Game of Thrones Recap: You Can’t Go Home Again

Ah, home sweet … hey wait a minute, this is Westeros, where nothing ever works out as it should, even homecomings.

Just as major show characters returned from long peregrinations, we too have made a long journey together through this somewhat uneven, often frustrating, at times thrilling and heartbreaking season.

Join us in a shot of mead and enjoy the perspective of three fans from very different perspectives: Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the TV and book series; Corrin Bennett-Kill, a hardcore fan of the book and TV series (she has read all the books four times!); and Cheryl Collins, a TV show watcher who has never read the book series. Miss us last week? Catch up and read our take on Episode 9, “The Rains of Castamere.”

Can’t wait for next season or feeling kind of “meh”? What are your thoughts on the season as a whole, or your favorite highpoints and lowpoints?

Please join the discussion in comments!

Cheryl Collins
So let’s get to it! What was your take on this season finale?

Laura Fletcher
Well, I guess I knew it’d be a comedown after the Red Wedding, but I still got frustrated while watching. Upon reflection afterward, though, I‘m pleased with the finale – if a bit impatient for spring 2014 to bring us Season 4.

Cheryl
The first time I watched this, I really hated it. It felt so herky jerky, like we were being whipsawed all over the place to get the pieces in place for next season: Jon and Jaime finally made it back home, and the face-off with the White Walkers begins.

Corrin Bennett-Kill
This seems to be the way of this series: the big to-do in Episode 9, then a “where are they now?” season finale. It’s a little bit of a let-down in the initial watching, I agree Cheryl, but it’s necessary for a story with so many plot points to keep us interested in.

Also, season four is going to be wicked! <squeeeee!!!/>

Laura
Agreed. On both counts.

Cheryl
Well, I’m glad you are trying to motivate me, because I feel very ambivalent now.

Corrin
This whole episode seemed about home. Finding one’s way home (Jaime), a different home than you thought you would have (Sam and Jon, Shae), realizing that you can’t go home again (also Jaime, Sansa), for the final loss of the home in your head (Arya, Theon). Even the shared commiseration of a home remembered by Davos and Gendry.

Laura
Yes, home everywhere! And don’t forget Gilly gaining permission from Maester Aemon to stay, after losing her (extremely dysfunctional) home.

Cheryl
I thought that too. That “bowl of brown” from Fleabottom suddenly seemed fondly remembered by Gendry and Davos, and miserable Castle Black must have looked like a manse to Jon and Sam after being away north of the Wall. So – highpoints?

Corrin
Arya! For the love of God and all that’s holy, Arya.

Cheryl
Her first intentional kill. She was great in her role as the lost little girl seeking food who then got revenge for her brother’s death. She was completely affectless, robotic.

Corrin
Her transformation from the precocious little girl running her father ragged and making her mother exasperated to the cold-blooded killer that used her outward innocence to get close to her victim was chilling.

And then the Hound: “Next time you’re going to do something like that, tell me first.” His lack of condemnation and willingness to have her back. Wow. What an awesome pair.

Laura
What did it for me was Arya’s obvious patience when about to kill. She could’ve snuck up and murdered the one man with his back turned, but she preferred to wait and give them all a good Japanese-horror-film-little-girl scare.

Cheryl
I think it’s interesting that the writers chose not to reveal where they are headed off to now.

Laura
We don’t have any idea where they’re headed … and it might be they don’t know, either.

Corrin
Oh, there’s a lot more to come for little miss.

Cheryl
And then there’s Jaime. What did you make of Cersei’s response, or lack thereof?

Laura
Acting appreciation moment, for sure, even though I’m not sure what that look meant. Confusion, relief, disgust, and lust all at once?

Corrin
Cersei has had no news of Jaime in, what, a year? She has no idea what he’s been going through or what it took to return to her. She has him in her head as the golden man. Now he returns changed in so many ways. Is he even the man that she loves anymore? It was a painful moment for our newly minted antihero, Jaime.

Cheryl
They waited so long to see one another, and then – what? To me, Cersei’s reaction is telling: she did not jump up to embrace him but seemed stunned by his loss of limb. In his sackcloth rags, looking all the world like a religious penitent on his way back from pilgrimage. And he has been. After the fifth episode, I posited that his trip to the bath with  Brienne was a sort of baptism – he is no longer “Kingslayer” but became again simply Jaime, but rebooted. That may not be enough for Cersei.

Laura
And the way Jaime looked down at his stump, acknowledging it silently … whoa.

Corrin
From what we know of Cersei, I think you might be right, Cheryl.

Cheryl
And then Jon? No surprise there?

Corrin
Ygritte! The arrows are her final gift to Jon. Her last message of love to him after he acknowledges his love for her! She gives him an unimpeachable return to the Watch. What man, riddled with wildling arrows, won’t be believed about his time spent with them. If he came back unharmed he would have been looked upon with suspicion by his brothers.

Corrin
Even Dany fits into the home theme, as she’s possibly finding a new home – and certainly new adopted “children” – in Yunkai .

Laura
To be honest, the Daenerys closing scene was my low point, for several reasons: 1) It doesn’t build any new character traits for her or her posse; 2) The racialized way that shot looked, with a literal white savior being reached for by thousands of Yunkai slaves in rags, really bugs me; and 3) I don’t really understand how the city fell. It’s more complicated in the books and shows more of the dark side of sacking a city, even for a good cause like ending slavery.

Cheryl
Yes, I’m glad you brought up that point, Laura, because I feel officially annoyed with that little blond woman as savior. I have to say, the whole Dany plot line just bores me.

Corrin
Dany doesn’t have much new happening actionwise. All of her dynamics in this book are really about her own appraisal of herself and her desires. What does Dany the woman want versus Danaerys the queen versus the conqueror? How her relationship with Jorah is changing and shifting. Almost impossible to convey on screen. That’s always been the most compelling part of Dany for me, her internal dialogue and struggles. We just didn’t get much of that this season.

And I totally get where you guys are coming from about the racial elements to the white savior dynamic. However, I think this is a failing of the adaptation to television. It doesn’t read as baldly racial on the page as it does on the screen. The writers either didn’t think about what it would look like, or don’t care.

Cheryl
Or they may be trying to make another point? They seem pretty calculated that way.

Laura
I feel like I can appreciate Dany’s storyline more when we get more of both the local politics and her internal monologue. It offsets the white savior thing and makes her less heroic, more fragile and complex.

Cheryl
Back to home and children for a moment: I was also thinking while watching that another theme was children and parents: Theon’s father refusing to save his son, and Davos making a point of saying that his son died following him. Shae made a point of saying her mother prostituted her as a child.

In fact, the first dialogue in the episode has Roose Bolton talk about his son and his “own way” of doing things.

Laura
Cheryl, it’s true! Families are an inescapable part of this story, even if you don’t really have one (like Varys and Shea were saying). Unlike modern U.S. society when the first question at a party is, “What do you do?” in Westeros it’s “Who’s your daddy?”

Corrin
And Tywin in his “I wanted to drown you in the sea” speech. Tyrion should know better than to probe his father for his motives. Yowza.

Cheryl
That was the biggest “bad parent” moment.

Laura
Okay, my highest high point was Joffrey and Tywin. Joffrey’s horrible glee! But moreover, Charles Dance Appreciation Society.

Cheryl
The best scene in the episode.

Corrin
I would like to point out another family-ish scenario. I really appreciated the two scenes between Tyrion, Sansa, and Shae and then Tyrion and Sansa. There was that moment when Tyrion, Sansa, and Shae were walking where there was connection between the newlyweds on a level other than duty. I think it was a well done window into the possibilities for them as a couple if both are willing to set aside their prejudices and fears. And then, after Sansa hears news of the Red Wedding, that door slammed shut in Tyrion’s face. Just the echoing of her name in the room. The fragile alliance shattered because of Lannister choices.

Cheryl
Right, in her eyes he became a “Lannister” only again, one of them.

Corrin
Sigh. Poor Tyrion.

Laura
To Sansa’s credit, she doesn’t know Tyrion like we the audience know him. He didn’t know this was going down, but how can she be sure? How can she trust him?

Corrin
Her experience at King’s Landing has taught to trust no one.

Laura
We keep seeing Sansa put out new green tendrils of trust or hope, only to get them cut back. Was this the last tendril? Are we supposed to be glad she’s learning not to trust people, or saddened by the lessons she’s learning so early? Probably both. Side note: I like Sansa much, much more on the show than I ever did on the page.

Corrin
Heartily agree with you Laura about Sansa’s likability quotient in the show. In the book I found her irritatingly and persistently obtuse, not just naive.

Laura
That scene where Bran and company go under the Wall, as Sam and Gilly and Baby-Sam look on, though was so good, so well shot! All the foreboding!

Arya’s odd anagram (intentional?), Yara Greyjoy, got quite a rousing cheer from our couch. Surprisingly!

Cheryl
Please explain about the Yara anagram?

Laura
Okay, this is weird and probably nothing: in the book, Yara’s name is Asha Greyjoy. Supposedly it was changed so it wasn’t so close to Osha’s name (the wildling who’s now taking care of the littlest Stark, Rickon). But now it’s an “Arya” anagram. I feel like this was the writers’ chance to draw a parallel we may not have seen before, between the warrior girls/women in two key families.

Cheryl
That sounds right! Cool catch. Clearly Yara looks like she is going to be a big component next season — plus that bearded dude on deck with her.

Corrin
There was one scene that I wasn’t certain they were going to attempt, but that worked really well. Robb with his wolf Grey Wind’s head sown on. In the books that is something we don’t “see” but discover upon recounting. It was a bit of a kick in the gut, especially having Arya witness yet another horror visited upon her family.

Cheryl
Yes, I thought that was well done, Corrin. It wasn’t explicit, but still horrible.

Laura
Last thought on Sam: in some ways this season finale echoed Season 1’s White Walker reveal, because now that news is finally trickling down to the “South,” as the Wildlings would say.

Cheryl
So Jon and Sam are back from beyond the wall, and Bran heads to the other side. Now, Stannis.

Corrin
Stannis! Another character that is much more likeable on screen than on the page.

Laura
Stannis, well, he’s still pretty quiet and mysterious, as he was in the book, but I think he has to be. He has the most straightforward and honest claim to the throne, so if he was also likable and charismatic, it’d kind of ruin the push and pull of the throne for fans, right?

Corrin
Stannis is the only one so far to heed the call to the real danger in the north.

I will say that the rapid shift of opinion on Melisandre’s part was a bit annoying. “The kings are important! The kings are important! Wait. Never mind. Head north!”

Cheryl
One interesting thing I noted in that last scene with Davos and Melisandre: Stannis has been shot in the dark and shadows all season. Even when he went to see Davos is his cell, it was shot as though he were the one who was confined. In that last scene, he was finally shot with the sun rising behind him. Is he in ascendance?

Laura
Cheryl, perhaps he is! I took it as symbolic of our understanding of him, too. He now has a mission, and after Melisandre confirmed what Sam’s letter said, he actually laughed. He laughed. That’s like parading naked in the street for Stannis!

Cheryl
Yes his laughter was telling. Another thing about Melisandre: every time something goes wrong, she blames Davos.

Corrin
Any time Melisandre is on the screen I’m annoyed. That being said, I liked the episode. I was prepared for a slower, less emotional episode than last one. There was no way that any season finale post–Red Wedding wouldn’t be a let down.

It’s the inherent difficulty of wrapping up storylines that are actually in the middle of the book. It was always going to be slightly unsatisfying. Know what I’m sayin’?

Laura
I do, I do. And speaking of unsatisfying: we do need to touch on the “reveal” of Roose Bolton’s bastard son – Theon’s torturer, Ramsay Snow. (Same bastard last name as Jon because they’re both from the North.)

Cheryl
I felt the last episode epitomized the way I felt about this season – annoying, aimless feeling, lacking in tension. I don’t feel like “Ooh, I can’t wait for next season.”

Laura
I firmly believe that Season 3 will grow on me, and I plan on rewatching – as soon as I re-read the books! Corrin’s got me turning into her, slowly but surely.

Corrin
I think Season 3 will come into its full glory when the series is over. It is the middle of a chess game where we know where the pieces have been, but don’t yet know where they are going.

Laura
It seems that many of this season’s stories were hard to adapt to TV, such as Theon’s torture and Arya’s development (lots of cuts there), among many others.

Cheryl
I think you’re right – Season 3 will make more sense in retrospect.

Heartily disagree? Please let us know in comments!