Game of Thrones S5x06 “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”

WARNING! SPOILERS!

Well, it was pretty inevitable that we were going to get a controversial scene at some point in this season when you consider the writer’s track record, and it gave us a pretty traumatising end to Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken, when Sansa was raped by her new husband, Ramsay, who we all knew was going to do something bad to her at one point, we just were a) never quite sure what it would be, and b) Kind of hoped that Sansa would have been able to counter it with what she’s learned from Littlefinger. It was another moment that may put some people off, and I already know a few people on Twitter who have mentioned that this is finally one step too far for the writers, so it’ll be interesting to see the fallout from this scene in both fans reactions to the show and where the show itself takes Sansa’s storyline going forward, because much like the Jamie/Cersei scene last year, it didn’t actually happen in the books. So this is one of the many things that we can chalk up to being different.

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken was a showcase to pretty much how damn terrible the Stark daughters lives had become over the course of the series, ever since they left Winterfell. Sansa, after making many lucky escapes at the last second, couldn’t make it out this time and was dragged into the mess again. She’s had the worst luck with husbands it seems, especially when you consider that her last one was Joffrey. Ramsay isn’t exactly a step up, in fact, he could arguably be even worse, and I was even half expecting Theon to intervene for Sansa, but probably should have known that it wasn’t going to happen. Still, we could easily see a road to redemption starting for the character soon.

Jorah and Tyrion continue to be one of my favourite parts of Season 5 and their capture by slave traders was an interesting way to further develop their storyline this season. Their discussion about fathers before their capture was particularly interesting as well as Jorah finding out that his was dead for the first time. Tyrion also bargaining for his and Jorah’s own life by increasing Jorah’s reputation as a warrior, and finding out a way to keep himself alive as well. It was one of the stronger parts of the episode I felt, which again, was uneven in places with a lack of consistency between the storylines. Some were good, some were bad, and others were pretty controversial.

Arya’s story this week pushed her into a dark place as she got called out on every lie she told. No matter how many times she screamed that she hated The Hound, it seems that she doesn’t entirely, and Jaqen’s apparent masterful understanding at the ability to tell was handled pretty well. It’s still clear that ever since she kept Needle she’s not willing to abandon her old life completely, but she’s certainly willing to make some changes. Whether we’ll see anything more for her outside of the House of Black and White this season remains to be seen, but there’s lots of potential here.

The sixth episode of this season then gave us a big talking point at the end of the episode, and it wasn’t entirely perfect elsewhere. Uneven storylines, with the Sand Snakes being the most disappointing feature didn’t help the episode’s case, but there were some good parts this week with Arya and Jorah/Tyrion’s scenes probably being the strongest. We spent no time with Dany or Jon, but we did get some brief scenes with Jamie and Bronn this week as well as some time in Kings’ Landing, but none of them really stood out as anything particularly memorable this week. Hopefully that’s going to change, with four episodes left before the Season finale, and three before the ninth, in which something epic usually happens.