Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 9 Review

Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 9 Review
by Julie Perez

What just happened?

This week’s episode of Game of Thrones was all of the emotions at the exact same time. Where do I even begin?

 I had already declared “Hardhome” the best episode of this season but I would like to officially take that back and call “The Dance of Dragons” the best of the season … so far. The episode began with Jon Snow returning to the Wall with the Wildlings that managed to survive the epic fight with the White Walkers. They return to a hostile environment and it becomes fairly apparent that it’s going to get a lot worst for Jon Snow before it gets any better.

By now we should all be feeling that Stannis is fighting an uphill battle, right? I mean, the outcome doesn’t seem to be in his favor and with his options running out; this episode he made a very difficult decision that had my jaw on the floor and my hand on my chest. We find out this episode that Ramsay took the twenty men he requested from his father to the camp that Stannis and his men had set up and preceded to set everything on fire. Stannis loses tents, horses, food, supplies and weapons. If you think that’d be enough to send Stannis running back to the wall, you'd be wrong.

Stannis refuses to retreat and orders Davos to ride to Castle black and bring back supplies and food. Davos hesitates but ends up obliging, not before saying a quick goodbye to Shireen. While they were saying their goodbyes I assumed we were seeing the end of Davos, I mean who says “I’ll be back soon” in Game of Thrones and comes back unharmed? No one, that’s who. I think it’s safe to say that I was not emotionally prepared for what happened next.

Like I mentioned before Stannis’ options are fleeting so he decides to revisit a plan that Melisandre had proposed to him before. The plan being to sacrifice Shireen to the Lord of Light, only now he doesn’t shoot down the plan; this time he decides that this is his only option. The screams and the look on Shireen’s face when she realized what was happening – I cried. That’s right, I cried! It was sad and heartbreaking. And yes, even though her mother had a last minute change of heart, it wasn’t enough and Shireen was burned at the stake.

Back in Meereen it’s time for the Great Games in the fighting pits and I think we can all agree we got way more fight than we expected. So a beheading here, a stab there, now lets get to the good part. Jorah walks into the ring and the look of; shock, terror, horror, confusion that appear on Dany’s face is heartbreaking. Jorah defeats every competitor, even though it didn’t look too good for him for a while. After he wins the fights he begins to walk towards Dany and proceeds to throw his spear right at here at which point, I sat up and gasped. AUDIBLY GASPED! Cut to, the spear going right into the gut of a Son of the Harpy who was about to kill Dany. The camera pans the arena and you Sons of the Harpy slaughtering everyone. EVERYONE! Hizdahr included-that one came out of nowhere. Jorah and Daario work together to help Dany get to safety and an unexpected hero, Tyrion saves Missandei as they try to find an exit. They almost make it out when another wave of Sons of the Harpy enter the arena, surrounding and trapping them inside. At this point I was definitely thinking, “They’re fu***d”.

It was called “Dance of the Dragon” and boy did the Dragon dance. Drogon saves the day and barbecues a ton of assasins. Some of the assassins proceed to throw spears into Drogon and Dany walks up to him, climbs on him and commands him to fly.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

This episode brought all of the emotions to my body and I could not be happier with the way the episode panned out. There is something that is bothering me about the episode though, when chaos broke out Jorah went up to Dany to get her to safety and he extended his hand to her, which she hesitantly took. Umm, hasn’t he contracted Greyscale? Isn’t Greyscale contracted by skin-to-skin contact? Am I missing something? Is Dany dying from Greyscale?

So yes, I know that a lot more things happened this episode but the three points I hit are, in my opinion, the most important. I absolutely can’t wait for the Season finale!!!

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