Game Of Thrones: Mother's Mercy

A lot of GOT finale's have been more sedate affairs. If episode 9 is the climax, then ten simply picks up the pieces and puts them in place for the following season. It's not a bad format, and allows audiences closure before waving goodbye to the show for another year. Then you have 'Mothers Mercy' where sh*t hits the fan: about a million characters died, Cersei went through an incredibly arduous journey, there were cliffhangers were abound then to seal the deal they ended on one of the show's most shocking scenes yet, which is quite a feat. For people who thought that episode 9 was lackluster it seems they saved the best stuff for last. Here are my untethered thoughts: 

- Wow, I don't think we've seen a character fall so low so fast. 'The Dance Of Dragons' was a difficult watch, we went from cheering Stannis on as an underdog to suddenly wanting to mount his head on a pike. Stannis' eight minutes of time in the finale turned the tables again, suddenly I pitied him. Only a show like this can make you feel for a leader who burned his daughter alive, and that's partly because of Stephane Dillane's incredible way of conveying a broken shell of a man who is walking to his dearg. Stannis' arc turned out to be tragic in many ways, he ended up losing so much in such a short span of time this episode it was almost comical: the moment crazy Mel realized that Stannis was doomed, and the overhead shot of the Bolton's vastly superior army in comparison to Stannis' was priceless. There was clearly no way Stannis could have won this battle even if Shireen wasn't burned alive, which makes his courageous side step to the Wall in season 4's finale his undoing. It's ironic, because Stannis giving a sh*t about what's going on at the Wall and the White Walkers made me like him in the first place. Season 5 then made us buy into his relationship with his daughter, and we know how that turned out. While I was secretly hoping for a one on one fight between Stannis and Ramsay it felt right to have Brienne finish him off, even if it felt predictable after her none too subtle hint earlier in the season. Overall I'm sad it ended this way, I was really rooting for Stannis to pull through and he possessed many great qualities as a leader. Credit to GOT, they handled his fall from grace well and gave us a fitting (but tragic) end to his character. 

- What the hell happened to Brienne, Littlefinger, Tommen and the Tyrells this season? Varys I can understand but it seemed odd to front load the first half of the season with these characters (making them seem important) only to never see them again or barely have them feature in the second half. Brienne had a brief cameo to finish off Stannis sure, which was fitting, but she spent most of the season waiting for something interesting to happen. The Tyrells were a non entity in the last three episodes, I'm assuming they're still locked up plotting revenge. Littlefinger was the most egregious absence out of all of them, it seemed like he was potting something with Olenna AND was planning on attacking Winterfell with his army from the Vale. This could still happen in season 6, but it felt odd for all his plotting to be left hanging for another year.

He's having a bad day.

- Sansa's arc was one of the storyline's that didn't meet the mark in season 5. We were promised dark revenge fueled Sansa, and instead we got a return to snivelling, defensless Sansa. Just what is it going to take for her to grow up? I get that Ramsay is an evil bastard but she should have done something this season that redeemed her. But nope, all that screentime with her and Bolton's has had little impact on any character development. I desperately want to root for Sansa and I get that she's been in the company of the worst people in Westeros but for gods sake have her do something that's proactive rather than reactive. She doesn't really do anything, as she's constantly in victim mode. The initiative in the finale is actually given to Theon, who finally decided that enough was enough and ended Ramsay's psycho girlfriend....and then seemingly committed suicide with Sansa by falling from the same height as the fall that KILLED Ramsay's girlfriend hoping to escape. I know there was a good covering of snow on the ground but if they make it out of that jump unscathed I call bullsh*t, at least break one of their legs because that's one hell of a hard sell. 

- Tyrion's plot this season has been very good, there's just no beating Peter Dinklage's seemingly endless supply of charisma. Every season he gets the best material, and it's clear why. When you think about it his arc in season 5 has been incredibly compact, Tyrion started season 5 in a crate covered in his own sh*t and finished it ruling the biggest city in Essos. That's quite a jump, even if statistically he was rewarded the most time this season. Overall I'd say this was the only happy ending of the season, with Varys returning at the end being the cherry on top. Varys and Tyrion ruling Mereen together? F*CK YES, GIVE IT TO ME NOW!!!!! 

- Also yay, Jorah isn't dead yet! I was so sure this season was going to be his last but I'll be damned the old bear has still got life in him yet. He's still got greyscale though, so he has to die at some point. And he also got what he wanted, Dany taking his hand at the end of Ep 9 seemed to indicate that Dany x Jorah could still be a thing. More fun times are ahead, his pairing with Daario has a lot of potential for a new bromance. This is GOT however, Jorah will probably end up killing Daario so he's the only one left to woo her. *SIGH*, I hate second guessing this show sometimes.

I think we can all see where this is going...

- The scene between Jaime and Mrycella in the boat was another scene that I found unintentionally hilarious because it was clear right from the start what was going to happen. Letting the woman who wanted to kill her ANYWHERE near her let alone engaging in any form of physical contact was severely dumb, especially seen as poison is this family's M.O. I feel sad for Jaime though, Cersei is not going to be happy when she finds out.

- Now that the season has fully wrapped I think we can all safely say that the Dorne thread was a complete and utter f*ck-up. Easily the worst the show has ever been, everything about it seemed off from the start. The scale and stakes were oddly absent, we never got a good impression of the culture/place, the Sandsnakes were a bunch of generic power puff girls, it squandered the potential in a Jaime/Bronn pairing after two episodes and now that Mrycella is dead what was the point of reintroducing her character again? I suspect the writers just wanted to set up a conflict for season 6 and give something for Jaime to do while Cersei f*cked everything up in Kings Landing. The only good thing that came out of this plot alive was Alexander Siddig's Doran, who seems like a genuinely nice guy and smart ruler to boot. Despite the mishandling of Dorne I hope we see a LOT more of it in season 6, mainly so this plot won't seem like a complete and utter waste. There is potential in a conflict with Dorne, but what little we have seen so far is not encouraging. In a show as well crafted as Game Of Thrones, you have to wonder why they dropped the ball with this one.

- Appreciating that episode 9 was the climax of Dany's arc this segment was mostly teasing us for next year. The return of the Dothraki was unexpected and made me feel weirdly nostalgic for the first season of the show (so much has happened since then you kinda forget they are still a thing). What will be interesting is how she manages to get them under her rule again, as killing her off via Dothraki would be a bit anticlimatic at this point. I suspect finding out she has a massive f*cking Dragon nearby will be more than enough to sway them. In season 1 the original plan was to use the Dothraki as an army to sail across the sea and conquer Westeros, I suspect that's exactly what will end up happening. Surely now we are going to see her on the offensive, with the plan being roughly seven seasons we should start to see her make her move towards Westeros next season. Plus with Tyrion in charge any conflict in Meereen should soon be resolved.

Arya is blind now? Sure, whatever.

- Poor Arya, her storyline this season has just been so slow. You can summarize her entire arc this year with one sentence: she goes to the house of black and white, mops the floors for a few episodes and then kills off one of the people on her list. I know this happens in the books, but why does she suddenly lose her sight? It's not really explained but I gather it's some sort of punishment for failing to let go of her identity. Arya is going to be blind next season? Hmm, okay. The big problem the show is having with these Arya segments is justifying why they should exist. So far none of her stuff is tying back into any of the main storylines, so why are we watching this stubborn girl trying to become an assassin? Previous seasons have got away with this by making all of Arya's scenes with the Hound compelling, a team-up so great you forgot it literally had nothing to do with the main story whatsoever. Now she's on her own and confronted with a mysterious assassin organisation that we don't know a lot about. That's fine and all, but you could at least give it some agency. As satisfying as her kill was (holy crap Trant got what was coming to him!) this was an event that should have happened mid-season and propelled her storyline forward a bit more. Arya is one of the show's best characters, it's a shame they gave her nothing interesting to do this year.

- The writers postponed Bran's storyline this season to skip 'the boring training stuff' with the intention supposedly being that by the time we return to him in season 6 he'll already be a seasoned badass skilled in the art of taking over peoples minds and seeing through trees. If that's true then why didn't they do the same to Arya? Assumingly she's going to come into play later as an assassin so why not skip to that part? Season 5 despite it's apparent slowness is still bursting at the seams with several different plotlines, cutting Arya out entirely and giving the time to someone else is much more preferable in my opinion. 

- Cersei had the best scene of the episode (yes, it was better than Jon's denouement), her naked walk of shame perfectly captured that feeling of helplessness and made you, once again, feel for a character you despise. This is all down to Lena's Heady's award worthy performance, you felt every bloody step she took. For a finale packed with events I appreciated that they took the time to really nail this scene, watching the slow degradation as she goes from being humiliated to full on breaking down was just amazing. Better still I'm pretty excited for next season because there's no way in hell Cersei will let the Faith Militant get out of this one unscathed. I can't wait to see her put Frankenmountain to use and tear some sh*t up. Beware Jonathan Pryce, Cersei is coming for you.

Even Jon seems shocked! To be fair, we should have seen this one coming.

- The show obviously saved it's most shocking scene for last, and in true GOT fashion they hit us hard. I loved the trolling at the start by showing Benjen Stark in the recap, even if you knew something was up the moment Jon was given the final scene of the finale. But instead of showing us a White Walker army outside of the Wall or the LONG awaited returned of Benjen they just straight up killed one of their top 3 principal characters (I consider them to be Tyrion, Dany and Jon). I love how hard they rammed it home, they made sure he was stabbed several times just so it dawns on us viewers how dead Jon is. But yes, Jon probably isn't dead dead, we have to see more of him at somepoint. There is far too much unfinished business for it to not make sense narratively, although even the mere thought that Jon might not be coming back next season is enough to fill our souls with anguish. On any other TV show we would all be expecting him to come back, but on Game Of Thrones? It could honestly go either way. The showrunners have definitely set up several outs though: we know people in bed with the Lord of Light can bring others back from the dead, and what do you know crazy Mel is hanging out at the Wall after dumping Stannis and is very interested in Jon. Why did she go back to the Wall anyway? Hmmm...other theories such as Jon warging into Ghost or being resurrected as a White Walker are less likely but could still happen, what interests me more is how will this affect Jon's character when he does come back. His death must serve a purpose other than shock value, and what's next for the Night's Watch is what I'm interested in finding out.

Season 5 of Game Of Thrones wasn't a perfect season. A lot of the plots were slow going, Dorne sh*t the bed and Sansa went nowhere, but the last three episodes made up for this by packing in enough blockbuster style events and crazy character twists to make you feel satisfied and more importantly, excited for season 6. 'Mother's Mercy' was one crazy episode, I have no idea how they managed to pack so much into an hour and make it work. It fully redeemed the rest of the reason, and along with 'Hardhome' and 'The Dance Of Dragons' you can't deny this season went out in style. GOT Ranking: 9,5/10