White Watchers GoT Recap: 6.2 “Home”

This is a recap of Game of Thrones season 6 episode 2, “Home.”

********Show and Book SPOILERS below**********

The second episode of season six featured the big reveal we’d all been waiting for since the season five finale last year. The question: how were they going to bring back Jon Snow? The reveal in itself was not unexpected, although many fans—including me—thought we would have to wait much longer to see him revived.

Here were the three prevailing fan theories on Jon Snow’s return:

1) The Red Woman will resurrect Jon Snow a la Beric Dondarrion, Red God style
2) Jon Snow warged into his wolf Ghost at the last minute like a true Stark and is already living through him
3) Due to his Targaryen blood, Jon Snow will be reborn in fire as Azor Ahai, the Prince that Was Promised by the Red God

Obviously the first won out in this episode, although technically the other two could still happen sometime in the future. Jon may start to develop his warging capabilities, and he may also still be reborn in fire as Azor Ahai. His resurrection doesn’t necessarily rule those out.

Now the question is will Jon stay at Castle Black or will he ride down to Winterfell now that his duty to the Night’s Watch has been discharged by his death? Although his oath to serve until death may be completed, he probably feels a strong sense of duty to the men who stood by him as well as to the wildlings. He also knows that the most important threat is the White Walkers, and he’s the only one that seems to be doing anything about it. So he may elect to stay on at Castle Black. But on the other hand, he was ready to desert the Night’s Watch back in season one to fight for Robb, and the only thing that stopped him was his oath. The only way I could see him riding down to Winterfell would be if he found out Sansa was there (although that wouldn’t work out quite right now that Sansa is on her way to him.) More likely, Sansa will convince him to take revenge on Ramsay and save the North. I’m sure he also feels a strong duty to her. Although, we don’t know yet how much this experience has changed Jon. He could have a totally difference perspective now. Book lore tells us that the resurrected person will be changed more the longer they were dead, as well as the more times they’ve been resurrected. That should tell us that he’ll be more like himself than most of the resurrected people we’ve seen, although I’m sure there will be some changes at least. So who knows what he’ll do.

Alternatively, Jon may go looking for Bran and/or Rickon. Or, he may ride south to find new recruits for the Night’s Watch and to spread the word about the White Walkers. However, Melisandre did say that she had dreamed of him at Winterfell, so if he leaves Castle Black he will likely end up there.

I personally really hope to see Jon and Sansa together. They were probably eachothers least favorite siblings, and I’d love to see that change now that they are all they have. Plus it’s always fun to see characters mix with parts of the world we know but they don’t. Sansa and Brienne would both be in a totally new environment up at the Wall. If Brienne makes it all the way up north, I hope we get to see her fight some White Walkers. In the book her sword is Valyrian Steel, and I think the show is the same. If it is, that could make for some really awesome stuff. If they end up going to Castle Black, it’s pretty far from where those characters are in the book. If Brienne is ever going to get to her book storyline in the Riverlands, it probably won’t happen for a long while.

Castle Black has sort of taken over as the main setting at this point. For me, all of the most interesting stuff revolves around it. I loved seeing Melisandre there, weak and pleading with her God. This has been a very interesting and humanizing change, and I hope that we don’t lose all of that development now that the Red God brought Jon back to life. I also loved Davos’s related change, coming to the Red Woman for help and admitting that she holds power—and entertaining the idea that it can be used for good. Of course, he doesn’t know that it’s directly her fault Shereen is dead. If he did, I doubt he would even look at her. Also a related question: why does he care about Jon so much?

And then there’s the wildlings. Although the wildlings did come to the rescue, Thorne still isn’t dead. My guess is that Jon will kill him, which will be even more satisfying.

Of course, other stuff not involving Jon Snow happened in this episode as well. Topping the list (at least for me) is the return to Pike. Here we got a glimpse of Euron Greyjoy, who looks great, and also crazy. We actually saw him kill his brother Balon (father to Theon and Asha/Yara) on screen. In the books, it’s sort of implied that Balon was killed by one of Melisandre’s shadows (if you remember, he was one of the names she called when doing the kingsblood ritual that supposedly killed the other three of the five kings) although I guess it’s left pretty open to suggestion that he could have been killed by Euron or someone else, and the official story is that he was unfortunately knocked over by the wind. Either way, he’s dead, which brings us to the Kingsmoot (or Queensmoot). It’s an interesting show-development that Theon is on his way to the Iron Islands right now. Based on the books and the sizable distance, he probably won’t make it in time for the moot, if he makes it there at all.

Another huge development was the death of Roose Bolton. Yet another case of patricide, matricide, and fratricide/infanticide. I personally think that Ramsay made a mistake here, although it certainly was in-line with his character. There’s no way Ramsay can hold the North without Roose. Roose was a master planner, one of the smartest players in the Game of Thrones. Ramsay is an idiot. Of course, once he killed Roose it was obvious he would kill Walda and the baby. So now he has no one in front of him, and almost as few behind him. He has the Karstarks on his side, and had evidently been actively scheming with them prior to the murder, but probably isn’t going to be able to inspire confidence in many other allies—especially without Sansa. He’s likely to lose most of the ones Roose already had just based on who he is and what he does. If it comes out that he killed Walda, he may lose the Freys as allies, which is important because they hold the gate to the South. (And considering that Walda and the baby were killed by his dogs, it’s pretty obvious, right?) But who knows what Ramsay will do now. He’s the true wild card in this game.

And in King’s Landing, the Lannisters are struggling to get it together. Jaime adorably gave Tommen some good advice, and the boy finally apologized to his mother. Cercei was a bit cold, but she has certainly not given up. Jaime had a stand-off with the High Sparrow, which started out intense but ended in an impasse. Jaime probably should have just killed him then anyway though, because he’s only going to get more powerful. It’s getting obvious that something must be done about the Faith Militant, and I have a feeling that the Lannisters are going to lose the throne trying to do it.

Bran is still chilling with Meera and the children of the forest, and finally getting to see his family in the past. It looks like we will indeed see the Tower of Joy flashback through him, and it looks like it may be as soon as episode three.

In Braavos, Arya is still blind but has passed one of Jaquen Hagar’s tests and is now headed back to the House of Black and White, presumably for more tests.

In Mereen, Tyrion has unchained the Dragons. This sort of tracks with the books, with the main difference being that they haven’t killed anyone yet.

On a related note, I think it’s safe to say at this point that Quentin will not be making an appearance in the show.

The show also provided nothing from Dorne or Daenerys (or Jorah/Daario). Also no glimpse of Margaery or the Tyrells, Sam, Littlefinger, or any of the other periphery families.

Conclusion:

A lot of big stuff happened in this episode, and it’s only the second of the season! With all the new developments, it seems like nearly everything is up in the air. Where will it go from here? Something is definitely brewing, and it looks like the war is really just about to begin.

This episode was stronger than the last because it managed to wrap up the last of the things that needed to end and get everything perfectly poised for new beginnings. Almost every area on the map is now on the cusp of major change, and that makes for an exciting lead to this new season. We’ve gotten through a lot of the left-over stuff from the books just in these two episodes, and now we’re plunging into new and dangerous territory. Bring it on.

I’m super stoked that Jon is back, and I’m glad to finally see Yara/Asha as well (who I personally think is one of the more intriguing book characters that has been way understated thus far). Euron is exciting too, because who even knows where his story is going. Even though this season’s most-anticipated reveal has already happened, I’m not any less excited for the episodes to come.

I give this episode 4 out of 5 kings.

The filmmaking and acting were as strong and beautiful as ever, and the show did a great job of keeping the anticipation up throughout the episode. SO much stuff happened, but the episode still flew by, leaving me itching for the next episode.