded Lord Rickard Karstark. In both situations, leaders chose to execute one of their subjects because they had broken the law, even though there were more prudent strategic options available. We all know how well that ended for Robb. Also, while Karstark’s execution drove the plot forward by forcing Robb to go groveling to Walder Frey, the Mossador situation seemed invented to teach Dany a lesson about how hard it is to rule, something we already knew. Let’s just hope that the producers don’t get bogged down in their own Meereenese knot this season.

Even with my caveats, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. Like “The Wars to Come,” this was a slow-burner more concerned with setting up plots than paying them off, although Brienne’s story certainly took a few unexpected turns. What did you guys think of it?

• Published on 04/19/2015 at 10:30 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT