“Blood of my Blood” is directed by Jack Bender, who brought us last week’s episode “The Door”, which resulted in most people falling into a catatonic state of shock and despair. However, compared to last week’s episode, “Blood of my Blood” felt rather underwhelming, even though it set up staging points for some characters’ stories to progress from.
Let’s pick up where we were left off after that heart rending scene at the end of the last episode: Hodor’s sacrifice. Meera is still dragging a catatonic Bran through the frozen wilderness, her face in anguish as she gives up trying to flee for safety. Meanwhile Bran himself is having a series of flashbacks from events we’ve seen in the show to other stuff, such as Jaime Lannister killing the Mad King. He soon comes out of his dream only to tell Meera that the undead had already found them and were closing in for the kill. It’s quite a sombre moment as you see Bran and Meera both give up hope and ultimately accept their impending deaths. Luckily for them however, an ally in the form of a masked horseman appears and quickly dispatches the undead before carrying both Meera and Bran to safety. Coldhands has finally arrived to the TV screen. For those of you who don’t know, Cold Hands is an undead ranger who helps Bran, Jojen and Meera reach the Three-Eyed Raven in the books. Fans have speculated that he was the long missing and now undead Benjen Stark and in “Blood of my Blood” this was confirmed. Towards the end of the episode as the trio are in relative safety, Coldhands explains that the Three-Eyed Raven had sent for him and that he lives on, but in Bran. He then reveals himself to be Benjen Stark, who hasn’t been seen on the show since the first season. He reveals how he was nearly turned by the White Walkers and was ultimately rescued by the Children of the Forest. What he’s been doing ever since remains to be explained. However, the showrunners seem to be setting up Bran to be the defender against the White Walker, as opposed to Jon Snow.
Further south we momentarily stop at The Twins; the last we saw of it was during the Red Wedding a couple of seasons ago. It seems that in the seasons in between Lord Walder Frey is still alive (unfortunately) but isn’t too keen on the fact that Riverrun has been recaptured by the Blackfish (which we learnt about last episode). Furthermore, we also learn that a number of other riverland houses have rose up against him, clearly no one likes Lord Walder “backstabbing” Frey. In an attempt to have the Blackfish surrender Riverrun he orders members of his family to march on it, but with Edmure Tully in tow in an effort to use him as a bargaining chip. Now that we’re back to focusing on the Riverlands it’ll be interesting to see what else the show creators have planned for the area. Perhaps a certain stone hearted lady?
Politics and religion are still the centre focus of King’s Landing as we see the High Sparrow spending more time with young Tommen Baratheon. The latter is still trying to secure Margaery’s release but ultimately fails. However, he is allowed to see Margaery. And here’s where I get really confused. Margaery seems to have become completely brainwashed, agreeing that she should be punished and that she’s a bad person. It’s a total 180 degrees from when we saw her two episodes ago where she was still fiercely resisting any attempt to be manipulated by the the High Sparrow. As a result I can only conclude that she’s playing some sort of long con that requires her to also lie to Tommen. Unfortunately, now Tommen believes in the High Sparrow’s teachings as well. Thus, when Jaime Lannister and Lord Mace Tyrell march on the Sept with an army in an attempt to prevent Lady Margaery Tyrell from participating in the walk of atonement, the doors to the sept open and out comes Tommen, who states that both the Faith and the Crown are united. Shortly before the march on the Sept we see Mace Tyrell give what I assume to be bolstering speech to his troops but you just can’t take it seriously with Jaime in the background fidgeting impatiently. I did hope for a tumultuous climax between Jaime and the High Sparrow and we nearly came close to it as the crescendo rose, but alas Tommen had to ruin it. Unfortunately for Jaime, he’s now been stripped from the Kingsguard and is instead sent to lead an army to the Riverlands. Surprisingly, Cersei seems rather unperturbed by these change of events. Last time we saw her she wanted to rip the High Sparrow to shreds and now she seems a bit more mellowed out. Did she and Margaery attend the same anger management talk? Furthermore with Jaime now heading to the Riverlands the show creators are clearing setting up a confrontation with Brienne, who is also heading to Riverrun to meet with the Blackfish. Also it was quite a punch in the gut to Jaime when Cersei said she didn’t need him because she had the Mountain.
Even further South, we once again reunite with Samwell Tarly, Gilly and his adopted son Little Sam. I’m actually quite surprised the show runners are spending so much time on Sam’s arc as it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere in terms of plot for the show, but it does have a lot of character development. We see Sam and Gilly arrive in Hornhill, the former nervous and the latter very curious. Sam’s sister and mother are absolute angels as they do their best to make Sam feel comfortable but alas their hospitality pales in comparison to Sam’s fathers and brothers disdain for him. Unfortunately for Sam as Gilly rushes to defend him she lets slip that she’s infact a wildling, which in the eyes of Lord Tarly is beneath a normal person. As a result Sam is forced to say a tearful goodbye to Gilly, but nearly instantaneously the sadness is cut short as Sam walks back in, filled with courage. He and Gilly proceed to leave, after Sam steals his father’s sword. It’s safe to say that Sam’s father will not take this well.
Across the Narrow Sea, in Braavos, Arya Stark is no longer being beaten to death and is instead relegating her time to watching theatre shows in an effort to poison her target. This time the show revolves around Joffrey’s death, with Lady Crane giving a heartfelt performance as Cersei. As the credits for the show roll, Arya sneaks backstage and poisons Lady Crane’s bottle of rum, but reluctantly. As she attempts to leave, she’s stopped by Lady Crane who talks to her and explains how she got into the show business. Arya, still battling with the fact that she has to kill the person she’s talking to, gives her some advice on how to make the play better before leaving. Alas for Lady Crane, when she brings up these changes she’s mocked and just before she drinks the poison Arya stops her from doing so and warns her that the other actress wants her dead. Unfortunately for Arya, the waif who spent the last couple of episodes beating her to death saw her stop the assassination and proceeds to inform Jaqen h’ghar who tells her to kill Arya, which would be a terrifying prospect but is compounded so by the fact that he’s peeling the face of a dead guy. Arya herself is clearly reading to leave as she proceeds to recover her sword Needle. Weirdly enough she seems to return to the House of Black and White only to go to bed. Where Arya’s story will go from here is unknown, I fully expected her to become a member of the Faceless Men but perhaps she’ll make her way to Meereen?
Meanwhile, about 7 days ride from Meereen Daenerys is leading her Khalasar back to her city. On the way she pauses to exchange words with Daario Naharis, with the two discussing how many ships she needs to conquer Westeros. Soon after she rides off, telling Daario to remain behind. The latter opts to follow her but before he can do so, Dany make a dramatic return at the head of Drogon who’s either grown so big or is the victim of incredibly terrible depth of field CGI wizardry. And in an attempt to recreate her speech to the Unsullied she made back in Astaphor, Dany proclaims that all of the Khalasar are her bloodriders and that she will lead them to conquer Westeros. Cue dragon roar and roll credits.
We’ve seen some great episodes this season, but “Blood of my Blood” has to be the most slowest running episode to date. Compared to “The Door” which was named after Hodor and culminated with a tearful departure of him, “Blood of my Blood” was named after a 60 second speech which we’ve seen before, but which lacked a punch this time.
