Game of Thrones: “The Long Night,” or Not Today

The biggest surprise about last night’s epic battle for Winterfell is that there wasn’t a big surprise.  Going into the season it was easy to predict that the end of episode three (the longest battle in TV or film history, we were told repeatedly) would end with someone sticking a piece of dragon glass or Valyrian steel into the Night King and bringing that story line to an end.

Then I read and listened to so many theories that I convinced myself the showrunners would not go for anything so obvious.  After all, solving the existential threat at the heart of the Game of Thrones extended universe with three episodes to go is bound to leave the remainder of the series an anticlimax, right?  And certainly they would come up with something more ingenious than a knife to the gut or a spear to the chest, right?

I’m not going to complain about the moment when Arya somehow leaped over 10,000 wights, pulled that very cool hand switch, dropping the knife from one hand to the other, and plunged it in. Am I the only one who who was reminded of the great scene in “The Karate Kid” when Ralph Macchio defeats a bigger and stronger opponent with one surprise kick? And of course it was satisfying that the knife in question was the one that almost killed Bran and started the whole battle between the Starks and Lannisters back in season one.  But still, I did feel a little let down at the storytelling conventionality at the heart of the episode, including this particular deus ex machina.

This is not to say there weren’t several glorious moments.  The beginning scenes were particularly thrilling.  The first sight of Sam rushing through the castle, quickly cut with our other heroes getting into place — Tyrian, Bran, Sansa and Arya — and others in formation on the battlefield — Brienne, Gendry, Podrick, Edd, — were an immediate reminder of what is at stake on a human scale.  (Although what the hell was Ghost doing in the front lines of the battle anyway?  His superpower is ripping out the throats of his enemies; that seems particularly unsuited to combating the undead.)

The one actual surprise of the episode was reappearance of Melisandre, although how she managed to make her way through an army of wights is a very good question — maybe she’s the one who taught Arya how to do it.  Melisandre has had many bad ideas over the years — Stannis, Shireen, not giving Gendry the full ride he deserved — and you can now add lighting the Dothraki swords on fire to the list.  This gets them all riled up and eager to charge the wights — a beautiful but futile gesture.

Granted, the way director Miguel Sapochnik filmed it — with a long silent shot of the horsemen charging out in the blackness and the lights being slowly extinguished — was eerie and unsettling, but it seems to have accomplished nothing.  If anything it was reminiscent of those World War I movies featuring the cavalry charging machine guns and getting mowed down.

And just like that, the Dothraki army that Dany spent years assembling is extinguished in the snow of the North.

The hyper-disciplined unsullied seem to do a little better.  They are in a defensive position anyway.  And even though they are outnumbered, it’s very satisfying to see them decapitating their share of wights.  (Although I’m not sure what they are actually accomplishing since regular steel doesn’t actually kill wights, correct?)  I appreciate seeing Grey Worm’s apparent fear and exhaustion, which makes his decision to lead Melisandre out to the trench even more heroic.  And sure, it takes the red witch numerous incantations to set the trench aflame, but when she does it’s a great moment, as is the wights’ eventual plan to throw their bodies on the flames and clamor over each other to get past the trench.

At this point, it’s clear nothing is working against these guys.  And as much as I hate to be a Monday morning quarterback, you have to wonder about that battle plan.  Why wasn’t the burning trench the first line of defense?  Why put all your men in front of the trench and sacrifice thousands before deploying your best weapon?  Wouldn’t it have been better to: 1) light the trench; 2) have your guys shooting flaming dragon glass arrows through the trench into the immobilized wights on the other side; and 3) then have the dragons swoop down and incinerate as many as possible.

In any event, this first stage of the battle — outside the castle — is the best part of the show.  Once the wights start climbing up the walls and breach the ramparts, the action becomes more complicated and confusing.  All the slashing and chopping is tough to follow, especially in the dark.  For example, at some point Dolorous Edd gets killed, but I didn’t even notice.

The hand-to-hand combat is interspersed with quieter and creepier moments inside the supposedly safer parts of the castle, including the crypt and the library.  I liked the nice rapprochement between Tyrian and Sansa, advancing my theory that they will end up as the other power couple in Westeros.  Although you would think Sansa would give her antipathy to Dany a rest when the Mother of Dragons is out there fighting to save humanity and she’s cowering in the crypt.

There’s not a lot of point of recapping everything that happens once the wights get inside the walls.  A lot of people almost get killed but don’t. Sam, in particular, spends practically the whole time lying on his back swarmed by wights but comes through unscathed.  Almost every time one character saves saves the life of another character the favor is returned (e.g., Arya saves the House and he saves her later).  Symmetry is good in architecture but quickly cliched in storytelling.  It also seems like every character has a moment of cowering before being re-energized.  This is most satisfyingly demonstrated when the Hound wants to give up, saying, “You can’t beat death,” only to have Beric respond by pointing to Arya and saying, “tell her that.”

Just about half-way through the episode I realized that the clock is not my friend.  It was 9:45 p.m. and I knew there was another 40 minutes to go.  Already it was desperately dire inside Winterfell, my blood pressure was sky-high, and I began to seriously wonder if the good guys might actually lose.  How would they fill out the rest of the episode?

Some dragon fights helped pass the time. The shot of the two dragons up where the air was clear and peaceful, was sublime, but less sublime was the dragon-on-dragon action.  It was hard to tell which dragon was which and in the end the whole thing didn’t matter because even after the Night King fell off Viserion, he somehow landed on his feet and was able to brush off a full blast of dragonfire.

Does anything matter?

And here’s where we get to the crux of my vague disappointment with the episode: nothing mattered.  That sounds as nihilistic as anything the Night King has to offer but in the end, all the dragon glass mining, Valaryian steel hording, fiery weapons-making, strategy-planning didn’t change anything.  The army of the undead was just too massive.  It was touching, sad, and inspiring when the pint-sized Lyanna Mormont died killing the reanimated giant, but would it have made any difference if she hadn’t?

In the end, it all comes down to Arya’s leap at the Night King as he’s approaching Bran.  If she kills him the world survives; if not, it doesn’t.  Everything that happened before that is a distraction.  You can make the argument that all the preceding action was necessary to lure the Night King in, and I suppose he was caught off guard because he’d supposedly defeated everyone, but that leads to another objection:  the Night King has literally been waiting for this moment for EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS and he couldn’t wait another fifteen minutes to mop up all the remaining humans?  What’s the rush?  Why expose yourself?  And again, what are his white walker aides-de-camp doing at this moment? How can they let Arya in?  I guess this comes from her training?

And while we’re at it — Bran, this is the best you’ve got?  There was a moment when I thought Bran was going to go back in time and change history again.  Instead he just warged into some ravens.  What was that all about?  Up until the very last minute I thought he had some super plan up his sleeve, but I guess not (unless he already knew the future and knew that Arya was coming).

Speaking of Arya — this has been a pretty good night for her — within hours she lost her virginity to the super hunky Gendry (who seems to have survived!) AND she saved humanity by accomplishing something that no one else has been able to do for EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS.

Not Enough Deaths?

When the episode was over the first twitter post I saw complained that the body count was a little skimpy, and yeah, I have to agree.

It’s not that I wanted more people to die but after all these seasons I expected a little more realism out of the series.  There were so many characters on the front lines and they were all constantly in mortal danger.  There were at least two times when I thought Brienne had bought the farm but then she popped up again.  Worse, in the last five to ten minutes of the battle we were cued to expect a slaughter through the use of sad slow music.  This is a trick I first noticed in the movie “Platoon,” which relied heavily on Samuel Barber’s “Adagio and Strings.”

Usually the sad music means someone will die; but not here (although Jorah does get stabbed).  The important deaths come before and after this sequence.  And while we’re complaining, I really didn’t like it that Arya killed the Night King just as Viserion was about to blast Jon and the wights were on the verge of wiping out the rest of our heroes.  That just-in-the-nick-of-time trope was tired even in the silent movie era.

As for the deaths themselves.  Here they are in order of importance.

Theon: There seemed to be some difference of opinion by commentators after the battle as to whether Theon deserved his redemption.  I was slightly moved, but not much, by Bran’s absolution: “Everything you did brought you where you belong — home,” and later, “You’re a good man.  Thank you.”  I know we feel sorry that he was tortured, but he did kill a few kids and grievously betray the Starks.  Also, apparently he had no choice but to rush at the Knight King with that spear, but what a futile gesture.  He gets swatted away like a fly.

Ser Jorah: This was slightly sadder, but he’s been such a stiff it was hard to care too much.  He died doing what he was committed to — defending his Khaleesi — so that was nice.  This leaves Dany without someone she trusts implicitly, so this will make her insecure going forward.

Melisandre: She said she would die in the North so her appearance shouldn’t have been a surprise, other than the fact that she showed up at exactly the right time.  I am not sure how we are supposed to think about the Lord of Light, the one true God.  This god does seem to have some powers, although this is a very Old Testament God, not the more forgiving God of the New Testament.

Lady Mormont:  We should have known she was doomed because the show does have a fixation on killing children. And sure enough, that pint of peanuts went down fighting, killing the biggest wight of them all.  Thematically, this prefigured the end, when the second-tiniest Warrior (Arya) killed an even larger monster.  This battle killed two Mormonts, though (see Ser Jorah above.  I wonder if there are any Mormonts left to lead that House.  Also, I wonder if Sam gets his sword back now.)

Beric: Supposedly, we learn from Melisandre, that the reason Beric kept returning from the dead is so that he could eventually save Arya.  Oh come on.  How deterministic is this universe?  I really don’t think she knows what she’s talking about have the time.  Her predictions are like me trying to read chicken entrails.

Edd:  I guess he died.  I didn’t notice, but that’s what Twitter said after the episode.

Not dead:  I don’t want to harp on this but how is Grey Worm still standing? Or Brienne, the Hound, Jaime, Ghost or anyone else who was fighting out on the open field in front of the castle walls?  Not that I wanted them to die but the cloak of invulnerability that seemed to cover them seems like a cheat.

Some Odds and Ends

Callbacks:  As the series wears on, there are numerous callbacks to earlier episodes and Arya gets two.  I don’t know how Milesandre knows to pull out this old chestnut, but when Arya’s feeling a little down she says, There is only one god, and His name is Death. And what do we say to death?”  Not today,” Arya responds, remembering the advice given to her by Syrio Forel, the master sword-fighter and instructor hired by Eddard Stark to train her.

And then, when Arya tells Sansa to go to the crypts and gives her a sword, her advice is, “Stick them with the pointy end,” a callback to the very sweet scene in the second episode when Jon gives her needle.”  The video below is more emotional than anything in this episode.

The Crypt:  After all the teasing about the dead Starks being reanimated from the crypt, I couldn’t really tell if it happened or not.  My wife says yes, but I thought the undead terrorizing Gilly and the others were wights from above who had broken through. And during that library scene was Arya fighting Stark undead or ones from the north?  Also, how is it that hardly anyone in the crypt was killed? They were all defenseless and yet I think even Shireen 2.0 survived.  Was there a point in Arya giving Sansa that weapon?  For a second I thought she and Tyrion were committed to a suicide pact.

Tyrian: His two scenes with Sansa were nice, but I was definitely expecting him to play a bigger role in solving the riddle to the battle — as did he.  And yet all he did was complain about being sidelined; he didn’t even fight the wights when they broke in.  I assume he will have a bigger, smarter role to play later in the season.

Clean-up.  How are they going to clean up the mess left behind by the battle? I don’t know if the wights just disappear but even the body count of dead humans looks pretty overwhelming.  I assume the ground is frozen and they can’t bury anyone.  On the positive side, there’s a lot fewer mouths to feed.

I assume the Winterfell grounds look something like this

Jon And Dany:  That was a classic, “let’s talk later” situation after last week’s big reveal about Jon’s parentage.  They barely exchanged two words but they did save each other’s life a few times so maybe that will smooth things over.

The independence of the North:  I am sick of Sansa’s continued complaining about how the North needs to remain independent. Her own father bent the knee to Robert Baratheon so I don’t see what the problem is with pledging allegiance to the woman who just sacrificed most of her armies to save Winterfell.

Climate change: The existential threat of the Night King has been compared to the real world challenge of climate change; i.e., something that could destroy humanity while we petty humans squabble over our small advantages.  Well now, does this mean we can stop worrying?  Maybe we can get our own Arya Stark to solve the problem with a flick of the wrist.  And while we’re at it, I suppose we won’t need to wall any longer, or the Night’s Watch either.  And have we heard the last of “Winter is coming” (except by unimaginative politicians).

The future:  I can’t even begin to speculate what will happen over the next three episodes.   I assume there’s a final showdown with Cersei coming but what happens before then?  I hope they don’t create unnecessary problems that they need to solve to stretch things out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game of Thrones: “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” or, I Guess I’ve Changed

When I was growing up, television’s big concession to faith was to show  “The Robe,” every Easter Sunday.   This was a classic 1950’s sword and sandal Hollywood epic about the soldier who won Jesus’ robe after the crucifixion.  Television has long ago stopped catering to the religious impulses of its audiences and when I saw that “Game of Thrones” would be airing on Easter Sunday this year I feared that the usual carnage would spoil my holiday mood.

But lo and behold,  “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was completely devoid of violence, physical or emotional.  Suffused with melancholy, and anticipating their imminent deaths, the characters make noble gestures and ruminate at length on how they have evolved throughout the series.

Going into the episode we had two major plot questions: 1) how would the Winterfell gang react to Jaime’s sudden and solitary appearance inside their walls (and btw, who the heck is overseeing castle security, because he should be fired after allowing a Lannister to waltz in unmolested), and 2) would Jon tell Dany about his parentage and how would she take it?

As it turns out, these major plot points bookend the beginning and the end of the episode and are ironed out in less than five minutes each, leaving plenty of time in between for people to sit around and make heartfelt speeches to each other.

The Jaime “trial” is dispensed with quickly.  Dany makes some threats related to how he killed her father and then Sansa jumps in to bitch about how he helped kill HER father, so it looks dire, especially when Jamie’s primary advocate is the disgraced Tyrion.  But we know this is not how Jaime Lannister exits the series and sure enough Brienne speaks up and vouches for him as a man of honor, recounting how he lost his hand defending her and that moreover Sansa is alive because of him.  The logic, I guess is that Jaime saved Brienne’s life and four seasons later she saved Sansa’s life.  I’m not sure the cause and effect are that closely linked, but Sansa completely flips her opinion and Dany has to back down when Jon is “whatever. Let’s keep him.”

Except for the opening and closing scenes, Jon Snow is almost invisible in this episode because he’s avoiding Dany — the stereotypical shifty boyfriend who’s got bad news and doesn’t want to face the music.  But finally, Dany tracks him down in the crypt, because what else are you going to do on the night before you might die than look at subterranean statues?  Jon blurts out the news that his father is Dany’s older brother and that his mother is the woman he always thought was his aunt.  But now he has a new aunt, right?  Aunt Daenerys doesn’t reflect upon the incest part at all and is immediately “Wait, that makes you the heir to the Iron Throne. How convenient!” Given that the battle to save mankind is about to begin, maybe this wasn’t the best time for Jon to drop this on her.

Aside from these two plot advancements left over from last week, there’s really only one new narrative development for us to absorb: Bran’s revelation that the Night King is coming for HIM because what he’s really seeking is complete annihilation of everything.  Whaaaaat? If the Night King kills Bran the world will end?  And we’ll prevent that by having Bran sit quietly by a tree defended by Theon?  The whole future of humanity depends on Theon?

According to Bran, the Night King wants to erase this world and Bran himself is the world’s memory, like his brain contains all of Amazon’s cloud-based storage capacity.  I’m not sure how Bran morphed from a mere warg to being the linchpin of human existence but this revelation does result in an emotional outburst from Sam: “That’s what death is isn’t it?  Forgetting — being forgotten.  If we forget what we’ve been and what we’ve done we’re not men anymore.  Just animals. Your memories [i.e., Bran’s memories] don’t come from books.  Your stories aren’t just stories.  If I wanted to erase the race of men I’d start with you.”  This sounds deep, but does this mean that Bran has to live forever or else mankind comes to an end?  And does this just affect Westeros or are the folks in Esteros covered too?  Better not think too hard about this.

Some Themes

This episode is preoccupied with memories and by taking a pause in the action before the plot propels itself forward next week, the show gives us an opportunity to reflect on our own memories of the past seven seasons.  Most of us have, in reality, forgotten more than we can remember of this densely plotted show but the episode evokes some powerful memories through various narrative devices including:

• Brienne recapping how Jaime defended her;
• The vivid image of the little girl with the partially burned face, who looked so much like Stannis Baratheon’s daughter Shireen;
• Gendry revealing to Arya that he’s Robert Baratheon’s bastard;
• Jon, Sam and Dolorous Edd, on the wall, recalling Gren and Pyp, their dead friends from the Night’s Watch (“its just us three now”).
• Arya’s revealing her scars, a physical reminder of what she’s lived through.

If there’s an overarching theme to the episode it’s “I’ve changed.”  We hear that over and again, perhaps most explicitly when the Hound gibes Arya for not gabbing all the time like she used to and she responds: “I guess I’ve changed.”  But so many other characters have changed too, starting with The Hound himself, once a brutal killer and now practically a softy.  There’s also Jaime, who, as Bran says, became a different person because he pushed him out of a window, and his brother Tyrion, who’s no longer interested in whore-mongering.  And don’t forget Samwell Tarley, once a physical coward and now a killer of white walkers and defender of Gilly. And of course the two ladies calling the shots — Dany and Sansa — have changed most of all, from silly and/or timorous girls in the very first episode to hardened leaders now.

With no real plot to develop, the episode gives its characters plenty of time to meditate on their impending demise.  This is straight out of dozens of Hollywood war movies like “The Alamo,” where warriors and their camp followers become reflective on the eve of battle.  Winterfell has become “The Alamo” on steroids.  Three quarters of the show’s currently living characters are holed up there and they all get a few minutes to show off their acting chops.

Some Great Scenes

Here’s the trade-off for the “Game of Thrones” actors: we’ll give you an emotional scene in this episode that you can use for your Emmy nomination reel, but that means you have to die next week.

The clear emotional highlight of the episode was Jaime knighting Brienne (it’s interesting, though, that of all the characters on the show she has changed the least — she’s remains the honor-bound defender of whomever she’s pledged to defend).  The episode even gets its title from the moment when she becomes a knight of the seven kingdoms.  It’s triply emotional that Jaime is the one doing the deed even though Tormund lasciviously offers to knight her ten times, which sounds like an offer you can definitely refuse.  But you can’t help but feel that this is Brienne’s big send-off.

The knighting is the emotional climax of the scene that is the heart of the episode: Tyrion, Jaime, Brienne, Podrick, Tormund and Davos, sitting around the fireplace, drinking, reminiscing, and telling tall stories.  My guess is that out of this group, Brienne will not be the only one to perish in the Battle of Winterfell.  Tormund also gets an extended scene played mostly for laughs in which he claims that as a ten-year-old boy he killed a giant and then was suckled by the giant’s wife for three months.  Yeah, that sounds like Tormund’s last great moment.

Davos’ farewell moment doesn’t come in that fireplace scene but in the previously mentioned encounter with the young girl with the burned face.  Davos has just given the sailors under his command a rah rah talk that boosts their morale ahead of the battle.  But he is pulled up short by the appearance of Shireen.2, who wonders if she should go to battle or take safety in the crypt.  The poignancy of the burned-face-girl is heightened by what is not said.  When Gilly materializes, neither she nor Davos mention Shireen, even though both of them were taught to read by the girl with the greyscale and both are probably reeling at the memory.   And this emotional moment probably signs Davos’ death warrant.  That and being positioned in the front lines to hold off the army of the dead while Bran lures the Night King.

Also doomed: Grey Worm.  If you want to get yourself fated for a quick exit in popular culture the best way to do it is to make plans to retire to the beach with your girlfriend “when the war is over.”  Sweet scene, but obviously included to prepare us for Grey Worm’s departure.

Another significant moment in the episode is Arya’s sex scene, a phrase I never thought I would have to write.  Of course we all feel uncomfortable about this, having been introduced to Arya as an 11-year-old girl.  I’m happier making jokes about the Jon/Dany incest complication than I am about looking at Arya’s nude body, which make me feel like a perv.  Having said that, I have to admit that she does have the best idea of anyone in the castle.  At a time when everyone else is drinking, telling sob stories, giving away swords, and worrying about who’s bending the knee to whom, pre-battle sex does sound like the right option.  And it’s not exactly like they didn’t tease this.  For two episodes now she and Gendry have been shooting each smoldering looks as they flirt over spears.  According to my logic this must mean that either Gendry or Arya will die next episode but I just can’t believe GoT would heartless enough to kill either of them so I’m holding out hope for a little luck for Arya.

The final outstanding scene worth mentioning is the attempted rapprochement between Sansa and Dany.  Dany makes the first move at Ser Jorah’s suggestion  and this is about the first smart thing she’s done since coming north.  It almost makes me think she could be a good ruler again after all.  When Sansa says she doubts Jon’s judgment because he’s a man and men are easily manipulated (really, what does this guy need to do to get some respect?) Dany makes the excellent point that she’s up north with her armies and dragons defending Jon’s home, so who manipulated who?  This softens Sansa and they even bond over a joke about Jon’s height.  (While we’re at it can we cut out the Jon Snow height jokes? According to Wikipedia, Kit Harrington is the same height I am — 5’8″ — so he’s not exactly a shrimp.)  But then Sansa goes and ruins this nice girl-talk mood by asserting the North’s independence.   Again, is this the right time for this discussion?  Can we focus please on the immediate problem — like the potential destruction of all civilization — before arguing about who will be the nominal ruler of the seven kingdoms?

Some Random Observations

Am I the only one who was surprised at Sansa’s rapturous reception of Theon?  I know he helped her jump off the wall and escape from Ramsay Bolton, but his previous treachery resulted in the death of her mother and two brothers.  Yet she gives him a warmer welcome than she gave the legitimately heroic Jon.  Does the North really remember?

Podrick’s continues to amaze us with his previously undisclosed talents.  We’ve seen that he’s a lover, and apparently now he’s fighter. And he’s a singer? His rendition of “Jenny of Oldstones” is deeply affecting and yet another emotional highlight.  According to the Internet, the lyrics are meaningful to the future of the show (or maybe not, it could got either way).  The song describes a Targaryon prince — Duncan — who gave up his claim to the throne for love.  According to a piece in Vanity Fair: “In A Dance with Dragons, Barristan Selmy tells Daenerys: ‘The Prince of Dragonflies loved Jenny of Oldstones so much he cast aside a crown, and Westeros paid the price in corpses.’ Duncan, Jenny (probably), and a number of other famous names from Westerosi lore died in a huge fire called the Tragedy of Summerhall that is believed to be the result of Duncan’s father, King Aegon V, attempting to bring back dragons to Westeros. It was there, during the fire, that Daenerys’s brother and Jon’s father, Prince Rhaegar was born.”

Hmm, do we know another Targaryan prince who might give up power for love?  If so, I hope he doesn’t end up like Duncan.

We hear the song twice.  Once sung by Pod and the second time in the credits, performed by Florence and the Machine, the version of which was immediately released as a video.  Click below for an emotional wring-out.

Fantasy fans will of course recall that it is a trope of fantasy films to have a secondary character sing a sweet and sad Irishy tune before a major battle.  (See Pippin’s song from “The Lord of the Rings” below.)

Ghost is back!  Over the last two episodes we’ve seen every possible reunion except one that we really wanted — John and his direwolf.  Instead all we get is a brief glimpse of Jon sitting with Ghost.   Did the showrunners think we’ve been reunioned out?  Maybe, but they still found time for the Hound and Arya to be reunited with Beric Dondarrion, the guy who keeps getting killed and brought back to life.

This is the best we could do for Ghost? 

There’s a lot of chatter about who gets to fight and who goes to the crypt.  To the crypt go fire-face girl, Gilly, Gilly’s baby (unseen so far), and Tyrion.  To the battle go Lady Monmount and Sam.  And as mentioned last week, is the crypt really the safest place to be during an attack of white walkers?

As I also noted last week, Bran gets most of the laugh-out-loud lines.  When Jaime, at his trial, says he did it all for his family, Bran interjects “The things I do for love,” which is exactly what Jaime said just before cold-heartedly pushing Bran out the tower window.  As a bot, Bran doesn’t hold a grudge or have any other emotions, but he does retain a dry wit.

I’m pretty sure that neither Sam nor Jon will die in the impending battle.  Neither of them got an emotional send-off with their girlfriends.  As noted Jon was barely in the show this week so that all the other characters could have their final moments with us.  Jon is the heart of the show and they are not going to kill him (again) without some powerful and sad farewell.

This must have been the least-expensive episode to produce in GoT history.  One set and no action at all.  No CGI or other special effects until the white walkers appear.  You could turn this episode into a play and college drama classes would easily be able to replicate it on a minimal budget.

Speaking of CGI, we’ve neither seen hide nor hair of the Night King or his reanimated dragon.   Even during that last chilling scene with the mounted white walkers prepared to charge Winterfell, the Night King was nowhere to be seen.  Does that mean he’s taken some forces south and that the whole Winterfell attack is a diversion?  Ugh, I hope not.  The coming attractions and trailers haven’t offered one frame or clue beyond what happens in these first three episodes and I think they are saving their biggest surprises for the second half of the season — surprises that do not concern the undead.

Arya and Gendry’s getting it on fulfills King Robert’s dearest wish to unite the Stark and Baratheon families.  No one would have guessed it would come this way, though.

Will Tyrion ever get his mojo back?  All the women on the show have spent this season mocking him for his various missteps (interesting that the men seem more forgiving).  Tyrion is self-aware enough to realize his problem is that like other clever people he underestimated his opponents.  He’s always been smart but maybe with that insight he will finally become wise.

Do we really believe Gendry has been with three women before Arya?  I always thought he was a virgin before that incident with the Red Witch.  I assume Arya was looking for someone who was reasonably experienced in that area to make it worth her while if this turns out to be her last night on earth but she’s not really in the position to demand references, so I hoped this worked out for her.

Worst tweet of the night?  From Elizabeth Warren, who shows that among a certain class of people, everything needs to be filtered through an identity politics prism.  And what staffer do you suppose was commissioned to write her recap?: “Why do I love #GameOfThrones? It’s the women (duh!). Looking forward to tonight’s episode. In the meantime, you can read my review of the season premiere here. https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-review-game-of-thrones-season-8.html …

Next week?

The coming attractions didn’t show us much that we already haven’t seen.  Again, no sign of dragons or the Night King but we do know from various media reports that the battle for Winterfell will be the longest filmed battle in cinema and television history, so we can assume next week’s show will be brutal.  Hope you enjoyed the respite.

 

 

Game of Thrones: “Winterfell,” or So Many Reunions

The last time I was this excited about a television event — chewing my fingernails, counting down the clock, anticipating an epic showdown, the whole nine yards — was, um, well actually, it was two months ago with the Super Bowl.

And just like that game between the Patriots and the Rams, the Season Eight premier of “Game of Thrones” (“Winterfell”) was a bit of a letdown.  Perhaps it was inevitable that this episode would consist almost entirely of setting up the rest of the season, putting everyone in place for when the real action starts.  But it was still kind of a downer.  (And no, scenes of a wight going up in flames or of Jon and Dany swooping through the canyons of the north — as scary and lovely as they were — are not really enough to make up for all those cranky reunions.)

Perhaps the biggest excitement of the episode was in the title sequence: whoa, there’s the fallen wall and we even see the crypt.  And what’s all this about the crypt, anyway?  The producers are clearly signaling that there’s something important down there but what?  I sure hope all those dead bodies aren’t going to turn into wights when the white walkers approach.  Or is the secret something magical?  Stay tuned because we won’t be finding out tonight.

The sequence immediately after the opening credits was also quite nice.  There’s an urchin scrambling to get a good look at the pageantry of the approaching Targaryen armies, which recalls the young Arya from the very first episode of the series also securing a good vantage point to witness the entry of King Robert’s procession.  And then, to drive the point home, there’s the fully-grown Arya in the crowd, a stand-in for the rest of us as we get reintroduced to the various characters.  There’s the regal Jon and Daenerys (yay!), the brutal Hound (boo), the brave Gendry (yay!), the squabbling Tyrion and Varys (meh), and the stoic Greyworm and Missandei (yay!)

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen these folks so there’s a certain throat-tightening to have them back in our lives.  And we’ve looked eagerly to their reunions — won’t they be as thrilled to see each otheras we are to see them?

Well, not exactly.  It was to be expected that the Jon/Bran reunion would not be everything we’d want, given that Braniac’s a super-warg.  Jon, at least, is emotional.  Bran-Bot not so much (I’m trying out various nicknames for Bran, in case you didn’t notice.)  But I had expected a warmer meeting between Tyrion and Sansa.  Both had been victimized by Tywin and Cersei and had behaved kindly towards each other when married back in Kings Landing but now they both act distant and aggrieved.

And so it goes.  This episode is full of the scowling and side-eyes you’d expect at a Murdoch family reunion.  And why not? When this gang gets together, everyone or everyone’s father has killed everyone else’s father or brother.

The reunion between Arya and Jon goes somewhat better and does moisten the eyes for a brief moment.  Arya still has Needle, which is nice, but instead of giving Jon her full support after he survived a sword in the heart, she gives him grief for bringing back a foreign Queen.

And here we get to the heart of the matter, in order to set the table for the rest of the season, the showrunners need to set up conflicts and obstacles for our heroes to overcome.  But we the eager viewers just want to move directly to the battles, confrontations, reconciliations and bittersweet ending.

So, Conflict One is the north’s resentment that Jon gave up his title as “King of the North” and bent the knee to a Targaryen.  As the extremely direct Lady Marmont says (and wouldn’t you hate to be her elementary school teacher?) “You left Winterfell a king and came back … I’m not sure what you are now? A lord?  Nothing at all?”  Boy toy is not the answer she was looking for.

Time and again we hear that the people of the North don’t like outsiders and Jon’s explanation that he’s really doing them a favor falls on deaf ears.  And this is Jon’s lot in life. To see the big picture before everyone else.  To be asked to lead and then to have everyone second guess him when he does.  To be betrayed by the people he’s trying to help. And frankly this is a drag after all these years.

Something else that’s a bit of a downer is trying to remember why we liked some of these characters in the first place.  There’s been a lot of critical commentary about how great it is that GoT has strong female characters, but in this episode at least they’re all a bit of a pill.  You expect it from the evil Cersei, but Sansa and Dany are so hung up on their own prerogatives — who’s bending that goddamn knee — that it’s actually unpleasant.

Dany’s attempts at diplomacy don’t really go so well either.  She tries to flatter Sansa with compliments about her beauty and hospitality, which get only a frosty response.  But that’s a lei-throwing-Hawaiian-style welcome compared to her interaction with Sam.  Now if I were Queen Daenerys, I would sure bitch about my staffing.  No one thought to tell her that the last name of her boyfriend’s best friend was Tarley?  She goes in to bestow her beneficence on the guy who cured Ser Jorah’s greyscale and end’s up having to admit, “yeah I burned up your father and brother.”  Awkward.

Sansa’s not much more likable.  When she’s not complaining about all the mouths she’s got to feed, or dissing Tyion’s intelligence, or implying that Jon sold them out because he’s in love with Dany, she’s sending poor Ned Umber off to his death in a vain attempt to bring bring the people of Last Hearth to Winterfell.

I think the odds of Sansa ending up Queen of the whole shebang increased considerably this episode.  She’s showing herself to be a capable administrator and good short-term strategist.  Arya goes so far as to say that she’s “The smartest person I know,” and Tyrion observes that “many underestimated you — many of them are dead now.”  Presumably she’ll warm up a bit in subsequent episodes.  But for now she’s acting like the responsible spouse who’s annoyed that the other spouse brought home so many free-loading friends on short notice.

Before we turn our attention South, we have to discuss two more Winterfell reunions.

First, Jon and Sam’s reunion is not as satisfying as it should have been because: a) “your girlfriend burned up my family;” and b) “your dad’s not your dad.”  It’s significant that this conversation takes place in the crypt, although why Jon is in the crypt is unclear since Ned Stark’s remains are not there.  But you know who IS down there, Jon?  Mom.  Oh, and by the way, you’re the real heir to the Iron Throne.

Of course Jon is staggered, not having had the benefit of the 600 days we’ve had to absorb this plot twist.  Having once been miserable as a bastard, he has now come to embrace it.  He does have Stark blood, just from the wrong side.  And as Jon shrinks from the prospect of displacing Daenerys as the legitimate ruler of Westeros, Sam sticks in the sword, leaving a wound of doubt — you could have executed men for disloyalty but you didn’t; you gave up the crown to save your people but would she?  Probably not and Jon knows it.

The other reunion worth mentioning happens in the concluding scene of the show.  My wife pointed out that when Sam stumbled upon Bran-Brain on his way to see Jon he asked what he was doing sitting outside and Bran said, “waiting for an old friend.”  Well, lo and behold, that friend is Jaime Lannister and the last time THEY were together Jaime pushed a pre-ward Bran out of a window.  I’m sure Jaime’s reaction is “Damn, THAT kid’s still alive?”  Of course now it’s a very different Jaime and a completely different Bran, but I can’t wait to hear what they say to each other.

Meanwhile in King’s Landing

The episode is titled “Winterfell,” but a few notable things do happen in Kings Landing.  For starters, there’s Cersei drinking wine, which prompts a few Internet geniuses to wonder if she’s really pregnant.  What these folks don’t know is that because it’s only been a few decades since we started obsessing about maternal health, almost every Baby Boomer survived a womb marinated in martinis, whisky sours, daiquiris and white Russians.   That unborn baby is lucky Cersei’s not also sucking away on Parliament cigarettes.

They big news down there is that Euron Greyjoy is back with the the Golden Company — 20,000 men and 2,000 horses but no elephants alas, because well, until now no one really thought through that elephants and boats don’t mix. (And man, is Cersei bummed that there are no pacyderms.  I guess she always wanted to go to the circus.)

I’m a little surprised that Euron was able to get across the sea and back in such a short time but I guess it’s a little late in the game to be be raising questions about how long it takes people to get from Place A to Place B.

In any event, along with the Golden Company is their commander, a Captain Strickland, who’s dressed like the most magnificent Roman centurion of all time.  Undoubtedly we will see a lot more of this guy but I do feel compelled to ask, is it really fair to be introducing new characters this late in the series?   Apparently the Golden Company have a long backstory in the books — feel free to Google them — and it seems like they could have surfaced sooner than this.

Strickland is presumably a good guy because he doesn’t look happy that Eruon killed a few of his men in a gambling argument.  The Golden Company are the gold standard of mercenaries and are famous for never breaking a contract, although we’ll have to see how that plays out when Strickland learns who his clients are.

Meanwhile, the real action is the romantic (not) banter between Cersei and Euron.  How are we supposed to weigh the question of whether the two worst people in the kingdom should do the deed?  My reaction was indifference, followed by repugnance when Euon asked how he measured up to her other bedmates (it’s one thing to wonder; it’s another to ask, for God’s sake!)  What this scene did tell me, though, is that Cersei’s next baby is not Euron’s after all, as I’d falsely suspected, which makes me think she’ll have a miscarriage because Jaime will never kill her (as we all assume he’ll do) while she’s pregnant with her child.

I hope Euron enjoyed that role in the hay because while he was demonstrating his swordsmanship, and decidedly NOT putting a prince in that belly, Theon and his crew somehow manage to slip onto his ship and rescue Yara.  Wow, that was easy!  And so much for my other theory that Theon was going to perish rescuing his sister.  Instead he’s headed back to Winterfell, where he can expect a Jaime Lannister-type reception, because even that’s preferable to another minute in the Iron Islands.  By the way, kudos to Yara for not getting hung up — like Cersei, Dany, and Sansa have been — on who owes deference to whom.  She senses that Theon wants to go to Winterfell so encourages him to go.

And what would “Game of Thrones” be without a gratuitous nude brothel scene.  Bronn’s about to have his way with three poxed-up whores when Qyburn interrupts the fun with a mission from Cersei.  For a minute I was excited that this might be a scene involving the former love-birds but now enmity-ridden actors who play Cersie and Bronn (supposedly they dislike each other in real life that they can’t be on the same set).  But no, Qyburn tells Bronn that the Queen wants him to kill her brothers with the very crossbow that Tyrion used to kill Tywin.  “This f—ing family,” Bronn responds.  Truer words were never spoken.

Some Other Observations

• “Winterfell” convinced me even more that Jon is a Christ-like figure.  There’s been a lot of critical speculation that he is the “prince who was promised,” which sounds suspiciously like a Messiah.  This prince apparently figures more prominently in the mythology of the novels, although he’s also the savior that Melisandre has been chasing all series.  Remember that Melisandre worships the “One True God,” (i.e., a monotheistic deity) while most of Westeros has a seven-deity religion.  Jon has already been resurrected once, but even more telling in this episode is all the second-guessing and doubting by the people of the north of someone who has only always sacrificed for them. This is what the Israelites constantly did to God in the Old Testament and what the Jews did to Jesus later on.  What have you done for me recently Jon Snow?

• The one truly horrifying scene in the episode occurred when Tormund and Beric happen upon the deserted Last Hearth castle and find the body of Ned Umber crucified in the middle of a giant pictograph that looked disturbingly like a swastika. And how shocking when Ned comes to life as a wight and is then burned and left writhing while pinned to the wall?  (btw, there has been a lot of valid griping about the gratuitous violence against women on the show, but by my count this is the fourth youth who has been charred beyond recognition, starting with the two boys Theon burned when he took over Winterfell, followed by Stannis’s daughter.)
• Where was Brienne?  I suppose they are saving her to vouch for Jaime, in one of the other highly-anticipated reunions.  We were also denied the reunion of Tyrion and Podrick, “the most loyal squire.”

Brienne and Podrick get about half a second of screen time in this episode in this scene

• The Night King also absented himself from “Winterfell.”  That’s fine, I guess, but what is that army of the dead doing?  Are they just wandering the countryside hoping they’ll stumble upon Winterfell eventually?  And are they after something in the crypt?
• Bran 2.0 has lost a lot of his personality but he does get off some of the most legitimately funny lines.  When Jon hugs him so sweetly and observes “You’re a man,” he responds dryly, “almost.” Compare this to the lame repartee between Sansa and Dany: “What do dragons eat anyway?” “Whatever they want.” Oh snap!
• What has happened to Tyrion?  Peter Dinklage gets top billing in the credits but his character has really lost his edge.  As Sansa says so dismissively, “I used to think you were the smartest person I ever met.”
• It’s a bad sign that the dragons aren’t eating.  Presumably they don’t like the cold after all and won’t turn out to be weapons of mass destruction when the Night King shows up.  Speaking of which, if that Night King had any strategic judgment he’d just wait everyone out.  There’s already not enough food to feed the armies of Winterfell; imagine what a six-month siege would do.
• In the brothel one of the whores says, “That boy Eddie?  The ginger?  Came back with his face burnt off.  He has no eyelids now.”  The great James Hibbard at Entertainment Weekly speculates that this is a reference to Ed Sheeran, who so preposterously appeared as a foot soldier last season.
• I suppose the scene of Jon and Dany flying those dragons was supposed to evoke the majesty and beauty of the north as well as their burgeoning new love but it left me cold.  It’s been done with “Dumbo” and Harry Potter.  That’s a lot of CGI at a time when we just want to advance the plot.
• About 75 percent of the scenes in the trailer were used up in this episode and most of them were in the first ten minutes.  That’s fair, but there’s almost no remaining hint about what’s coming up other than the much-discussed battle of Winterfell.

Death Toll

For all the talk about the impending massacre of our characters, the only personage to die this week was just about the most minor bannerman in Westeros, poor Ned Umber, last of his name.  You will recall that when his dad sided with Ramsey Bolton Sansa wanted to take the castle away from the Umbers but Jon Snow intervened to counsel mercy and not visit the sins of the father on the children.  I think Ned would have been happier if Jon had not won that argument.  So this means that there are now only five episodes left in which to wipe out half the cast.

RIP:

• Ned Umber

Next Time

Jaime’s trial. I hope they don’t prolong this because we all know that he’s not going to be executed by this group.

One Last Treat

Do yourself a favor and watch this 25-second clip.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1117611687950127106

Who Will Die on Game of Thrones and Other Pressing Questions

Game of Thrones debuted almost exactly eight years ago on April 21, 2011, and the intervening years have been an unrelenting period of murder, betrayal, death, and destruction.  And that’s just in Washington D.C.!

Ha Ha.  I jest.  No, seriously, all joking aside, Game of Thrones has been the most gruesome show in the history of TV, with a body count that can’t even be calculated (how many people were in the Citadel when Cersei blew it up anyway?)  And to make matters worse, some of the show’s most beloved characters have found themselves beheaded, mutilated, immolated, or poisoned along the way.

So it’s natural to ask, as one does with one’s favorite TV shows, who will be left standing at the end?

I am not among those who think most of the surviving characters will die.  Although the show exudes enough existential despair to make Jean-Paul Sartre weep, HBO needs to walk a fine line.  Intending to launch a GoT franchise with prequels and God knows what else, it can’t demoralize its viewers by killing TOO many of our favorites.  Unless they’re planning a theme park where you can see Ned Stark’s head on a post and patronize a Tyrion-branded brothel, there has to be a quasi-satisfying ending;  we the viewers can’t be so emotionally shredded that we’re turned off of Game of Thrones intellectual property forever.

Also, to be frank, there’s not enough time left for a major blood-letting of the good guys.  Whenever  an important “good” character dies on GoT the producers give us time to absorb the blow.  They didn’t follow up the Red Wedding with another massacre because they knew we couldn’t take it.  I’m sure they will kill a few of our favorites but not most of them.

Who will end up on the throne? 

But even if MOST of the characters won’t die, I think we can assume the Westeros casket-makers will be busy the next six weeks.  And to get at the question of who will survive we first need to ask who will end up on the Iron Throne?

In any ordinary TV show, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen would end up co-rulers.  Both heroically ascended from extreme vulnerability to great heights despite their many mistakes by learning from those mistakes, displaying great courage, evolving into charismatic leaders, and being sexy as hell.  They deserve to end up on top.  In a normal show there’d be some bumps along the way — as there would be in any incest-driven Rom-Com — but they’d work it out.  But Game of Thrones is no ordinary show and I don’t think they will give us what we so desperately want.

As much as it pains me to say this, I can’t imagine that Jon Snow (aka Aegon Targaryen) will be standing at the end.  Despite surviving enough hero’s journeys to make Joseph Campbell’s head spin, he seems destined to experience a sacrificial tragic death.  And why not? He’s made it clear enough that that’s what he really wants.  The guy is grim, grim, grim.  Even during that love boat ride to White Harbor he didn’t really seem to be enjoying his time in the sack with Aunt Dany.  And if I can really reach for a metaphor, Jon is a Christ-like figure, having been resurrected from the dead.  But when Jesus came back to his followers he only stayed for forty days.  By that measure, Jon has outlived his time back on earth.

As for the Mother of Dragons herself, I can’t imagine she’ll take it well that, after all she’s been through, she’s not the actual heir to the throne.  Whether she’ll let Jon hop on one her dragons to fight the White Walkers is an interesting question.  I say yes, we’ll see Jon Snow ride a dragon.  But will Khaleesi end up as Queen Daenerys?  My gut tells me no, that we won’t be rewarded with anything that obvious, even though she has earned it through her remarkable leadership.  Maybe she’s take her Unsullied and Dothrakis back to Esteros where they real belong, anyway.

So if both Jon and Dany are out of running for the Iron Throne, I’ll take a wild guess and put my money on another male/female team: Sansa and Tyrion.  Technically they are still legally married and uniting the Stark and Lannister houses could bring peace to Westeros.

With that as an admittedly long set-up, here’s some guesses on who will and will not survive Season Eight.

The Must-Dies

It’s been a given that the worst person in Westeros at any given time will eventually die (in order: Joffrey, Ramsay Bolton, and Littlefinger).  So I think we can expect the demise of these truly evil characters.

Cersei Lannister — Probably at the hands of Jaimie.

 Euron Greyjoy — All those Greyjoys are bad news but he’s the worst.

The Night King — the only reason to keep this guy alive is in case they need to have him available for sequels.  By the way, this is a good time to clarify that “White Walkers” are completely different from “Wights”.  The White Walkers are a race of creepy living creatures that go back to the beginning of the age of man.  The Wights are reanimated dead corpses.

The Mountain — Obviously The Hound is going to kill him (or die trying).

The Probably-Die-For-Their-Sins

This is a group of characters who have done A LOT of bad stuff but have repented of their evil ways and will probably find redemption in death.

The Hound — As noted above in the prediction about The Mountain, there will certainly be a confrontation between these two brutal brothers, one who has been humanized and another who has literally been dehumanized.  I don’t know if they’ll both be dead at the end of this fight, but almost certainly they will be by the end of the series.

Theon Greyjoy — There’s a scene in the final episode of Season Seven where Theon meets Jon Snow at Dragonstone and asks for his understanding and forgiveness.  Here we have two characters with similar backgrounds — semi-orphaned boys raised as brothers by their surrogate father Ned Stark.  With these two men George R.R. Martin is making a point about the essential immutability of human nature.  One of them is innately a hero and the other a weakling.  And after being one of the most harmful characters in the series, I think it’s extremely likely that Theon will redeem himself by dying while trying to rescue his sister Yara.

Jamie Lannister — No character has been as morally conflicted as The Kingslayer, who is reviled for breaking his oath to protect a mad king.  “So many oaths,” he sighs at one point, implicitly asking what you should do when loyalties contradict each other.  Jamie hasn’t acted as badly as some other GoT characters, but he seems more conscience-stricken than any.  On regular TV this usually means a heroic death, but on this show who knows?  He might survive.

Melisandre — No character has made as many mistakes as this gal.  If Stannis Baratheon had listened to Davos instead of her, he’d probably be king now and his daughter wouldn’t be a fricassee.  She definitely cannot survive the season, even if she did bring Jon Snow back from the dead.

The Must-Not-Dies

These are the characters who are frequently weak but nevertheless heroic. They have suffered at the hands of a brutal world and their deaths would provoke an uprising by Thrones fans everywhere.  In order of how intensely we don’t want them to die are:

Sansa — She started out as my least-favorite character on the show but she has both suffered and grown the most.  I’m as surprised as any at how protective I am of her.  She’s still not my favorite character but she most deserves to live.

Gilly’s baby Sam — Kill that kid and I’ll throw a shoe through the TV.

Gilly — Ditto

Samwell Tarley — He’s widely seen as a stand-in for George R.R. Martin, the loyal scholar who plods away and saves the world.  But he’s really a stand-in for us, all we ordinary folk who, not blessed by physical skill, need to get by on our wits and character.  Killing Sam would be like killing US.

Ghost — Jon’s direwolf is not exactly defenseless, but killing him would still be traumatic.

Tyrion — The most complicated character on this list and probably the smartest person in Westeros (although still prone to big mistakes), Tyrion has offed his share, including his former mistress and father, but he too has striven mightily to create a better world.  If he survives he may even convince the survivors to destroy the Iron Throne and rule Westeros as a confederation of independent realms — sort of like the European Union with swords and torture.

Podrick — So loyal and so good in the sack.  He deserves to live.

Gendry — Robert Baratheon’s bastard son and last survivor of that gene pool has acted with native nobility and humility, rising from obscurity in a blacksmith’s forge to a trusted warrior. And it looks like he’s going to be in charge of forging dragonglass into the only weapons that can kill White Walkers and Wights. It would be heartbreaking if didn’t survive after all this.

Arya — Arya is the one person on this list who is neither defenseless or innocent, but we are as emotionally attached to her as any other character and she cannot die.

Vulnerable During the Battle of Winterfell

The Battle of Winterfell, is already being touted as the longest-lasting cinematic battle ever to appear on TV or film, and we can assume it will occur in Episode Three on April 28.    Even in The Battle of Hogwarts, at the end of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling killed off many important characters (although none that we cared passionately about) so we can assume the bloodthirsty HBO crew will outdo her.  (There are a lot of clues in the trailer below).  On the other hand, there will be three more episodes after The Battle of Winterfall and someone has to be alive to kill Cersei, Euron and The Mountain, so we can’t expect everyone to die up there.

Warriors at risk — Brienne of Tarth; Davos; Ser Jorah; Tormund; Grey Worm; and the two living dragons Drogon and Rhaegal.  Parenthetically, I can’t imagine that the Dothracki or Unsullied, so acclimated to the warmer weather of Esteros, are going to be effective in the snow.

Innocents and non-warriors at risk — In addition to everyone mentioned in the “Must-Not-Die” category listed above: Missandei, Varys and Bran.  And I don’t see Bran dying here unless he does some Super-Warg thing that sacrificially allows him to connect with the Night King or that reanimated dragon, which then exhausts his life force.

Other Random Characters 

Some people who don’t fit in the categories above:

Yara — Taken prisoner by her evil uncle Euron, she might not even be alive, but unless we have seen people die in front of our eyes (remember when we thought The Hound was dead?  Won’t get fooled again!) we should assume that they are alive.  I also assume she will live to rule the Iron Islands, although if it were up to me, I’d go in and wipe out that whole population since all they do is rape and pillage.

Qyburn — The Dr. Frankenstein of Kings Landing has to go, after all he’s done in the service of Cersei.

Bronn — Supposedly the actor who plays Bronn had a real-life romantic entanglement with the actress who plays Cersei; and apparently this affair ended so poorly that these two can’t be filmed in the same scene, which explains why Bronn didn’t attend the “Dragon Pit summit,” at the end of last season.  And yet here they are, both stranded in Kings Landing, with Bronn in charge of the King’s Guard.  Bronn is the lovable scoundrel who provides comic relief and almost always survives even the bloodthirstiest TV shows. My guess is he will get his pay-off and finally retire to his castle with his wife.

OK, so there are my predictions.  Feel free to ridicule me if I’m wrong.

And while we’re waiting for Sunday, enjoy Kit Harrington’s monologue on Saturday Night Live.

 

 

Saving Humanity One Picnic Table At A Time

Our gang in Mariana

Walking out of the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport into an atmosphere of perfectly temperatured summery air I muse to myself, “Hmm, this isn’t so bad.” It’s definitely an improvement over the snow-covered backyard I left behind in Connecticut.  But even with the lovely weather, I still have a lingering anxiety about the next five days, which, because I’m on a service trip, are to be spent among strangers doing God knows what to serve humanity.

I always aspired to be the great humanitarian who would brave a foreign environment to make life a little bit better for a less advantaged community.  Of course, being most skilled in the art of punching letters on a keyboard, I’m not exactly in a position to fix a cleft lip, engineer fresh drinking water, build a house, or instruct villagers how to improve their crop yields. Still, there must be something I can do.

And sure enough, by the time I return to the airport to fly home I will have:

• Inhaled paint fumes and possibly even lead paint dust in the service of beautifying recycled picnic tables;
• Slept in a bunk bed and survived a snoring roommate;
• Endured four cold showers;
• Wandered outside in the middle of the night to locate a bathroom while hoping that the armed guard wouldn’t mistake me for an intruder and mow me down;
• Demolished my careful, health-focused diet regimen in favor of fried corn, fried wheat, fried rice, and salty processed snacks;
• Fallen asleep in a fourth grade class;
• Sampled multiple varieties of moonshine;
• Took dozens of photos of beautiful sunsets and sunrises;
• And laughed harder than I have in years.

Mariana Puerto Rico

Arriving in Puerto Rico in mid-March, I am headed to the hurricane-impaired mountainous village of Mariana.  Mariana is best known for its annual breadfruit festival, although the whole time we are there none of us actually sees a breadfruit.  The town itself is poor and elderly, whose residents largely worked in the pharmaceutical factories at the base of the mountain in the city of Humacao — until they closed.

When Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico in September 2017, it hit Mariana first, wrecking havoc with the local power and water systems.  When my church wanted to raise funds to “help Puerto Rico” and searched for a worthy recipient, we were impressed that when faced with municipal and federal indifference, Mariana’s local mutual aid organization had jumped into action to prepare and serve hundreds of meals a day, reestablish some electricity, and erect a water purification system. (See video below for the compelling narrative.)

I was proud that our church raised $14,000 for Mariana but in the back of my mind, couldn’t help but wonder if this was really a good use of the money.  So when the international humanitarian agency Crossing Thresholds began taking volunteers down there to support that same village, I signed up.

On this trip there would be five women and two men, including the organizer Rusty Pedersen, the former owner of an outdoor adventure company and a long-time leader of service trips in Central America.  I quickly come to understand that there’s a whole population of people whose idea of a great vacation is to fly to a remote under-developed country, sleep on cots, and dig toilets.  Many of the women on the trip have traveled with Rusty before and they fondly tell war stories of lousy food, intestinal problems, and scary reptiles in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria.  All I can offer was that I had been to Norwalk, CT to hand out frozen turkeys in a food pantry.

On the ride from the airport to Mariana I was surprised to see that Puerto Rico itself is not as physically devastated as I was expecting.  A lot of work has gone into repairing the most obvious damage.  Downed trees have been removed and roofs repaired.  Power and water have been restored virtually everywhere.  The lingering effects are harder to see externally, especially for a island that was already relatively poor to start with.  In fact, the worst effects may be what you can’t see: that so many former residents left the island after the Hurricane and never returned. (And just to be clear, these observations only reflect what I saw with my own eyes and are not meant to associate myself with the U.S. President’s budget proposals.)

The Center for Community Transformation

This disused school is rapidly being converted into a community center

The objective of our trip is to help the people of Mariana convert an abandoned school into a community center.  The newly named “Center for Community Transformation” will be both our workplace and home, since we are eating in the former cafeteria and sleeping in two former classrooms that have been converted into gender-separated dorm rooms, each with ten bunk beds, which, I discover, my church paid for.

I slept in that bunk bed and enjoyed Happy Hour on those couches

Considering that the facility was abandoned for years and then assaulted by Hurricane Maria, it’s in remarkably good shape now.  The people of Mariana and the volunteers who came before us did an enormous amount of work of cleaning and restoring it to working order.  It’s debris-free, well-landscaped, and freshly planted.  There’s a beautiful room serving as a children’s library and another room with eight washing machines and driers that will be a community laundromat.  A refrigerator, stove, and sink have been moved back into the former cafeteria, which now serves as a large all-purpose dining and meeting room.  There are also incubator rooms set aside for local small businesses start-ups.

Eventually the people of Mariana want this facility to become the heart of the village, and already, even before it’s officially open, the Center is hosting yoga classes and a health clinic, while providing space for aspiring social workers.

The kitchen and dinning area of the main community room

Knowing that I wanted to learn how our church’s donation had been spent, the Center’s director Francisco Nieves sat down with me to review the receipts from Wal-Mart, Ikea and other local stores where they had bought tables, bunk beds, couches, office equipment, and other items with the money donated by our congregation.   The level of  transparency and accountability is very impressive.

Not everything is running smoothly, though.  Almost comically, at one time or another every toilet is either shut down or overflowing, which I discover one morning at 3:30 a.m.  And the Center is powered primarily by a generator that feeds a night-time battery until solar panels arrive to replace the ones that were stolen a few weeks ago.

Mornings

Once we settle into the Center, the rhythm of the days becomes clear.  Because of my chronic sleeping problems I am invariably the first of the volunteers to rise, sometimes as early as 5:00.  Given how many snorers were in our party, Rusty had handed out earplugs like there were ecstasy tablets at a rave.  But the snoring wasn’t the real problem, it was avian sounds — the roosters and other birds crowing and tweeting at the sunrise — that roused me so early.

Since all the common rooms are locked at this time of day I usually struggled to catch up on mainland news via my smartphone and the island’s spotty Internet connections, or, more satisfyingly, read quietly under a bathroom light until breakfast.  At other times I played the aging hippie and just watched the sun rise — and what a sight.  Puerto Rico is so beautiful that it’s hard not to snap photos as soon as the early morning starts appearing on the horizon.

A Puerto Rican sunrise

Mornings were for manual labor, although a couple of the women inventoried and organized the supplies and planted new landscaping.  The rest of us were on painting duty.  This included nine tables that had been built by a previous volunteer team out of recycled doors as well as the new doors that replaced them.  But before the tables could be painted, someone needed to sand off several generations of paint.

“That’s a man’s job,” the women agreed, so I ended up using a power sander to remove as much paint off as I could. That’s damn hard work, by the way.

By about Day Two we agreed that any really difficult physical labor — moving the tables outside, for example — could be left for the next mission trip, a group of 16 college kids coming in from CUNY Lehman.  Let them risk the hernias, we decided.

Prepping the tables for painting

The women in the group decided that a Jackson Pollock theme would work best on these tables.

Afternoons

I hate to admit it, but after a morning of physical labor, I was spent almost every day.  Thankfully, the afternoons were usually designated for educational opportunities, which is how I ended up in a fourth-grade class observing vocabulary enrichment lessons.

Alas the lessons were in Spanish, and after a morning of hard work I was drowsy.  And wouldn’t you know it, some kid caught me dozing, giving me a big smile when I snapped awake, accompanied by that universal sleeping sign of a head resting on two clasped hands.

The community’s elementary school, where almost all the students are economically disadvantaged.

We also met leaders of the mutual aid group (Communal Recreational and Educational Association of Mariana, or ARECMA — see more info at this link)  that runs both the center and the mountaintop park that served meals after the hurricane.  We also met representatives of the educational non-profit that Crossing Thresholds is supporting.

The meetings with these agencies were my least favorite part of the trip, to be honest. Like public and semi-public officials everywhere, our interlocutors wanted to assure us that everything was going great with their organizations.  Outwardly friendly, they could also be opaque, especially when faced with direct questions.  And the people in our group, who were experts in child and senior issues, had many many questions, as well as opinions and suggestions about how things could be done.  I couldn’t tell whether the nodding agency officials were being polite or actually interested in the river of ideas we were proposing.

Evenings

Evenings came early on this trip; not because the sun went down early, because it didn’t, but because once the work, educational, and napping responsibilities were over, it was time for a brief and invigorating cold shower, followed by happy hour, which convened daily in the men’s dorm room.  Alcohol can obviously be a destructive element in many people’s lives, but in our group it became a serious source of bonding, stripping away most uptight inhibitions and stimulating some hilarious storytelling.

Dinner came early too — starting at 5:30 or 6:00 p.m.  One night we attended a movie about the Mariana recovery effort that was, to our bemusement, in un-subtitled Spanish, meaning that none of could understand the narration.  No one complained, though, because we were at top of the mountain surrounded by one of the most beautiful sunsets ever witnessed.

One night we had dinner at the top of the mountain

One night we stayed late at dinner because we wanted to give baby gifts to a pregnant ARECMA employer who was working with the group and had been adopted by us as everyone’s favorite kid sister.  On another night, a birthday cake emerged and as we were singing “Happy Birthday” it transpired that the happy birthday wishes were for ME, even though my birthday had been more than two weeks earlier.  This resulted in a embarrassing stumbling speech from the stunned  birthday boy, who couldn’t think of a thing to say.

With no television or radio and spotless Internet connections, we debated how to pass the time on nights with no activities on the agenda.  We tried to think of games that would amuse us, but as they say, the journey itself became the destination and we talked so much about how to entertain ourselves that we never did play any of those games.

And that was just as well, because people started moseying off to bed at 9:00.  I usually managed to hold off until 10:00, falling asleep almost immediately.  I didn’t sleep long, but when I was asleep I was asleep.

Nutrition

Our cooks

For most of my life I acted like good nutrition was for wimps.  Lately I have turned over a new leaf, renouncing processed food, bread, juice, sugar, cured meats and other Big Food poisons.  All that went out the window on this trip.  I even drank a can of Pepsi. Yes, I could have announced dietary restrictions like some of the women on the trip, but out of a combination of politeness, machismo, and gluttony, I gobbled down everything that was put in front of me.

Our meals were prepared by three lovely Mariana ladies who might or might not have worked in the cafeteria of the old school we were transforming into the community center.  I never did get the answer to this.  They doted on us like grandmothers, although it’s possible we were as old, or even older, than they were.

These women eased us into Puerto Rican fare, like those deep-sea divers who have to be slowly brought to the surface to avoid the bends.  Our first dinner was spaghetti, sauteed hamburger, and tomato sauce, accompanied by lettuce greens and bottled salad dressing — a meal that my mother had served many times in the early 1960s.  Our first breakfast was a selection of boxed cereals, pancakes, fruit salad, and white bread that we could toast.

But as the days went on the meals became increasingly interesting.  Both lunch and dinner were major meals — chicken, pork chops, fish, steak, tasty fried fritters made in a variety of shapes and sizes from a variety of grains.   And of course salads, rice and beans.  All of this could be accented with a selection of hot sauces and washed down with water or cans of soda.  All of this was delicious.

And once the staff warmed up to us, the bottles of moonshine came out.  More than once I heard the story of how at every Christmas there would be a steady stream of police officers headed up to the illegal stills in the Mariana mountains to procure their own holiday hooch.

It would be rude not to sample, right?  And it was tasty so why not?  I had always assumed that the Pappy-produced moonshine  in “L’il Abner” tasted like turpentine but in Mariana, at least, it’s fruit flavored, marinated in coconut, pineapple, mango and other substances to mask the fact that it’s usually more than 100-proof.

Was it worth it?

The most common refrain from people who return from mission trips is, “I got more out of it than I gave.”  By that they usually mean they got the psychic rewards of doing a good deed and feeling good about themselves, while also becoming more grateful for their immensely privileged life back in these United States.

When you’re doing unskilled labor and not literally changing lives through medical care or advanced engineering, it’s harder to measure your impact.  Your contribution can seem like less than a drop in the ocean.  And even if you are the doctor who restores sight to a hundred kids, you have to wonder in your moments of existential despair, so what?  Those children will still grow up poor in a corrupt system that’s stacked against them.

And yet even though my efforts were infinitesimally small compared to the poverty in Mariana, never mind all of Puerto Rico or even the world, I did return with a sense of satisfaction.  Not self-satisfaction because I know how much is left undone.  But I did feel part of a steady stream of service workers, including those who came before and those who will come after, who are quickly bringing this project to life.

Could I have mailed a check for the cost of the trip so that ARECMA could have hired a local worker to do what I worked on more efficiently?  Absolutely.  But would I have mailed that check without personally seeing what was going on there?  Almost certainly not.

There’s one other point that needs to be made.  The dirty little secret of the trip is that despite the cold showers, disrupted sleep, and hard physical labor, it was fun.  My co-workers were a blast and Puerto Rico was beautiful.  It was not a standard vacation but it had all the elements of an adventure trip.

So yes, it was worth it.