It's been awhile, as Staind would say. Throne Zone took a two week break and I'm sorry for it, but let's quickly cover what we missed before we get in to Bastard v. Bastard. One paragraph, go:
Okay so, Tommen may actually be under the Sparrow's control (I don't buy it still but whatever), as shown in his asshole-esque move to forbid trial by combat, thereby fucking over his mom* and making her demise seem almost inevitable. Still think it's all a rouse but we'll see. Meanwhile, Arya is officially free of the faceless folk, after she went Daredevil style on that other girl that I think people call a Waif or something, who cares, she's dead. Now time for Arya to get back to Westeros and start fuckin some Lannisters/Freys up. The Hound's alive! He still kills people really well, and now it looks like he's teaming up with that guy who can't die (Barrick Donderion, no clue if that spelling is right but for some reason I always remembered that guy's name), which makes for a pretty difficult team to kill, so look out world. Dany is back in Maureen with a whole army of Dothraki, Varys is going on some mysterious solo trip, and the Blackfish** is dead for being a prideful dumb dumb (never seen that in Northerners before). I think that's about it. Oh! Oh... fuck, the Iron Islands, right.... Uh so I guess Theon and Yara got away, they have 100 ships and Yara gets with some really hot girls, and they're on there way to meet Dany and beat their uncle, the new king, to Maureen to join up with the Dragon Queen. Still hate that place, but they finally seem to be picking up steam. On to the main event!
Well, not quite yet... As the show didn't go straight there either. We actually were treated to a nice little undercard fight between Dany and the Masters. I gotta say, while it was sweet to see the dragons just go buckwild on the Masters' ships and all, what exactly was the Masters' plan here? Like, duh doy you're gonna get dragon balled to smithereens if Dany's back. Why would you think you're in good shape the second you see three dragons in the air? Their only approach literally seemed to be bombarding the city with a bunch of ships until Khaleesi's gang says uncle, so if you all of a sudden look up and see the thing that you know will destroy you I'd say you don't show up so cocky to the surrender meeting. They did and got burned for it. I'll go fuck myself.
Extra satisfying to see Greyworm get to land the final deathblow on the one with way too much eye shadow. That guy just seemed to embody the oppression the masters subjected the unsullied to, so to see Wormboy (sure he'd love that nickname) slice his ass was a sweet touch.
Then, after the fireworks die down (more like fireballs! No fuck you, that's good!), Yara and Theon show up and pledge their ships and lives, and, in Yara's case, vaginas, to Dany, who seemed to be down with all of the above and accepted their help, while also pledging to support Yara's claim to the Iron Islands. The obvious next big thing here is when Uncle Ironborn shows up with his massive fleet and (supposedly) dong, but if it's a similar armada style attack as we just saw then I gotta say I'm always siding with the team that has the dragons. I imagine we find out if that's a strong pick next season. Now here we go, the maaaaiinnn event. Ladies and gentlemen...
BATTLE OF THE BASTARDS
Let's check the cards:
FIGHTER: Ramsay "Babydick" Bolton
HEIGHT: 5'5"ish, right?
WEIGHT: Gotta be 150
REACH: Who knows, he let's everyone else fight and stands back. But his army is twice as big as his opponent's so that's a thing.
SKILLSET: Psychopathy. His complete lack of empathy makes him pretty good at doing whatever the fuck he knows will hit his opponent the hardest from a mental, emotional standpoint. Also, from a physical standpoint, totally willing to cut off dicks, so do what you will with that. Maybe to compensate for the unfortunate nickname he has?
And his opponent:
FIGHTER: "Long Dong" Jon Snow
HEIGHT: 5'10" I'd say
WEIGHT: 180ish
REACH: As far as he needs to stab your face off.
SKILLSET: Good with swords, gets lucky a lot in terms of timing, able to not die when he's dead, good at blocking arrows head on with a giant shield. Don't know if that last one will come in to play but let's see.
Now fight!... (We'll move to the analysis of the fight, cus it already happened Sunday night. I mean if you want to stop reading and go rewatch it again that's cool, but I'm personally gonna keep going with this blog. I'll hang another time though, if you're free? Text after)
So that shit was dope, a sentence I believe I've typed over 10 times now this season. But it's well earned here. We'll go step by step on what happened (from what I remember right now without going back and watching it):
So right off the bat, Jon needs to chill. Of course Ramsay is going to use Rickon as bait, listen to Sansa bro! She knows this guy and she's a certified badass nowadays. She knows his strongest weapon is always his ability to get under his foe's skin, and it worked like a charm here. Ramsay kills Rickon, who clearly has never seen Apocolypto***, hoping to lure Jon and his army in to the middle of the field where they can be surrounded and slaughtered, and it works as easily as he expects it to. Jon ploughs straight ahead, his army is forced to follow to protect him, and shit gets bad for the good guys real quick. They fight their asses off, and they hold their own pretty well, but eventually the numbers thing catches up with them and the Boltons seem poised to obliterate the Starks. That is until Sansa decides to come in from the top ropes with...
Oh shit! It's Littlefinger and the Knights of the Vale! Did we all see it coming? Hell yeah. Was it sweet as shit when it actually happened? Of course it was. So the reinforcements come in and force Ramsay back to the "safety" of Winterfell, but Jonny Boy isn't done with him quite yet. With the aid of Wun Wun the giant and his ability to smash doors while simultaneously being filled with arrows, Jon gets in to the castle pretty easily and uses his skillset, specifically the aforementioned arrow blocking ability, to thwart a final feeble effort from Ramsay. Oh, then he goes to town on his face. Just punching the fuck out of this guy. It was satisfying as shit. I watched the "making of" special that interviewed the main cast involved, and Kit Harrington described the scene as disturbing, watching your hero turn to a monster... Am I the only one who never got there? Honestly, Ramsay was so vile that if Jon had gone full Gosling in Drive style and crushed his face in I would've been like, "yep, that's about right". But of course, Jon comes to his heroic senses before he murders Ramsay, which is saved for the coolest, sexiest woman in the show right now, Sansa****. She gets to turn that bastard's infamous dogs on his own ass, watching with satisfaction, and almost relief, as the ol' Bolton hounds devour their old owner.
And just like that, the fight was over, and the Starks were back in Winterfell. A fight for the ages.
So overall thoughts on the episode and where we're at in the season in general? Fuckin great, man. This show is really just incredible and there's no other way to describe it. We're in this pretty interesting time in the show now, too, where the storylines are all lining up so that we're actually getting payoffs to all of our years of suffering, which is actually keeping the show fresh. Like Sunday night was really the most predictable episode of all time, right? Of course the dragons are going to fuck up the Masters. Of course the Starks are going to overcome the Boltons, it may be a tough fight and look bleak, but something will happen and they'll pull through. And in any other show, your obvious expectations would be well-founded. But this show's done such a good job of fucking us in the past that we are constantly on our toes. The most obvious outcome has now become surprising because things never go right in this world, and the best part is that it doesn't feel forced at all. Because we've suffered so much in the past, all these things going right is like "yeah finally, fuck", which works. Needless to say next week will be awesome and then we have to try to figure out a way to make it to next spring without trying to freeze ourselves or something, Cartman style. See you next week.
* Tough to say something like that with the Lannisters...
** Is the Blackfish the most hyped character with the least amount of payoff in the history of TV? Has to be, right? When he was introduced all my nerdy book reader friends were like "ohhhh shit, just wait, this guy is badass as fuck!" And what did we get? Nothing, never fought or did anything, just escaped the Red Wedding, disappeared for a while, came back to reclaim his castle for like a month and then dies cus he's a proud fool. Fuck the Blackfish, good riddance.
*** Serpentie running, Rickon, hello! Listen to Mel Gibson (director of Apocolypto, of course):
**** Sansa is killing it these days, and so are women in this show in general. GOT got a lot of shit for how they've treated their women characters thus far, but sure enough, as with everything else in this show, it's now come full circle and the women are dominating. Dany is unstoppable, Yara looks like she's rising in the ranks of badass, Arya is like the world's deadliest assassin, Sansa is a cunning player of the game now, and I think Cersei is going to have a lot more say in what goes down in King's Landing than it currently seems like she will. Women, killin the game these days.