Game of Thrones Recap: The Calm Before the Storm We're Hoping For

Arya Stark: Vampire Slayer?

By Lauren Piester Jun 13, 2016 2:54 AMTags
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OK, we can't be the only ones who got some Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes there at the end of tonight's Game of Thrones, right?

Sansa may be about to fight a losing battle in taking back her home thanks to the death of the Blackfish, King Tommen has totally lost his mind, and Dany returned to Meereen just as it was being burned down by some angry former slave masters, but Arya Stark is back and possibly superhuman.

After Lady Crane attempted to nurse Arya and her wounded stomach back to health, that annoying girl showed up anyway, killed Lady Crane, and then set her Terminator-like sights on Arya herself. She chased Arya all through the streets of Braavos, even sending her parkouring over a wall and falling down some stairs and over many fruit stands.

Even with her wounds reopened, Arya still managed to stand up straight enough to pull out Needle and eventually slice that girl's face right off. We didn't get to see Arya's winning battle, which is a real shame, but we did get to see that girl's face displayed in the hall of faces.

Jaqen was impressed and sort of proud, and declared that "finally, a girl is no one."

"A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell," she sassed back, giving us flashes of Buffy in that hell dimension, "and I'm going home." 

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Wouldn't it be pretty damn epic if Arya gets back, slays the Boltons all on her own, and struts out of Winterfell just as Sansa arrives, so Sansa doesn't have to worry about her army after all?

Tonight brought a big blow to Sansa's whole plan when the Blackfish had no desire to accompany Brienne back to the north, even when Riverrun turned on him with the help of its newly returned/released lord, Edmure (who only agreed to help after Jamie compared Cersei to Catelyn, who's been mentioned quite a bit lately…). Brienne tried to get him to run with her, but he still refused, and according to one measly throwaway line to Jaime, he "died fighting." So either he's not really dead, or we just missed out on a potentially epic death scene.

Jaime, meanwhile, now has Riverrun, meaning he can possibly get back to his sisterlove, Cersei.

Speaking of Cersei, she's still dealing with her son's newfound faith. He declared that she and Loras will face a trial in front of the seven septons, instead of the trial by combat she was hoping to have, because thanks to the Mountain, she would have won. (The Mountain, btw, ripped off a guy's head tonight when Lancel tried to force Cersei to go see the high septon. So yeah, she definitely would have won.)

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She did, however, learn from Qyburn that some rumor that she heard was "much more" than just a rumor, so we'll have to wait to see what that's about.

In Meereen, while Varys set out on a secret expedition to Westeros, Tyrion was forcing Missandei and Greyworm to drink and joke with him. They were jokes that only really made sense to Missandei and Greyworm, but they were still jokes, and everyone was having a good time, until some alarm bells started ringing.

Apparently the slave masters were arriving to take back their property, which was some real bad news. Everybody just sort of holed up in the pyramid and planned to fight once their enemies reached them, until none other than Queen Daenerys walked through the door.

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Over in wherever the Hound is, he was on the hunt for that Brotherhood guy in the yellow cloak who killed his friends, and he didn't care who he had to kill to find said yellow cloak guy. He had some fun beheading and disemboweling a few guys before he finally found his target. Fortunately in general but unfortunately for his ax, some other members of the Brotherhood (including his old friend, Beric) were just about to hang Mr. Yellow Cloak and his companions for the village murder. When he wasn't allowed to use his ax, the Hound just ended up kicking down the stumps that were holding them up. Then he stole Yellow Cloak's boots, just for good measure.  

While the Hound was ready to still count Beric as an enemy (since he killed him that one time), Beric tried to convince him to join their cause.

Aside from Arya being a badass, tonight's episode was a little quiet, and felt like precisely the type of episode that Game of Thrones likes to put out before all hell breaks loose. So we had probably better be ready to batten down the hatches for the next couple of weeks, because hopefully, things are about to just get nuts.

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.

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