Review Roundup: Season 5, Episode 6 “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”

Apparently, there was a theme to this week’s episode. (It’s the value of lying, or something to that effect. I’m usually good with this, but for obvious reasons, a lot of this episode is a blur to me.) But it was hard to discern any real conversation on any other part of the episode because the final scene completely overshadowed everything that came before. It didn’t help, of course, that no one was very interested or impressed by what came before. “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,” you were a disappointment, according to the critics.

On Sansa, Ramsay, and the scene that broke the camel’s back for many:

If you’re reading these words, you are probably already aware of the extensive conversation going on about the final scene of this week’s episode. The sense of dread and weariness about this scene informed everyone’s approach to recapping the show this week.

Encouragingly, there was no confusion about whether or not the act was an act of rape, at least among the critics. James Hibberd even edited in an addendum to his review to clarify why he called it as such:

My opinion, and the reason I used the term above, is that Ramsay did his very best to take an act that was supposed to be consensual and make Sansa feel like she being raped and humiliated. Ask yourself: In that final scene, did Sansa want to have sex with Ramsay? It seems pretty clear she did not. And what was the reason she did not turn him down? I think Sansa would have said “No” if she thought she had a true choice. But especially after hearing Myranda’s scary bathtub tales about Ramsay, and seeing his don’t-make-me-ask-you-a-second time bullying, she relented because she was afraid of what he might do if she refused.

At the A.V. Club, book-reader Myles McNutt gets at the heart of one of the major thinkpiece theses regarding why this scene was particularly problematic:

The issue with the show returning to rape as a trope is not simply because there have been thinkpieces speaking out against it, and is not solely driven by the rational concerns lying at the heart of those thinkpieces. It’s also that the show has lost my faith as a viewer that the writers know how to articulate the aftermath of this rape effectively within the limited time offered to each storyline in a given episode and given season. Three of the show’s main female characters have now been raped, and yet the show has struggled to make this a part of their character history—their rapes may function as narrative climaxes, but the rising action has never been particularly well-drawn, and the denouement has been non-existent.

This train of thought is embedded in The Mary Sue’s reasoning for ceasing coverage of Game of Thrones. Alyssa Rosenberg offers a counterpoint to this sort of decision (about giving up the show in general, which many, including a Senate Democrat, said they would do) by arguing that the series has always been about “rape and the denial of sexual autonomy.” Near the end, she writes:

If reading this litany has been exhausting, it’s testament to just how well “Game of Thrones” has done at leavening this grimness with humor, tenderness and moments of real human connection. But it also ought to suggest how odd it is to accuse the showrunners of adding a sexual assault to somehow up the stakes when, dragons aside, intimate violence is already at the core of so many of the series’ storylines.

Alyssa also had a different take on the scene’s execution, saying that by looking away from the act itself, the show refuses to make the audience complicit in Sansa’s victimization. The flip-side argument is Libby Hill, who found that focusing on Theon’s reaction to the act frames Sansa’s rape as a horror which will serve as character development for a male character, thus placing Thrones in the pantheon of prestige dramas that have also done this sort of thing.

This more or less sums up how some of the conversation around the scene unfolded in the wake of Sunday night, but there will probably be a few more thinkpieces about this subject before the next episode. I don’t foresee many of them deviating from these talking points, though, just variations on these themes. I’ll leave off here with Price Peterson, who opened his review with what I can only describe as an extended, exasperated sigh:

…can we really and truly “love” a TV show that so regularly traffics in atrocity? I mean, it’s one thing to invite the horrible things these characters do to one another into our living rooms, but could we ever invite them into our hearts?

I suppose there’s narrative value in, say, what happened to Sansa this week, but that’s an academic discussion at best. I’m talking actual entertainment value. Is an episode like “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” genuinely entertaining? Or is there an increasingly strong case to be made that, you know what, life is short. Maybe we don’t need to see quite so many rapes, eviscerations, and genocides.

And Laura Hudson, short and sweet: “Shoehorning additional abuse and rape into her story at this point isn’t just upsetting; it’s boring and counterproductive. Poorly done, show. Poorly done.”

On Dorne, and the [insert your clever name for the Sand Snakes here]:

I wrote about how underwhelming the Dornish subplot had turned out in one of last week’s Small Councils, and look: the Dornish subplot has turned out to be completely underwhelming. Critics were unimpressed in equal measure with the execution of the fight scene itself, the narrative convenience of the fight scene, and the perceived ineptitude of the Sand Snakes to actually accomplish anything despite being three versatile, well-trained fighters working for a common goal. (The Powerpuff Girls they ain’t.) On the plus side, Jerome Flynne got to sing and generally make light of the absurd situation, which is just going to make it worse when he dies to a poisoned dagger, because THAT wasn’t a totally obvious close-up or anything. But Julie Hammerle had the funniest summary of everyone’s general disappointment with Oberyn’s bastard daughters:

I’m having trouble getting it up for this storyline so far. The Sand Snakes are completely single-minded. They’re hell bent on revenge and…that’s about it. I guess if you want to see some tough-ass ladies with fully developed characters, you need to go see Mad Max.

(Yes, you do.)

Alicia Lutes was one of a few to point out that, if left alone, the Trystane/Myrcelle match could actually be a good one: “It’s funny to see everyone scheme and angrily seeth about this marriage when really, if they all just said it out loud, they could probably find a nice little resolution. But that would be wildly boring and unbloody, so! We’re going to scheming route instead.” If only this were that kind of show.

On Arya, who is ready to fight crime in Starling Ci—wait…

The slow burn of Arya’s storyline paid off tonight, and was generally well-liked by everyone. The chamber of faces was compared to a wide variety of other rooms, but the most common point of comparison was the Head Museum in Futurama. (Other suggestions both tweeted and written in recaps include Moria, the library from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Mombi’s disembodied heads from Return to Oz, and the FBI’s file room from The X-Files.)

As for Arya’s personal journey, most focused on the Game of Faces scene where Arya lies about (among other things) maybe not hating the Hound as much as she thinks she does, but Matt Fowler found meaning in the scene where she convinces a terminally ill girl to drink the poisoned water:

Ever since Arya hid Needle a few episodes back, it was clear that she’d never truly want to vanish all together. Which felt like it would cause a bunch of problems given her apprenticeship. But now it seems like Jaqen might twist the rules a bit and make an exception. He watched her give the death water to the ailing girl while telling her a lie about its healing properties (a great scene!) so he knows she’s willing to go half of the way. She delivered death, but not in a way that was cold. One that was personable and very much her.

That’s a very interesting way to view that scene, and it gives me hope for Arya’s storyline, even though I already know the endpoint of this particular section of Arya’s character arc.

On King’s Landing and the plucking of the Tyrell roses:

Nina Shen Rastogi voices everyone’s concerns about Littlefinger’s motives in her final paragraph, landing with a truly epic mic-drop moment: “But if he’s not for Sansa — if he truly is morally unmoored and emotionally detached — then he’s not only as villainous as Ramsay, he’s as uninteresting. When everything is a shock, nothing is a shock.” Though really, Cersei had two scenes with two different characters and she successfully managed to sell the idea that she’s in control of the situation in King’s Landing. I think that would almost win people over for her except, well, now she’s complicit in the enacting of religious homophobia, and that’s just not cool with anyone.

At least Diana Rigg is back to knock some sense into the Queen Regent. Right, Eric Dodds?

Now it’s possible that Olenna underestimated Cersei, but it’s a better bet that she overestimated her. Tywin never would have attempted (or allowed) such a bold ploy. Not only do the Lannisters need the Tyrell’s men, gold and wheat, but it’s not as though Cersei isn’t hiding a few secrets that the Sparrows wouldn’t approve of as — and Olenna Tyrell seems like just the sort of woman who’d know how to handle an overplayed hand.

Only a couple of people mentioned the lack of action on Tommen’s part to stop any of this, but David Malitz sums it up nicely: “…the soft boy king is paralyzed by fear, inexperience and just generally being about 15-years-old to do anything about it.” Paralyzed by Fear: The King Tommen Story. Coming soon to Lifetime.

On Tyrion, Jorah, Mr. Eko, and the hunt for a good dwarf cock merchant:

Take us home, Tim Surette:

Are there actual traders out there who specialize in selling severed penises? How does one get into that line of work? Is it a fallback after med school doesn’t pan out? Are there fathers who tell their sons, “One day, lad, all this will be yours,” while making a sweeping gesture to a wall full of hanging dried-up dicks? Was a dwarf wiener that coveted that it was worth these bloodthirsty slavers keeping him alive? Apparently!

That’s pretty much the gist. There was some mild interest in the conversations Tyrion and Jorah have about Daenerys’ future as ruler of Westeros and Jorah learning about his dad’s death, and everyone is calling Adewale’s character “Mr. Eko” for lack of an actual character name, but this plot was largely the comic relief plot of the week. And now everyone knows that there are merchants in the world of Game of Thrones that specialize in penises. This has been Important Worldbuilding with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Other Quotes of Note:

“We love the show, but the show hurts us to entertain us. And we want the show to hurt us—that’s part of the reason we watch. If nothing really bad ever happens to characters we love on Thrones, we would grow frustrated and bored. In fact, earlier this season you started to see some of this, with viewers complaining that not enough was happening. But do we want Thrones to really push our boundaries? Or do we want the show to stay within certain lines? To wound, but not too deeply?” —James Hibberd, EW

“Jorah is unflappable in all situations. He cannot be flapped.” —Julie Hammerle, ChiacgoNow/Hammervision

“All of this has proven how delusional Cersei truly is: “House Lannister has no rival”; “I have no love for these fanatics, but what can I do?” GIRL NO ONE IS BUYING YOUR GILDED HORSESHIT just stop.” —Alicia Lutes, Nerdist

• Published on 05/20/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT