There is a lot going on in the second episode of “Game of Thrones.” Things are finally, slowly coming to a head — did you ever really think you’d see the Mother of Dragons and the Queen of Thorns in a room together? — but things are also increasingly falling apart.
“Stormborn” is about reunions. The episode unites the far reaching storylines of “Thrones,” and sees what happens when we throw these different, disparate characters together. It’s also about Euron’s amalgamation of over the top Johnny Depp characters. Last week, Euron offered Joshua Jackson meets Captain Jack Sparrow realness. But this week, he’s giving me Mad Hatter meets Sweeney Todd, and it’s not my favorite thing. And what’s more, what could his reign of terror mean for, um, everybody else? To the ‘cap we go.
Ser Jorah refuses to moisturize, still.
In Oldtown, Sam is just being his ol’ Sam self. And he’s determined to cure Ser Jorah’s really drastic case of eczema with a book he found and some salves. Neat-o! It’s basically like watching the most intense of Dr. Pimple Popper’s videos, but will it save Ser Jorah? It damn well better. Khaleesi could for sure use his heart-shaped emoji eyes around for support.
Khaleesi comes into her own.
Dany has a master plan for starving out the good people of King’s Landing, and she brings together her rag tag group of allies — a sort of American Girl Dolls of Westeros — to help champion her cause. Unfortunately, the time we could have spent with Dany, Olenna, Ellaria, and Yara is instead dedicated to Grey Worm and Missandei.
Listen, I love these two as much as anyone. But not only was the scene of their ahem, lovemaking, way too long, but at first, I thought Grey Worm was wearing some sort of Westeros-styled Romphim. Yes, the rompers for men. I was wrong.
Sansa has absolutely no chill.
Elsewhere, another woman rises to power. But Sansa’s transformation is a worrisome one. When Jon receives two ravens — one from Sam in Dragonstone, detailing the source of dragonglass, which surely we could have figured out without a book; and another from Tyrion on Dany’s behalf, begging Jon to take an audience with the dragon queen — Sansa warns against it. I guess she doesn’t want to see an aunt and nephew fall deeply in love, because she hates nice things.
Jon, on the other hand, has a casual chat with Littlefinger in the crypts underneath Winterfell. And Baelish, sinking to new levels, is over here talking like one of the Ying Yang twins in “The Whisper Song,” telling Jon “I love Sansa as I loved her mother.” It’s truly vomit inducing! Jon, being a more aggressive version of himself in this post-zombie life, threatens Littlefinger’s life over that because, dang, living with all them dude hormones is so dang hard!
Cersei fancies herself a regular David Foster Wallace.
Cersei didn’t drink any wine, but she sure did ruin plenty of lives in her five minutes of screentime. I mean, she essentially rewrites history when recounting tales of Dany’s white savior tactics. Cersei, First of her name, may be power hungry, but methinks she really missed an opportunity to write fictional novels of epic proportions. It remains to be seen whether or not she and Jaime can coax great houses like the Tarlys to their side, but Cersei seems pretty unbothered. She truly has no mother f—s to give.
Oh, and that battle.
The battle of the last scene was pure confusion. It certainly doesn’t help that “Game of Thrones” consistently lights its night time scenes like it’s the first time they’re using the Juno filter on Instagram. Euron Greyjoy leaping down from his ship in a scene that had me wondering, “Wait, am I watching ‘Pirates of The Caribbean,’ or nah?“
What will the consequences be, now that Euron has destroyed all the ships in Yara’s fleet? It’s clear, now more than ever, that not only is Euron a formidable foe, but he lives up to how evil he’s insisted he is. Although, I’d rather some subtlety than to see the pirate king baring his teeth and gums, running to and fro as if he just huffed a cannister of Pledge.
One thing is clear, though: Theon may still be suffering, but he’s dead to us all. And judging from Yara’s look after he cowardly jumps off board, I’d imagine she may want to kill him herself. If she survives. Yara, please survive.
All the other things
Two of four remaining Dornish characters are also dead, so I suppose “Thrones” is moving closer and closer to forgetting Dorne ever happened. Oberyn deserved better.
We’re finally going to Casterly Rock! It’s kind of insane that we’ve not yet seen the gilded cages of the Lannister home, but I’m hopeful about what we’ll see there. Hopefully Lannisters literally sh—ting gold.
Let’s end this on a good note: Arya is a person who murders others in cold blood. For all intents and purposes, we should not be rooting for her. But both her reunions with Hot Pie and Nymeria had this recapper wet in the eyeball region. Now that she’s heading to Winterfell, could there be a sisterly reunion in our future?
