You know who isn’t run-of-the-mill? Rory McCann as The Hound. Richard Dormer gets the trailer line (“Death is the enemy.”), but this conversation is otherwise pretty run-of-the-mill. Lady Stoneheart is an important book character and metaphor for Stark vengeance? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s a little disappointing that between these two heralded warriors, the best explanation they can come up with for their resurrection is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but that’s also the show’s attitude about resurrection at this point. It’s almost like the people of Westeros are starting to figure out the thing readers of George R.R. “I suppose you favor your mother,” from the Lightning Lord, is yet another reminder that Jon Snow isn’t Ned Stark’s son, but the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.
But beyond that, they don’t accomplish much beyond what we already know: that Tormund is solid gold at all times. Tormund’s insight is spot on and before the episode ends, Jon heeds his advice. While Tormund Giantsbane lights up every scene he’s in (thanks in no small part to the wonderful performance of Kristofer Hivju), this is just Jon and his best Wildling bro talking about how Mance died because he was too proud to kneel. With apologies to The King in the North, the bulk of his conversations were deadly serious and expository. Perhaps someday Jorah will wish he would’ve kept the sword to cuddle on those lonely nights.ĭo all of these pairings include Jon? No, but the less interesting ones definitely do. Jorah will always be in Daenerys’ heart, but it’s likely Jon Snow gets to sleep in her bed. The slightly more interesting story would be their somewhat competitive lust for Daenerys, but even that seems like a foregone conclusion at this point. These two share an important father figure and their legacy will forever be interlocked through Longclaw, but that’s about it.
And as Jorah reminds Jon, this broke the heart of the great Lord Commander who raised Jon up from bastard to leader of men. He left the country in disgrace, exiled by Ned Stark after being caught selling people into slavery to pay for his wife’s expensive habits. The audience needs to be reminded that Jorah’s return to Westeros isn’t a celebratory affair for everyone. In pairing Jon and Jorah, the show is doing some important story clean-up. Because Thrones loves its pairings and in the hypothetical reality that exists in my brain (wherein Thrones has 30 episodes left instead of 7), we might get some new odd couples to add to the show’s legacy. It has even more to do with whether or not we’d want to watch each pair of characters in the future. The criteria for said ranking isn’t simply whether or not the conversation was enjoyable (although that’s part of it). Which is why I feel compelled to give them a ranking. In true Game of Thrones fashion, the execution was all over the map. But in ‘Beyond the Wall,’ we got a flurry of conversations between characters, some of whom had never met, that dumped exposition by the truckload. All of these reunions brought different levels of emotional payoff and served a variety of purposes along the way. Jon and Gendry commiserating over the friendship of their fathers was unexpectedly charming Jon greeting Theon Greyjoy with an ‘I should be killing you right now’ stare was tense Cersei finally coming face to face with Ellaria Sand was particularly unnerving. But there has also been a number of great below the top line pairings that have brought fans delight. The primary meeting being Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, for sure.
One of the hallmarks of Thrones‘ seventh season, for better or worse, is the mixing and mashing of characters who have long been on opposite sides of the map. This week, I tossed in a third rewatch because while that final battle sequence is awesome, I really wanted to revisit all the walk-and-talk business from the first half of ‘Beyond The Wall.’ There’s so much joy in it. I always rewatch at least once before I write my weekly Game of Thrones explained column and a second time before we record A Storm of Spoilers. How many times have you rewatched the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones season 7 this week? For me, it’s been a few.
Assessing which brave companion pairings we’d like to see more of on ‘Game of Thrones.’