Conan Troutman

I don't think she's going to kill Cersei. If Sansa's the YMBQ, she may be the Valonqar (I don't think it's going to be some random younger sibling, the Valonqar has to be either the younger sibling of Cersei herself or of the YMBQ), but I don't think that Arya really deserves to kill her (at least not as much as other people). Olenna comes to mind, and then there are Tyrion (already wants her dead) and Jaime (not yet, but that last look he gave her wasn't one of love and admiration), who are the prime Valonqar candidates anyway. Besides, I don't think Arya would even want to head south. I think one of the reasons she went after Walder right away was that the ship happened to land nearby, so taking a slight detour on her way to Winterfell makes sense. I can see her meeting Sandor, Beric and Thoros on the way up north, and very likely Mel, too (who may or may not already be with the BwB). Mel even said in season three "we will meet again" and so far, I don't see any reason to doubt this. Since Dany has her own red priestess now and Mel brought back Jon already, I also don't see the point in keeping her around any longer. Basically, I think the show will be divided into a north and south plot. In the North, we have all the players already there (plus Brienne, Pod, Sam and Gilly should return sooner or later), with Arya & whoever she doesn't kill arriving in Winterfell towards the end of the season. And the south will mostly focus on Dany's invasion and Cersei's downfall. The wild card here is Euron, but as Yara and Theon are with Dany now, he should be part of the south plot, too. The actress clearly was on set and in costume, so I can only assume the scene was cut. And since they left Meereen, they can't really hold it back for next season. It wouldn't have been important plot wise anyway, probably just to show Tyrion's state of mind, which can be accomplished in a myriad of other ways. They foreshadowed something like that when Varys said LF would be king of the ashes. So maybe LF (who's still friends with Olenna) makes a play for the throne and succeeds. Like Cersei, he won't hold the throne for long and you'd think Dany would remove him before the WW could get to KL (if they ever make it that far south, which is doubtful), but it would be nice.

I'm not sure that line is meant for Dany. What would she be terrified of? The great game should be afraid of her, really. My guess is that he's saying it to Yara - she's officially entered the game by teaming up with Dany and just got her first glimpse of how it looks like with whatever happens in Meereen. Theoretically, it could also be meant for Theon, but even being brutally killed is a cakewalk compared to what Ramsay did to him.

That seems very likely. Some thoughts: I think Cersei and Qyburn will take out Kevan and Pycelle on the show, as they're too loyal to the king and thus the High Sparrow. Plus Varys is portrayed as a good guy, flat out murder doesn't seem to be his M.O. (expect for his revenge on the sorcerer, which is understandable). So yeah, Varys is probably headed to Dorne. If anything, I think there may be some sort of conflict at first, but ultimately Dany will realize that Jon isn't trying to take her throne away from her. Maybe one of her new red priestesses will also convince her of the looming threat. But in any case, you're probably right that there just isn't enough time for a long, drawn-out conflict of Dany vs Jon/Sansa. She still has to arrive in Westeros, march towards KL and find it burned to the ground like in her vision and deal with some internal politics/her new allies. That lone should take up three or four episodes, which is probably going to be half the season. She then gets the call from Jon and travels north, where she'll arrive towards the end of the season. Five of the last six episodes are probably going to focus on the war against the WWs exclusively, with the finale just wrapping things up.

They creators said a couple of years before that they originally had a plan for three seasons, which they then expanded to five after the initial success. So sticking to that makes sense and I'm okay with that. It's hard enough for any show to stay good beyond season five, especially for one as serialized as this. Season four has been a solid step back to form plotwise so far (albeit a bit low on the humor lately), so let's hope they can put together a final season that rivals the first one.

"And now for our next caller, Cersei from King's Landing. She had a bad day and misses her son and her brother - or did she say her friend? Sorry, I forgot - and her wish is 'Burning down the House' by Tom Jones. There you go Cersei!"

Helena's back, thank god! And Delphine, too! So she's on the same island with mysterious swan doctor guy? Where did Rachel's eye get that information from? Was it there before? I thought she got a brand new one. I've given up on trying to understand the motivations of the villains on this show a season or two ago, but Evie Cho's plan was something to behold. What the hell? Your grand master plan depended on everyone not leaking the fact that you're murdering infants by the dozens/hundreds/thousands? JFC. The dude who groomed himself a fucking tail seems perfectly reasonable in comparison now. No wonder they can only find the most depraved lunatics to work for them. Speaking of, I hope we're getting to see Ferdinand in the finale. Kinda miss the guy. Aside from that, another solid episode and a step back to form. I liked that you had really no idea what Rachel's plan was, she really could've gone in either direction. Donnie/Alison were pretty great, too. Missed S this week, though. I wonder what she's up to.

I'm still not entirely sure if it was a show error. Don't they just use old passports for stuff like that? It's just the cover anyway they needed for the shot, so they shouldn't be hard to come by. It sure would explain why Irina got caught.

Well, if that error was intentional, probably not...

Just a spelling error. But a rather glaring one. I wonder whether that's intentional or if the prop department just had no idea?

Well, I guess it should've been West Germany, but it says "Bunderserepublik Deutschland" instead of "Bundesrepublik". So he shouldn't try to use that poorly faked thing either way...

Yeah, Paige is already a ticking time bomb, but that makes everything even worse. She already blabbed about suspecting Philip to have an affair with his secretary, which will probably not be that crucial right away (Stan would have to suspect them in the first place to make the connection), but just shows how dangerous that liaison could potentially be. At least it gave us Stan's hilariously inappropriate reaction to finding out. What the hell was he expecting from Philip, a high five? William really did shit the bed there (it's harder not to make puns on this one I guess...) with mentioning a married couple with kids. Stan's face will be so glorious when he finally finds out. I did expect a bit more of a fallout, at least as the central characters were concerned. However, most of the actual changes happened in the Rezidentura. I did not expect Arkady to get booted off like that, but that was a great scene. Tatiana sure wasn't pleased, either. By the way, I never noticed before how tall Oleg is. Maybe he should've played in that Super Bowl? Maybe Washington would've had a chance after all... Overall, I didn't expect a relatively quiet episode, but it sure didn't disappoint. Worthy finale for a great season.

Well, she took the money from the Hound back in the season 4 finale. Maybe she still has it? She didn't use it to pay for the travel (just showing the iron coin seemed to suffice) and they didn't show her getting rid of it, either. So maybe she just stashed it away along with Needle? As far the whole "is Jaqen/someone else disguising as Arya?", I agree that it could work via some sort of glamor spell. The Waif magically transformed into the far taller "Jaqen" at the end of last season, so it's not just the face. Another possibility would be Lady Crane (who owes Arya) or the actress who wanted to kill her (to avoid being punished). All of that would usually be too much tinfoil for my taste, but otherwise Arya's behavior would seem rather moronic. I guess we'll find out soon.

It's about the man she saw in that vision - Dr. Swan. He and Susan Duncan's are Evie Choo's biological parents and he's in charge of a secret race change program.

Not!Dr.Chilton really needed to go. I was hoping Mads Mikkelsen would appear and eat him, but I guess S killing him is okay, too. Yeah, where's Helena? The last episodes were really boring without her. It's all been darkness and despair, even Alison didn't get any fun stuff to do. So glad we're finally back to normal. Speaking of Helena: Are her embryos she buried in Alison's garden still good? I guess you could get a ton of stem cells out of them if they were.

Yeah, William will use Don's access code and they will want to know how he got that. Assuming William won't tell (otherwise the show is over), they have to question Don - who doesn't know anything, but he does have something to hide. The FBI will probably notice that and if they get Don to talk about the visit from Philip, Gabriel and Good-with-computers-in-her-50s-or-60s (and they probably will), they're going to get another sketch of Clarke. And probably one from Patty, too. Which either means they won't, Stan will continue be unable to connect the dots for another season or Philip's and Elizabeth' cover will be blown sooner rather than later. Well, the code itself will only be used once. So it doesn't really matter as far as getting this specific virus is concerned. But yeah, the FBI should learn about Patty and I think they will, one way or another.

Ah, I remembered that differently. I thought maybe the whole group with level three access was under surveillance because something went missing in the past. Don would've been exempt of that since he had level four access. I don't think the Jenningses could afford to do even that. And they were probably right - had Stan heard about them being pro communist, he wouldn't have dropped his initial suspicion from very early on. The approach sistermagpie described above could've worked, though. But yeah, that's were the premise of the show just demands otherwise.

The problem is, they couldn't really do that when she was younger. The danger she would blab it out in school without even knowing was way too high. So they had to wait until she was old enough to understand how dangerous that secret was and even then Paige wasn't able to shut her mouth. Really, that whole second-generation-spy plan is just poorly thought out in general. I think they narrowed down their list to a few dozen, maybe a hundred potential candidates. And then did checks on these, which probably can be done in a matter of a day or even less. They should have the manpower, the priority was high enough and a couple of days passed during the episode. I don't think it's unbelievable that they found out relatively quickly. Especially since they probably started with the more promising ones and as you said, William was already under surveillance. I don't know why he was, but that had to be a giant red flag. Don was probably not under surveillance, unless it was more of a routine thing. The Center knew William was, which is why they needed the plans from Martha, but that never came up with Don. Yeah, I was getting frustrated a bit in that scene - but not so much with Paige (okay, she should know that), more with Philip and Elizabeth who didn't tell her. They're great spies, but are in over their head when it comes to dealing with the whole Paige situation. As I've said above, the whole recruit-Paige idea was always a stupid one. Re: Henry: I can see him becoming more and more suspicious and poking around a bit. Maybe he'll check out the newspaper archives for the day of the incident - right now, he's buying that they scared them away, so he has no reason to assume that there even would be a report. But once he does suspect something, this might proof that he's onto something. I wonder if that thing gets mentioned at the next dinner with the Groovyhairs? I don't really want that to happen. That would be too sudden and anticlimactic. I want the FBI to get closer and closer and eventually find out - and maybe put the Jenningses under surveillance (in the hope they could lead them to other illegals etc.) for the stretch run. That would make for a nice role reversal, with Stand being in the know and the P+E unaware of the danger. Yeah, he's going to find out eventually and I think he'll know more than Paige when pressured P+E into telling her the truth. But I'm not sure about the computer, that's probably just a computer and more about giving Henry something to do in the background than crucial to the plot. Like I said above, I can see Henry getting suspicious after a lie or two blows up and doing his own investigations from there on out. Why would they exhume the body in the first place? They don't have the suspect and now need proof. It's quite the opposite, they already have the proof (by autopsy of the mail robot) and now need their suspect.

No love for Mace Tyrell's fabulous feather helmet? Elizabeth II herself was green with envy.

I'd say let's find out, shall we?

I'm not sure, either, but I have an idea: Maybe Cersei kills Kevan? The show made a point how Qyburn is in control of the little birds now and Varys is still nowhere near KL - and has been written way less shady anyway. So I can see how she's ordering Kevan's death and that could both alienate Jaime and also make him heir to Casterly Rock, thereby giving him formal command of the army. Would need to happen very soon though, like next episode soon, so he can get the news and start to travel in episode eight and arrive in time for Bastard Bowl. Love your idea of Jaime meeting Bran. That would be great. As for next episode: I hope we get to see them, but time and budget are big factors against it. Maybe next season, when they do fewer episodes. But there have been talks about a spectacular scene involving the WWs this season, that would certainly fit the bill - if they weren't referring to the episode 5 stuff.

Maybe that someone was going by the name "R'hllor"? I don't think he's an actual god, but doing something like that would certainly explain how he got worshiped and even founded an entire religion. Generally speaking, I agree that the measures Dany resorts to aren't exactly your standard hero fare. But she's also goodhearted and can be reasoned with, so not exactly standard villain material, either. She made a point about the Dothraki not raping the women in season one, which ultimately led to Drogo getting hurt and later killed by the witch Dany saved. So she's not suddenly going to give every Dothraki or Ironborn free reign to rape and pillage as they please. I'm way more worried about the dragons and her potential conversion to the R'hllor cult, which both I think are tied together. That shit is clearly evil, hopefully see can realize that before it's too late. We would need Benjen to be able to make it past the Wall for that, though. In his current state and given that Coldhands couldn't get past the Black Gate, I doubt Benjen will make it through. Even then, why would someone who dismisses Bran's claims suddenly go "oh, well, Benjen says it, too, so now it's totally different"? I don't see it. And even if they did believe it, that would make Jon a Targaryen. How is that supposed to win over the Northern houses? Nah, R+L=J will come into play, but not like that. I suppose its key importance will be about Dany, who might react to that either very favorably ("Ooh, finally a close relative to marry!") or, well, not so much ("Ugh, another claimant? Die!"). Of course the tide will turn again. And I'm fairly certain it will be the NK making his way past the wall, either by casually walking through it thanks to Bran or by bringing it down in a more spectacular fashion (I'm hoping it's the latter, that would be just way more epic, I want to see that gigantic wall of ice come crushing down!). As for Brienne and Jaime, the latter needs to get freed of Cersei's hold. That can happen two ways: Cersei will be doing it herself (burning down KL should do the trick), or Brienne will be the one to do it somehow. I think it's going to be the former, as that has been foreshadowed heavily for quite a while now. Or maybe they're doing both at the same time. Jaime did promise Brienne to help Sansa, so maybe he takes to Lannister army up north to fight the Boltons now that the Lannisters have basically rejected him - that would certainly break things up with Cersei.

But there are trained people. Euron wouldn't plan on building that massive a fleet if he didn't have the men to do it (assuming he isn't a total moron). Yara and Theon may have a smaller fleet, but they still got it out of the harbor, which means they have enough men for that fleet, too. Even if they have to build more ships, they can still train people to do the jobs that don't require as much skill and use the more experienced Ironborn as officers. It's also called the Narrow Sea for a reason. You don't have to get them over in one swoop. It doesn't have to be like on D-Day, Dany can ship them over to her potential allies in Dorne (who probably have a couple of ships of their own) or wherever in smaller chunks and it won't take forever. I'd say even a hundred ships are still a good start. Then there are other places to get ships from. The Free Cities probably have tons of them for rent, maybe our pirate friend Salador San will make another appearance.

I don't think she's crazy, either. What I meant by that is that you can see something in her eyes that's quite distinctly Targaryen, but I think she'll be able to control it and fight it, like other Targaryens before her. But that part may become an issue going forward: This is probably something she has to actively work on, remind herself of and act accordingly. That's why we got Selmy talking to her about the Mad King. There's a real possibility that if she doesn't resist the temptation, she could get drowned in the madness and this might be why we're constantly reminded about it and it could be a big plot point going forward. So I can see her being set up to be the villain, but I can also see that she needs to make a big decision (like fight Jon for the Iron Throne or abandon that goal to unite against the WWs) and ultimately succeeds in avoiding these pitfalls of power. But that story will only be told once she gets to Westeros, which is about damn time. I was looking for some tells that Margaery's lying in her scene with Tommen, but I didn't get any. You'd think the show would give us some clues if she really were playing the HS. Yeah, she didn't appear convinced last time we saw her, but I think that was the show telling us the steps of her conversion, rather than giving is only the result. There's another thing: By actively helping to get Tommen converted, she now has effectively removed anyone's power to help her (well, she'll be fine now) and more importantly, Loras, out of this situation. That would've been a rather stupid con. I don't think Coldhands was ever fully explained. I guess the explanation we got from Benjen could also be the explanation for Coldhands in the books. I'm more curios about what that means for book!Benjen, though. Or maybe that was Benjen straight from the books and D&D left out Coldhands because he would be too similar. I don't think that necessarily makes her sympathetic to Cersei. But it might give her a new perspective on things and may make her re-think who needs to be on her list and who doesn't. She's crossed the Hound off of it already, so maybe she reevaluates Cersei's place there, too. And while Cersei certainly committed her fair share of awful acts, how many were against the Starks? Throwing Bran out the window was Jamie's idea (not that she disagreed, but still). Lady's death is on her conscience, yeah, but maybe here the play comes in. Other than that? She wasn't the one to have Ned executed, she never wanted the war with the Starks. She was awful to Sansa, but never had her harmed physically. She didn't play a part in the red wedding, either. Cersei needs to die, but her life isn't Arya's to take. It was a bit clunky, I give you that. But it was also short and effective. I really don't need ten minutes of Meereenese discussion about ships, please and thank you.

Some other thoughts: - Benjen wasn't really surprising, but still great to see him. Got to be interesting how he comes back in the books if he isn't also a Coldhands like figure there. The show did seem to combine the characters after all, but I can't really imagine him being totally fine and fully alive in the books, that would be hard to believe. Anyway, he probably won't be with us for long, just to get Bran back to the Wall. - Meera and Bran? Ain't gonna happen. Though if she ever makes it to the neck (doubtful, but who knows?), I could see a meeting with Pod. - I never believed the common assumption from the filming spoilers that Margaery would only be conning the HS. Actually turning her into a believer is just more interesting plot wise, as it poses a huge problem for the Lannister/Tyrell alliance. So I'm glad it seems to turn out like that. - I liked the Sam/Gilly story this week. But I'm glad we don't have multiple weeks of them at Horn Hill, much more excited about the Citadel. Also nice: Finally someone put Hannah Murrah out of that burlap sack! Still not enough for the best costume of the week award though, that clearly goes to Mace Tyrell and his fabulous hat. - Dany's speech while riding Drogon was very effective for the Dothraki, who haven't seen her deliver a ton of these, less so for the audience, who has. Just shut up and get to Westeros, please! - There were a ton of comebacks this week. Benjen, Edmure and Walder Frey onscreen, the Blackfish and the BwoB offscreen. Plus all those short glimpses in Bran's visio-rama. The show is clearly tying things back together and getting ready for the endgame.

Another heavy hint for Cersei going Mad Queen and burning the whole city to the ground. Right now, the KL story line isn't the most exciting, but hopefully it goes out with a literal bang. I was pretty conflicted during that scene. On the one hand, I didn't want Arya to kill the actress (was wondering if she might have poisoned the younger actress' wine), but even if she escapes them, that might come back to bite her in a big way. I didn't find anything different. EC has been playing Dany with that same mixture of pride and underlying Targaryen madness for quite a while. I do think Dany will find herself working for the wrong side or something like that (mostly I don't trust those dragons at all, they're way too close to R'hllor for me), but maybe she can figure that out just before it's too late. Maybe the WWs will open her eyes. That would be great, but I'm not sure how much say "Jaquen" has in that matter. Then again, the many faced god doesn't really seem to care where his deaths are coming from. He was promised a death, and while he didn't get the right one, he'll probably get the Waif. He sure didn't complain when he got too many... Arya even proceeded to poison the wine right after that. Only after her talk with the actress she decided to come back and abort. Maybe it was the actress being generally nice, maybe it was the line about "do you want to pretend to be other people?" or maybe it was a reminder of family in the form of Cersei grieving over her dead son, but "I need to not kill that actress so I can kill other people" wasn't the reason. Now whether that means she'll also cross Cersei off her list (by removing the name from it, not actually killing her) or not remains to be seen. So narratively? Ironically enough, maybe she has learned about the value of life during her time with the death cult. Arya's been on a downward spiral since the start of the show, to the point you thought she was falling into the darkness to never recover, but maybe there's hope for her, after all. Yeah, she needs to kill some people (and she certainly needed the assassin training for that), but more importantly, she needs to get back to her family. Well, she already used one. Sure, the FM punished her for it, but the act of wearing the face itself didn't do her any harm whatsoever. That said, getting a face could be a problem. Assuming she's not going back to the House of B&W, the only way to get a face would be to take one off and then prepare it yourself. That part, I don't know if she learned enough about that. They didn't teach her anything about that (only to wash the bodies), so maybe she'll be able to do it, maybe not. But ultimately, whether that will be a plot point or not, the narrative impact is that she chose her own face and her own identity over wearing many faces and thus losing her identity. That wasn't a test she was supposed to fail, at least not from the FMs point of view. They're not cheap, but the price depends and why you want the death and how much you can give (they talk about death as a gift, which means they would be willing to deliver it for free for the right reasons, as in killing the suffering slaves or their masters). Granted, that was a pretty selfish wish, so I assume she would have to pay dearly, but probably not in money. Either way, it didn't pay off. Trying to imagine the younger actresses yelp review: "Faceless Men: Paid quite a hefty price, but they only send an incompetent apprentice who not only butchered the job, but also blamed me on top of it. Do NOT recommend."