As always, come for Robb’s fuzzy collar, stay for Catelyn’s OMG WE ARE SO FUCKED NOW face. All the Stark feelings.

There was a LOT in here, so let’s get right to it. Quick takes:

Pick only one to kill you: Qyburn’s scraggle-toothed hooker murder mob vs. Walder Frey’s seething roil of filthy yelling suckups.

Nipple count: Only two, on the hooker Pycelle was maestering.

People I’m glad are dead and why: Lord Puff Fish (furry), Pycelle (sticky), Tommen (wuss), Lancel Lannister (dead-eyed straightedge skinhead), Loras (boring & whiny), WALDER FUCKING FREY WHO WAS THE FUCKING WORST.

People I’m bummed are dead and why: Margaery (pretty hair), High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce’s voice + interesting), Loras (only confirmed gay fellow), Daario (still alive but dumped so hard that’s a technicality).

Favorite outfits: Cersei’s Galliano Darth Vader getup, Margaery’s tiny little bitty dog-costume crown, Gilly’s freegan-meadow-maiden dress, and literally anything you put on Sansa including the eight dead possums she’s currently sporting.

Things that were not surprising: Jon Snow being a Seekrit Targaryen, which has been broadcast from ep one this year. Lyanna Mormont being a badass. The foreshadowing of CleganeBowl, which will be like the Battle of the Bastards only bloody and violent.

Hardest thing to watch: TV doesn’t usually make me cry but Davos’s speech about Shireen did it. I’ve been madly in love with Liam Cunningham since A Little Princess and he fucking brought it tonight. She was such a minor character, to leave such a large shadow, but between her actual death episode and that, Shireen will stick with people.

Easiest thing to watch: Arya swapping in for Lady Stoneheart. I love Stoneheart’s story and the Brotherhood’s narrative, but if we’re going to have a ghost haunting the Riverlands hanging Freys, I’m good with it being her. She deserves it.

Random dumb thing: Sam, fuck’s sake. There are no women allowed in Oldtown, so what does Sammy do? Shows up with a babe and a baby. And like what is Baby Sam supposed to do, teethe on a rock while they’re waiting? That being said, my inner book dork swooned at that library. WANT. All the want.

What if all your dreams came true?

Jon Snow runs his fingers over the back of Ned Stark’s chair. When the family had feasts, he always sat in the back, with the servants. Now he sits at the head of the table, under Winterfell’s roof, and men raise their swords and shout his name. The King in the North, his father’s son.

“How many men died because you were wrong?” Davos asked Melisandre, and she looked at Jon Snow.

That’s not the question. The question is:

How many died because you were right?

Cersei Lannister sits the Iron Throne, victorious, a queen. Queen you shall be, the fortune-teller promised. Gold their crowns and gold their shrouds. She wanted to make a big noise, Cersei, louder than any king, than any man. Sometimes all it takes is everything you have, to get everything you want. Long may she reign, shouts the crowd, and in the stillness of her, at her center, because Lena Headey is a genius, you could hear her asking: “Why?”

Danaerys stands at the head of an army, on the deck of a dragon ship. Tyrion kneels before her and rises, Hand once more. I’ve been hard on Tyrion this season because he’s been an insufferable piece of fanservice, but he humbled himself  before Dany and you could feel his fear: When he had nothing, there was nothing they could take from him.

If you don’t have a god, your god can’t betray you. If you don’t sing to the nightfires, pray to the Seven, talk to the trees or give the Faceless gift, you can pretend you’re alone, living by your wits and your guts, dependent only on yourself. If you don’t have a home, or a family, or a king, you don’t have to die for them, and you don’t have to use them to kill.

We wall ourselves off, with ice and snow, a thousand feet high. We weave spells into the foundations, ancient magics carved in stone. We put the darkness on one side, and tell ourselves we’re the light.

Winter is here, Sansa says to Jon, and they smile, helplessly, the only two that share the memory of their father saying the words.

There’s always something to believe in. There’s always something more they can take.

A.