Seven Kingdoms Scoop: 'Game of Thrones' recap of 'And Now His Watch Is Ended'

"A dragon is not a slave."

Was "And Now His Watch Is Ended" a pretty much perfect episode of Game of Thrones? That's a rhetorical question; the answer is clearly yes; if you don't agree then you're blind, deaf, and dumb. Emphasis on dumb.

Seriously guys, Brienne's shocked
"Why are Locke's men so shitty?"
 face was basically my "Oh man look
at Dany being awesome!" face. 

SO MANY THINGS HAPPENED, but of course, what everyone will be talking about is that final scene, with Dany going all hard-as-a-motherfucker on Kraznys and the rest of the slave-owners and slave-traders in Astapor. We've been waiting two seasons for Dany to fully unleash the dragon, and when she does, it's jaw-droppingly fantastic. I fist-pumped with joy SO MUCH.

Before we get more in-depth with all the different ways I would pledge my life to Dany's, though, let's talk about the other impactful parts of this episode, since we met some new people, saw some new things, and and learned some important backstory for various characters. And I tried something new with this episode by taking screencaps of important moments, so hopefully those pictures work for you readers.

Anyway, read on! (Oh, and of course: SPOILERS ahead!)

1. "I was that hand," Jaime says to Brienne in a moment of moping, and yup, I feel for the guy. Having an immature maniac butcher off your sword-hand, give you horse urine to drink, and then threaten to chop off your other hand probably makes for the worst 24 hours ever. And, as I mentioned last week, viewers have a dilemma here: Do you feel bad for what's happened to Jaime, the gorgeous daddy's boy who thought nothing of throwing Bran Stark out of a window to keep his and Cersei's incestuous affair a secret? Or do you think he's changed by being around Brienne, by hearing her tough-love pep-talks ("You sound like a bloody woman" was fairly wonderful), and by being away from Cersei's negative influence? I'm prone to go with the latter, if only because that scene of Locke crushing Jaime's remaining hand (yup, that photo right to the left of this blurb) was seriously affecting. Why did Jaime save Brienne? Where does their alliance go from here? And is it so wrong that I want them to kiss each other's faces? Whatever, don't judge me.

2. If who Jaime is has been completely changed by the loss of his hand, then we can probably think of who Varys is now being affected by the loss of his genitalia when he was young, sliced off by a sorcerer using dark magic: "I still dream of that night; not of the sorcerer, not of his blade. I dream of the voice from the flames. Was it a god, a demon, a conjurer's trick? I don’t know. But the sorcerer called and a voice answered." Since then, Varys has hated magic, using his scheming to move from the "slums of Myr to the Small Council chamber" and exert influence throughout the kingdom ... enough influence to have that sorcerer tracked down and shipped to him in a crate, with his mouth sewed shut. So if you just thought of Varys as a charming, slightly weird spy with "little birds" everywhere—including prostitute Ros, who informs him that Littlefinger has booked two beds for his trip to the Vale, suggesting he plans to take Sansa Stark with him—now you know that the dude doesn't abide by any shit from anyone. As he tells Tyrion, who comes calling to Varys for evidence that Cersei planned his murder during Blackwater, "Influence is largely a matter of patience. … I have no doubt the revenge you want will be yours in time. If you have the stomach for it.” Tyrion's face when he sees the old sorcerer in the box, by the way? Gold.

3. Other people who refuse to take shit: The Night's Watch men who were staying at Craster's. Angry over his lack of hospitality (to put it mildly), they become convinced he's holding out food on them, murdering him (that's him to the left, with a dagger through his mouth) ... and Lord Commander Mormont, the one and only Old Bear (I really enjoyed him, so, I'm sorry, friend.). As the Night's Watch men fight among themselves, Sam grabs unrequited love Gilly—who had her son last week—and runs into the forest, as enemy Rast yells after him, "I’ll be cutting your throat one of these nights." I really could not give less of a shit about Gilly, so, this storyline did nothing for me, and might have been the lowlight for me of the episode. But the faster Sam and Gilly get away from Craster's, the faster they can get back to the Wall ... right? And that's where Jon Snow is, so, I'm fine with that. (Snow and Stannis were some of the missing characters from tonight's episode.)

4. And in the episode's second-most-impactful "Oh shit, for real?" moment, we have the Boy who was helping Theon last week, saving him from getting raped, returning him ... right back to the room with the wooden cross, right back to his torturers. While pretending that he was guiding Theon to his sister Yara, the Boy (who has a name, but it's being hidden for now because who he really is is a pretty big fucking deal) gets Theon to spill some of his guts, coming clean about murdering those two farmers' boys to pass off as Bran and Rickon and his wealth of daddy issues, from his father's dismissal of him to his guilt over Ned Stark's death: "My real father lost his head at King's Landing. I made a choice, and I chose wrong." You're right about that, Theon, your poor bastard. He keeps choosing wrong, and it will continue biting him in the ass. Oh, and that Boy? Now that we know he's evil, he gets to unleash his crazy face. AND IT IS SO CRAZY.

5. So, finally, let's talk Dany. There are so many things to love about this final scene: when she busts out her perfect Valyrian (it is her mother tongue, after all), when she implores Drogon to set Kraznys on fire, when she ignores Jorah Mormont's adoring gaze to address her army of Unsullied slaves she's set free and bound to her will. I mean, it's excellent. It's what Emilia Clarke should send in for her Emmy episode this year. And it will hopefully end the grumbling of everyone who thinks Dany is whiny and unworthy, who thinks her storyline has been moving too slowly, who wishes the dragons would do more. They're her children, and she'll do with them what she wants. And that means never, never giving them away. A dragon is not a slave. 

+ Some quick final thoughts:

1. We only get a few quick minutes with Bran this week, but he's still with Jojen, still having dreams about the three-eyed raven, etc. Nothing of note here, really.

2. In a continuation of that "Who knew Podrick could be good at sex?" joke from last episode, Varys and Ros marvel over his moves, with Ros saying the prostitutes he was with described him as "the most extraordinary man they've ever had," but "they said [what he did] was hard to describe." The mystery continues, but as Varys noted, "Prodigies appear in the oddest of places."

3. Decidedly not a prodigy is Queen Regent Cersei, who watches Margaery Tyrell scheme all over Joffrey this week, encouraging him to address his subjects and wave at them. Such big steps for the insane Joffrey! In other Margaery news this week, she (presumably acting on orders from her grandmother Olenna, who hatches this idea with Varys) suggests to Sansa that she should marry the somewhat closeted Loras, making them sisters. Anyway, Cersei glowers at Joffrey and Margaery while wearing the most fantastic lion choker I've ever seen, and then goes to whine to daddy Tywin about him not taking her seriously. But Tywin shuts her down with "I don't distrust you because you're a woman; I distrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are," which is a pretty fair point, actually.

4. And finally, we check in with Arya and Gendry, who are still with the Brotherhood Without Banners and are introduced to their other leader, Beric Dondarrion (the guy to the left of this blurb, with the eyepatch), who was sent by Ned Stark to kill the Mountain, the Hound's brother. But they haven't found the Mountain, while they have the Hound in their grasp, so they decide to put him on trial for killing Arya's friend Micah back in season one at Joffrey's behest. "Trial" means fighting Beric, who claims to have been reborn by R'hllor, the Lord of Light (the same god Melisandre and Stannis follow), and everyone in the Brotherhood Without Banners, including co-leader Thoros of Myr, seem pretty smug about Beric's chances against the Hound. The Hound gets off some good lines, though ("Ned Stark is dead. King Robert is dead. My brother is alive. You're fighting for ghosts."), and even acknowledges Arya's fearlessness, noting, "Is the little girl the bravest one here?" while mocking the members of the Brotherhood. All of that is well and good, since it means next episode will probably have the Hound vs. Beric duel, but this whole subplot ALSO MEANS that we get some shots of Gendry looking fierce and protective and hot next to Arya as this all goes down. So hot, guys. So hot.