Game of Thrones for Noobs XVIII

Season VI, Episode VIII: No One

The Story Thus FarSo last week, that one guy with the face burns was minding his own business and innocently building a tower for that dude from Deadwood, and then everybody got killed. Don’t freak, though, because he’s got a crazy axe and a lust for blood. And revenge. And throat-slashin’. You might even say he's got a serious axe to grind (against the faces of his enemies). While that whole thing was going down, Jon Snow, Sansa and Davos the Balding traveled the land, trying to build an army, but it didn’t work out that great for them. At the same time, Jamie Lannister and his army of dorks were living through GoT’s best Monty Python and the Holy Grail impression in Riverrun, the High Sparrow kept on being a total dick and Arya was on the receiving end of the stabbing of a lifetime. Will everybody live, or will everybody die? More importantly, will anybody care if everybody dies? Not this guy. Other stuff probably happened too, but Jesus—it’s so much stuff. And it's every damn week!The GistThis week’s episode jumps right back into that lame play they keep doing about the Purple Wedding (so everyone can just relax and I’m, like, soooo sorry I thought it was the Red Wedding, and like, get real, you bunch of nerds—it's a show about a woman who raises dragons, OK?). Anyway, this play is going down, and it’s maybe supposed to be dramatic, and the townspeople seem to like it, but everyone else (namely, me) is like, “Get the fuck on with it!” As you may recall, I theorized last week about Arya going to the actress she was supposed to kill but then didn't for help with her stab wounds, and wouldn’t you know it? That’s exactly what she does! She’s in bad shape, too, which is nuts because, like, didn’t she spend a bunch of episodes being blind? And now this? Shit, Arya can’t catch a break. As it turns out, the actress is way good at dealing with stabs because she’s stabbed more than her fair share of ex-boyfriends (I'd point out that making this woman sound like a violently jealous maniac is yet another slight against women in a Narrow Sea of slights). Looks like Arya can catch a lift with the theater to their next stop, but she whines about the House of Black and White’s resident jerk of a little girl, and the actress is like, “Drink this milky crap!” and Arya does. Jeeze. Shit knocks her out, too, and before we know it, she’s asleep, which is apparently good for wounds in this town, somehow.Meanwhile, some other jerks are out in the woods trying to put fingers into each other’s buttholes. Oh, how I wish this were a joke sentence, but that’s literally what happens. Is it a boredom thing? I mean, I've got no problem with people doing whatever they want, with consent, but this was just weird. But it's really brief because that’s also when the burn victim guy shows up and is all like, "Can I axe you a question?" as he starts cuttin' them down. “How does it feel to get an axe to the dick?” he asks. Dude is pissed. He kills everyone. This surprises no one.

In Meereen, Tyrion and his buddy Varys hang about in the streets, looking all grim and sad. That’s their trademark, I guess. Varys is apparently going somewhere, but I can’t remember where or if they even mentioned it. Tyrion is still full of himself and wants to remind Varys that he's super-famous. Puke. Who cares, man? You can't do much of anything right, Tyrion, unless we're talkin' about getting drunk.


Elsewhere, Cersei is still dealing with house arrest, and her bodyguard The Peninsula or The Archipelago or whatever he's called just looms around, looking tough and angry. He loves to do that; it's pretty much all he knows. Those dudes with the forehead brands show up to be jerks, but The Precipice ain't having it, so he rips some throats and removes some heads. Cersei watches with this smug look on her face, because she knows her trial is based on fighting, and with The Peak on her side, she cannot lose. Or maybe she can? Dude is probably sick of being in some totally heavy set of head-smashin' armor, right? Either way, he's huge, and that's creepy to everyone.


At the same time, Brienne and her little bitch of a squire happen upon that Lannister madness in Riverrun. Brienne is simply trying to return Jamie’s sword to him, which she has for some reason I don't know. Why does she have it? Anyway, Jamie's pal, Baron Chinstrap, and the squire somehow know each other, and while Jamie and Brienne talk about who knows what, they talk about the logistics about fucking Brienne for way too long and gross us all out—not because Brienne resembles Charlie Bucket, but because they're a couple of dudes just being gross. There are some face slaps, but it’s boring. Brienne and Jamie talk about Gods of Egypt for a while and discuss how weird it is that every non-American in a movie is assigned a British accent. Brienne has to placate Jamie with statements like, "I can tell you worked really hard on Gods of Egypt," which is a classic non-compliment you pay your buddies when they're in something that just plain sucks huge. 

Jamie makes a lot of faces, when really he should be the one at whom faces are made, and the whole damn thing makes us long for a few minutes ago when that one dude got axed in the crotch. Brienne produces Jamie's bejeweled sword, but he's like, "Naw, keep it, girl! Slash some throats!" So she does, and even though she now owns the bitchin' sword, the guy inside Riverrun is still not making things easy. She's there to get him to let Sansa be in charge, but this guy's a real jerk and doesn't want to do anything nice for anyone. Oh, I see: Brienne thought these guys would help them fight Ramsay Bolton. He won't sign up. He sucks. Sad faces all around.

OK, so back with Cersei and The Limestone Cowboy (think about it), things are becoming even more tense. Let’s not forget that Tommen went all churchy. So from his sword-chair, he makes a bunch of proclamations about his mom’s trial and bans sword fights, which seems perfectly normal to us but must be such a bummer for Cersei! She’s got a trick up her sleeve anyway, even if The Butte can't trial-fight for her, and her creepy pal, the mincing Franciscan monk, stands behind her like some sort of Rick James-caliber super-freak. Her son is clearly sick of her shit, but that's still a pretty brutal thing to do to your mom.

Meanwhile, Tyrion is shitting all over the traditions of Meereen and peer-pressuring former slaves into alcoholism. They drink with him even though they don’t really want to do so, but that’s the kinda madcap antics for which Tyrion is known. Well, that and one of the worst British accents since forever (C'mon, Dinklage—"odd-vaunt-odge" is not how British people say “advantage”). The former slaves trade jokes with Tyrion, but they are all sucky, although now they’re best friends, maybe. Then a bunch of slave master boats arrive to fuck up the town, because they all heard that Dragon Tits was on vacation with the Horse Guys. Suck. Hey, do you guys think that Theon and She-on will sail in to save the day? I mean, isn't it actually the most obvious thing you've ever thought of in your entire life? Of course they will.

Back in Riverrun, Jamie is trying to convince Lord Edmure to be cool for once in his fucking life, but he’s not really the kind of guy to take “be cool” orders, even when he’s tied to a pole like some kind of asshole. Dude’s got the convictions of a Russian novelist or something, but he’s sure good at sassing Jamie who, in turn, is good at sassing, too. Both of them are also gold medal winners in being boring. Jamie does try to explain how hard he loves his sister, which sucks. It always sucks when we have to see the Lannisters get all mushy about each other. 

A bunch of weird politics-of-fealty shit goes down, too, while we wait to see if Edmure can get back into his castle, but it’s obviously a trap, and it’s also weird when people swear oaths to anything. Anyway, it’s possible there’s an Innerspace thing going on here, and Jamie’s entire army shrank themselves with a shrink ray and are using Edmure like a Trojan horse (thanks, Rick Moranis!), but the truth is that they somehow talked him into just surrendering. Jesus. And who the fuck is the Blackfish? Isn’t that just an awful Sublime song? Oh wait … maybe it’s Edmure’s uncle? Right. So Blackfish is Edmure's jerky uncle, "Badfish" is that sucky Sublime song. God, Sublime sucks. You guys, I can’t take much more of this boring shit, and I'm not just talking about Sublime. Anyway, the music flares, the nothingness spreads, the whole world prays for one good fucking ice zombie fight, and Brienne escapes by boat (even though it didn't really seem like she had to escape).

In Meereen, those boats from before all have catapults and begin to trash the city even harder. Looks like Tyrion is a dummy after all, and the former slaves are still pissed about him almost ruining their lives. Oh shit, though, because Dragon Tits is back, and she’s pissed. My kingdom for a flotilla run by those people who are way into boats, she thinks to herself. Seriously—there's no way that's not what happens next.

We rejoin Face Burns, who finds the dudes who killed his buddies about to be hanged by some jerks who Burny used to pal around with. The murderers do get hanged, and it’s fine, but it’s no throat-slashing, that’s for sure. The dudes all sit around a campfire, and it’s somehow even more boring than all the other boring stuff. I guess one could say that he got revenge and that he's maturing by killing for love instead of hate, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because they're all still jerks.


Arya is back out of bed and being attacked again by the nameless little girl. Good thing she can jump out of tall buildings and do belly slides down totally ragged stone steps despite her stab wounds. Ugh. I’m all for the suspension of disbelief and having dragons, but this is just silly. The girl with no name is relentless, though. This results in Arya falling down about a million stairs and reopening her wounds. Told ya! She’d be wise to stop leaving bloody handprints everywhere she goes if she doesn’t wanna get stabbed again, but hey—I’m not a doctor, and I can’t tell people how to live. It looks like they’re going to sword-fight in the dark, which is actually smart because Arya spent the summer doing a blindness internship. It would have been very exciting, for sure, but they cut away from it before the good stuff happens. 

Of course, Arya winds up back at the House of Black and White with the girl's face all cut off like she's John Travolta or something, and she tells that faceless wizard exactly where he can stick the face before she mentions she's going home. Uhhh ... so I guess all that training was for nothing? God. Damn. It. He seems like he wants her to stay, but his specialty is baffling, nonsensical answers to simple, straightforward questions. Still, she doesn't much care, because she's really tired of all the weird stuff this awful wizard demands of people. What's his problem, anyway?


The Good

Well, I guess that one girl’s face getting cut off was kinda cool. She was such a creepy jerk. End of list.

The Bad

Literally every non-face-cutting minute was a snooze.

The Grade

F:

Can we just fucking get to it already?!

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