Game of Thrones Recap: The Broken Man

Season 6 / Episode 7 / HBO

First off, can we talk about how this shit don’t even look like Game of Thrones? What is this, fuckin’ Middle Earth? They building a church for St. Samwise? They go with the cold open, and for what, a Pillars of the Earth spinoff?

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The only thing that can save that shit is DA GAWD OF MONOLOGUE, ask about me / [dj scratch] / ask about me, Ian McShane. Dude still one of the best actors alive man and he out here patting folks on the back, handing tools to hardworking folk, rockin’ the iced out seven piece around his neck straight from Jacob. And then, as the people were smiling, wiping sweat from their brows, damn near whistling while they worked, and Ian McShane stared up into the sun, over the church they were building and the music built into a nice sweeping crescendo of hope and rebirth…I realized it. I remembered what show I was watching. And 3 minutes in I already knew all these fuckers were gonna die horrible deaths. Thrones is about that equivalent exchange. If you see hope, that means somebody, somewhere is getting disemboweled.

Of course the big reveal is that Sandor Clegane aka The Hound is still alive. Dude out here getting his John Henry on and walking with that limp that Brienne left him under the Christmas Tree. So McShane, or Earth-2 Swearengen, giving The Hound shit about finding him all but dead in the spot where Arya watched him almost bleed out. Of course E-2 Swearengen really know who The Hound is and thinks he has some greater purpose.

Man, I don’t know if Margaery is the G.O.A.T. or just the lingering feeling one has after being kicked by one. First she was imprisoned in the Black Cells where the only visitation was being dragged up to the prayer circle. Now she up in the same spot reading scripture and trying to join the choir and shit. She quoting from the Book of the Mother now, but she was quoting from the book of Beez in The Trap about 20 sleeps ago. Margaery the Maiden up in here confessing how the poor used to be looking at her on some “Never really loved us” type shit and she didn’t care cuz she was posing for photos and leaking her good deads in the Westerosi Times. But then High Sparrow come at her like, “so I heard you are not joining your king in the bed.”

Ohhhhh, k. One, all those Bernie Sanders / High Sparrow mashups went out the window when dude said “Congress does not require desire on a woman’s part, only patience.” Can we…can we unpack this shit for a second? Your boy out here telling Margaery that she needs to lay down in service to her what, 14-year-old, husband for God and country? Man, listen. High Sparrow out here reading from the Book of Problematic, volumes 1-4. And two, Tommen out here snitchin? About these sheets? Even when this incestuous bastard is off screen, he doing some fuckboy shit. Dude didn’t even have to show up for a scene cuz he was at the tailor getting fitted for a snitch jacket. What part of the game, man? High Sparrow also tells Margaery to go “convert” her grandmother to the new way, but you can’t teach an old thorny ass rose new tricks. You just know that she wants to shake the shit out of Margaery, man. Margaery tells her to go back to Highgarden but gives her a drawn rose, on some, “The thornbushes will rise again?” or some shit? I dunno man. House Tyrell look like the Cleveland Cavs in the 2016 Finals right now.

Jon Snow campaigning in the North, trying to get a few delegates from the Free Folk and trying to recruit these cats to come fight the Boltons, but these dudes are like, nah playa, these muthafuckas still alive, that ain’t what we agreed to. Jon tells them that he’s the only thing keeping them dicks from coming up here and wiping out the Free Folk. Then Tormund steps up and is like, yo, this dude has a mysterious birth, was killed for his message and was resurrected. You don’t recognize Jesus when he standing right in front of you? You better get you some of this Jesus up in your life.

Then the Giant stands up and says “Snow” which I guess means Jon just got the Giant vote. Or perhaps means its cold enough out here, this shit might start coming down again and I’m bored hearing y’all ants talk. Either way, its enough to convince the Free Folk to fight for Jon. Got dude feeling good about himself… [whispers softly in Jon’s ear, “you a Stark fam, nothing good will ever happen to you… except that hair. But since you were born with that, it’s been all downhill from there.”]

I just want to say, Cersei Lannister might have the most recognizable walk since Denzel Washington. And sadly, both of them are probably past their prime. Cersei really think she can talk Lady Olenna into staying and fighting and Olenna is like “heifer, if you don’t get your cursed ass the fuck up out my face with that bullshit.” Cersei keeps pressing her and then Olenna ask aloud, “I wonder if you are the worst person I have ever met.” Look man, 98% percent of this recap is metaphors and analogies, but the straight savagery of the straight talk had me clutch the pillow a little tighter while I was watching this on the couch. Can you imagine someone saying that shit to you… as a fucking contemplation?

I don’t know how, but if she had said it definitively it wouldn’t sting as much. But the soft debate seems to sting more. Like she really wants to be fair in analyzing everyone she’s ever crossed paths with before deciding if anyone is worse than you or not. She came down with the insults like Charlie Murphy so they would hurt more. Cersei tries to pitch her one more time and Olenna is probably mad your girl didn’t get the hint when she was comparing Cersei to the fucking plague just a moment ago. She basically puts on the hook to Trey Songsz -You Ain’t Shit on loop and goes back to writing.

The Lannister army is marching on River Run because the Freys are fucking terrible and can’t keep one gotdamn castle that was basically given to them. Your boy the Blackfish done escaped, infiltrated his castle, rallied some troops and told these Frey fucks to hit the bricks. Freys’ idea of a siege basically looks like a cookout on Memorial Day weekend when all your fam ate for two hours then mysteriously disappeared when it was time to clean out the grill and pick up the lawn chairs. They threaten to kill Edmure, but the Blackfish never liked his nephew any gotdamn way and basically gives him the Drago treatment:

Jaime takes command and hopes to parlay with the Blackfish cuz dude lookin’ realll comfortable behind the castle walls.

Yo, the traveling Starks won Super Tuesday and shit so now they really think they got a shot at the nomination. They travel to Bear Island to deal with Lord Mormont and try to recruit from them too. Except it’s Lady Mormont and the Lady is about 10 years old. Maybe. If Mormont sounds familiar it’s because her uncle was the previous Lord Commander before Jon which makes her cousin Jorah, the walking rock formation. Sansa start in with that “I remember when you were born…” shit and Lady Mormont lookin’ at her like, Ginger, what? What, did you bring me a doll to play with too? Fuck outta here. Every time the Starks make a plea, Lady Mormont is like, nope, fuck this, fuck that, fuck that shit over there, fuck that shit you bout to pull out of your pocket…

Whole time, I want to root for the Starks (I don’t know why though) and yet I’m like…I love this little mouthy punk man! To paraphrase my homie and colleague Nicole Homer, “Why can’t Bran be more like this little girl.” Which is to say, I’m sure that Bran will probably keep getting that critique until he’s into his 50s.

Finally, Ser Davos has to step in and convince the Lady to join up because the White Walkers are coming and they gotta get their ducks in a row for that shit. Which feels like a good time to say, maybe these muthafuckas should’ve have led with that bit of information. But that would be asking the Starks to do something right and well… yeah… Lady Mormont pledges to the Starks, but when asked how many fighting men she has, she breathed in deep and dropped that hot “62” on them. Sixty. Two. Fam.

There’s a dude in the hood right now that got 63 contacts in his phone he could hit up if some shit was about to go down. This is like not having time to eat all day, ordering a basket meal from the chicken spot and them muthafuckas hit you up with like 2 tenders and some soggy ass fries.

Jaime meets with the Blackfish to parlay and you already know this dude ain’t come out to play any games with Jaime. Jaime said he would spare the Blackfish’s men with a surrender and Blackfish told him politely to go fuck himself. How you out here talking about on my honor when your nickname is the opposite of honor, b? Would you get into a monogamous relationship with a dude nicknamed “Hoes in Area Codes”? Naw fam. Jaime can go on somewhere with this shit.

Starks on a winning streak until they hit House Glover and House Glover looked Jon Snow in his undead soul and basically told him to go to hell. Lord Glover knows that the Wildlings are in their ranks and when Jon confirms it dude gets fed the fuck up real quick. Sansa tries to remind Lord Glover where his loyalties lie but then we are quickly reminded that Sansa’s still useless and didn’t really have a Plan B when Lord Glover told her to go kick rocks.

The Greyjoys are enjoying themselves, including Yara who probably just happened to find a woman that doesn’t look Iron Born, which is to say, someone that doesn’t look and smell like they been fishing in the stream for 12 hours a day. Theon having a hard time because dude’s PTSD is hitting them switches. Yara wants him to enjoy himself because she knows ‘he’s had some bad years…’

FAM. Saying Theon has had some bad years is like saying Ned Stark died from cutting himself while shaving. There’s probably parts of Theon still spread all over Winterfell like a gotdamn scavenger hunt and Yara is like, yeah, I’m sure I had a hangnail too. Shit was really uncomfortable. She does drop the illest bars though.

But she looking at Theon being a shell of himself and is like: “I’m gonna be real with you, if this what you gonna do… you should probably just tip the fuck off the Earth, bruh.”

Gotdamn man. Yara Greyjoy. Captain. Warrior. Loyal Daughter. Lover of Women. Grief Counselor.

The Starks army look like when you buy a 100-piece puzzle set from the dollar store, but you get that shit home and it only got 78 pieces in that muthafucka. Sansa wants to try and get more men, but Jon and Davos are like, nah, we need to hit the club before they start charging $20 and shit, we ain’t got time. Sansa got that look on her face like, “I am about to make a terrible decision, but I’m at peace with that.” She writes a letter to someone for help with the official Stark seal and all I can hope is that they be screening Littlefinger’s mail to make sure he didn’t order no inappropriate shit off the net.

Back in Middle Earth, E-2 Swearengen is delivering the sermon when some Bros over Banners dudes roll up and threaten them. Hound knows what this shit is because he done faced these bastards before. They start talking that Night is dark and full of terrors shit and you know it’s about to be lit. Or murder. Probably murder actually.

Fam, can I talk about my favorite character Arya for a hot 16 bars? Can I talk my shit again? She out here trying to book passage home and the shit looks real boss when she tossing money on the table out here on her Pusha-T “Millions in the Ceiling” shit. But how Arya just strolling the fuck along knowing that literal FACELESS ASSASSINS ARE LOOKING TO COLLECT HER FADE. Dude, I don’t let old White women roll up on me all casual now and I don’t have a fuckin’ bounty on my head. Sellswords told Arya she couldn’t go back home / you know when she heard that, when she was back… getting gut stabbed by Bobcut on a fucking bridge.

Arya is not living her best life fam. Leon didn’t take in and train Mathilda for this shit man. Arya escapes but not before she got air-holed, so now she just wandering the streets bleeding out on the cobblestones wishing those bags of money could clot a wound.

Man listen, you knew what this was. You knew as soon as the birds started chirping and we hadn’t seen the credits yet, that tragedy was coming. Well, while your boy The Hound was on a fuckin’ Vision Quest up in the hills, the whole gotdamn congregation got slaughtered. Either that limp makes him walk slow enough where he goes into the past or they sent him to chop wood north beyond the Wall. Either way, I don’t know how dude didn’t notice that about 30 people were getting the blade and the bows put to them. They even strung up our boy E-2 Swearengen from his own half-done church.

There is literally no Church in the Wild, yo. The Hound done had enough, he picks up that axe and gets ready to drop that mixtape on these cats, really, really hoping Brienne ain’t nowhere in sight.

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