This recap is for ‘Game of Thrones’ 6×09 “Battle of the Bastards”, aired June 19, 2016
Was that the best hour of television … ever? Yes. Yes it was. For the past six seasons, all of us Game of Thrones fans have been watching our leading characters of the HBO show struggle, fight, lose their loved ones – in some most cases their own lives, and it has been one hell of an emotional f**king roller coaster. This episode did that and so much more; only this time, we were actually cheering at our screens in the end.
Let’s dive right into it!
The best (dragon) family reunion. Ever.
What happened: Guys, the gang’s back together again. We thought this entire episode would be Jon vs Ramsay … SURPRISE! Dany has her most fierce-tastic scene yet with her babies.
Last week we saw Dany arrive home to Mereen in the process of getting burned to bits by slave owners-gone-rogue. Tyrion gave the slave owners an ultimatum, and they just weren’t having it. We all knew this was going to happen, but it kind of needed to in order for the backwards-thinking jokers of that side of Westeros to realize Dany was the baddest bitch in all of the lands, and she’ll fry your ass if you think otherwise.
Dany tells the slave owners that her reign is not ending, but just beginning. She then hops on Drogon and is joined by her other two baby dragons to burn the ships of the slave owners to a crisp, giving us the most epic Dany/Dragons scene yet.
Side note: We’re glad the mystery of how the dragons were going to escape their basement-room is solved. All we saw was a doorway that was an inch shy of Tyrion – no offense, bro.
Grey Worm kills two of the three slave-owner “diplomats”, and Tyrion sends the other to warn his people not to make the same mistake. Dany is the true dragon queen, and she don’t play. We were also pleased with Tyrion bringing Dany down from her high horse – er, dragon. She says she will burn the slave owners and all of their cities to punish them for attacking her city and people. Tryion reveals the hard truth: She is turning into her father, the Mad King. He tells her that the reason Jaime killed him was because he was going to unleash wildfire (AKA, modern-day bombs) to the entire city, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Bring justice, but don’t bring wrath, Dany. (Ugh, we can’t wait for the reveal of Tyrion being a bastard-Targaryen and see the two fly the skies of Westeros together.)
Once Dany burns the ships (but not the cities), she and Tyrion get back to business as usual. Theon and his boss-ass sister Yara have made their way to Mereen. Tyrion calls Theon out for being a piece of shit (read: season 1 Theon, when he was the Westeronian equivalent of Chad from The Bachelorette), and goes on about how the Iron Islands are basically the armpit of Westeros. (Let’s be real, they are.) Dany’s impressed that Theon supports his sister to rule the Iron Islands (plus she gets the low-down on their uncle), and Yara sends some major vibes over to Dany. Power couple, anyone?
Tyrion confirms that Yara and Theon’s 100 ships are what they need to get to Westeros, so it’s game on for TeamTargaryen/Greyjoy. We hope Dany has an executive membership at the local Costco, because they’ll need ginger cookies galore on those ships. We have a feeling this will not be smooth sailing for the Dothraki.
What (could be) next: We’d be all for this power-lesbian couple, but Daario is Dany’s OTL, and he actually supports her being single and fabulous. Yara has another agenda. We were a little worried when Dany told her no more raping, pillaging, etc., and Yara replied, “but that’s all we have?” Translate: You hold your worth to an archaic standard and don’t yet see the #VISION Dany has the for the world. There’s more to life than schtooping island tail, Yara. Dany is looking for people that see the bigger picture and will lay their honor down for her. The Iron Islands aren’t there yet. But they have ships, and we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it.
Sansa, you’ve graduated.
What happened: Can we all just give Sansa a quick collective bow? She Littlefinger’d the shit out of The Battle of the Bastards, and we couldn’t be more proud. If Sansa had told Jon about the troops, they wouldn’t have had the advantage they did when the Vale actually arrived. How boss was the filming of that battle scene, BTW? The director of the episode, Miguel Sapochnik, was the same one that did last season’s “Hardhome” (you know, the second-best TV episode next to this one), and holy shit did the episode deliver. PS, he’s also doing the finale next week. Braavo, sir (Get it? See what we did there?)
Poor, poor Rickon. Sansa reminds us all that Rickon is next in line for Winterfell, and Ramsay is most threatened by him. The fact that Ramsay pulled one last sadistic stunt in killing him in front of Jon was a total power move, and it would have paid off if the Vale had not swept in last-minute. We never thought we’d say this, but Sansa is the savior of Winterfell (by sending for Petyr and the Vale.) What price will she have to pay?
What’s next: The preview teases what “Littlefinger wants” – and we can all expect that to be Sansa’s hand in marriage. Sansa, now Lady of Winterfell (since no one else knows that Bran is off warg-ing in the forest with their uncle), can do a few things:
- Rule like the boss bitch she now is and have wine nights with the Lady of Mormont. Because let’s be real that shit would be amazing.
- De-bastard Jon and let him rule Winterfell, and she’ll somehow get stuck marrying Littlefinger and move to the Vale.
- Throwing a wrench: She’s pregs with Ramsay’s baby and stays at Winterfell to figure out WTF to do next. The showrunners teased this again with Ramsay saying, “I’m inside you now” before his dogs ate him.
We’re going with #1, because we think Jon has way more story that needs to be told. WHAT’S IN THE TOWER GODDAMMIT?!?!?!
WTF?! Jon Snow’s death-tease
Can we just address Jon Snow almost getting buried alive? We haven’t been that f**cking anxious since Target announced their alternative down-comforters were 85% off last Black Friday. Literally us the whole time:
STOP DOING THIS TO US, GoT. Give us the rest of the damn tower flashback, and let’s move on from this “Jon may die” (again) thing. You can’t give us that man-bun then take it away. #PraiseTheBun
Side note: We’ll dive more into this during our Talking TV podcast, discussing how this scene was the “rebirth” of Jon Snow. Subscribe to our SoundCloud to be alerted when it airs!
Battle of the Bastards party favors? Puppy Chow!
What happened: Oh, come on. We had to. Have you see the memes yet? They’re everything. While so many fans predicted (and hoped) that this was the way Ramsay would go, it was still perfection. It’s twisted to wish this on a TV character, but hot diggity dog did this guy SUCK. Sansa seeing him eaten by his beloved pups was even more of a beautiful twist of fate. Getting the shit beaten out of him by Jon was a cherry-on-top, too. How badass was it when Ramsay kept shooting arrows at him, and Jon just kept walking towards him like:
Also, Jon was using a shield with the Mormont house symbol – an ode to his former Lord Commander. #JonSnowIsBae
What’s next: Who will be the new big-bad? Winter is coming, so we may not have time to hate someone as much as we hate(d) Ramsay. Everything is leading to the war with winter. There’s no more time for games – because the dead don’t play by anyone’s rules but their own.
There is so much more to break down of this epic episode. Calling it a TV show doesn’t even do it justice at this point. Game of Thrones set a new bar for television. We are diving into all the dirty details of the battle in our next Talking TV podcast – stay tuned!
The season 6 finale of Game of Thrones airs Sunday, June 26 at 9/8c on HBO.
More Game of Thrones:
Check out how they make the White Walkers.
A behind-the-scenes look at the special effects of Battle of the Bastards
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Image: HBO
