Recap: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 6, Episode 5 Holds ‘The Door’

Braavos
Arya Stark/A Girl Has No Name (Maisie Williams) is still doing bow staff training with the worst roommate ever. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty much full up on bow staff action right about now. Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha) gives her a quick background on the faceless men: they were all Valyerian slaves, who learned how to shed their faces, then founded the free city of Braavos. They weren’t lords and ladies like Lady Stark.

But A Girl is advancing in her work. She gets a job — poison an actress in a play. Turns out the play is pretty fart-centric, and it’s also all about her dad getting his head chopped off and the actress playing her sister showing her boobs. On the one hand, Arya hates it, on the other hand, it’s the only way she’s able to get any intel on what her sister’s been up to. BTW, every non-Sean Bean Ned Stark on this show has received an absolutely tragic Halloween store wig this season and I’m not okay with it.

Arya sneaks backstage where we’re all treated to an extreme close-up, testicle-heavy, low angle penis shot. We’re all for equal dudity on this show, but a rando checking his foreskin for warts is just an affront on the eyes and senses.

Our little assassin notes how she might poison the lady (the rum jug), but brings up some concerns over the killing with her boss Jaqen. He reminds her that a servant shouldn’t be asking any questions about their tasks. Anyway, a procedural of A Girl Has No Name Assassins agency might be kind of fun.

Iron Islands
Off in the Iron Islands, it’s election season! Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) tosses her hat in the ring to claim the Salt Throne, and brother Theon (Alfie Allen) gives a Bill Clinton-worthy stump speech in honor of his sister. #ImWithHer. Unfortunately, their uncle Euron (Pilou Asbæk), who recently killed their dad and started this whole thing, comes in with Trump-like promises to Make The Iron Islands Great Again. Starting with a politically convenient marriage to Daenerys and her dragons. All the salty islanders get behind him and they basically vote by chanting his name over and over again.

Euron gets crowned through a barbaric drowning ritual. Some old man holds his head underwater in a shallow pool and then his lifeless body is flopped onto the beach. If he revives himself and doesn’t die he gets to be king. Euron manages to cough up the sea water in order to be crowned with a driftwood crown straight from Pinterest, but while they’re up to these salty rituals, Yara and Theon make off with the whole entire fleet of ships, those crafty siblings.

Vaes Dothrak
Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), fresh off roasting all the Khals, takes her boring handsome detectives to a bluff to thank them for saving her. Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) shamefully tells her that he can’t join them because of his horrible Greyscale, and also, he loves her. Dany gives him a mission: go and find the cure for Greyscale and return back to his queen. Maybe the cure for Greyscale will be Dany’s secret to conquering the Seven Kingdoms. It’s really too bad Stannis and Shireen aren’t around for Greyscale tips, but that’s Stannis’ own fault.

Meereen
In Meereen, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) decides to interview a Lord of Light priestess (Ania Bukstein) for a leadership position, general counsel, and better political optics. Turns out priestesses of Light all have the same wardrobe of low cut burgundy gowns and anti-aging necklaces. She suggests using the dragons to purify non-believers, which seems a bit extreme for Tyrion’s taste, but he’ll take her street team efforts and word of mouth PR. Varys (Conleth Hill) isn’t entirely sold on her, citing Stannis and his failed bid to be the Prince Who Was Promised. But when she starts reciting details about his castration as a youth, he’s visibly shaken. To me she just seems like a bad psychic, but Varys buys it completely.

Tree Cave
The other wayward Stark, Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) is warging up a storm. He’s even almost ready to take the place of the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow). First, Bran and 3ER warg back and see how the children of the forest made the White Walkers by stabbing a naked guy against a tree. The child-forest-woman claims they made the White Walkers to defend themselves against the deforestation of their magical trees.

Bran wargs by himself back to check out the Night King White Walker and encounters the King and his entire zombie cavalry. The Night King even grabs him through the space-time-warg continuum. You in danger, girl, because now the Night King can find him in the present! Bran, you know what this means: the time has come… for you to… lip sync FOR YOUR LIFE. JK, the time has come for you to become the Three-Eyed Raven, sit in a tree cave, and teleport to other places and times.

Instead of leaving, Bran and 3ER warg back to some random time in the past at Winterfell watching Ned Stark’s dad hug sandy-haired children and give them advice about fighting. In the present, the White Walkers close in on the cave, and with Bran and 3ER all tripping on mind time travel, it’s up to the child-forest-women and Meera Reed (Ellie Kendrick) and Hodor (Kristian Nairn) to make an escape, and Hodor is being absolutely useless.

Meera manages to break through into Bran’s consciousness, pleading for him to warg into Hodor. He looks right at young Willis/Hodor in the courtyard, wargs into him, in order to get present Hodor off his ass and fighting zombies. So now, we’re essentially inside a double warg. Bran is warged back in time, and from the past, he has warged into present Hodor. It’s Game of Thrones: Days of Future Past.

It’s all a bit too much for the mind of Willis, who collapses in a seizure. Hodor holds off the zombies in the tunnel as Meera and Bran escape, with Meera shouting “hold the door!” Seizuring Willis begins to shout, “hold the door, hold the door, hold door, ho-dor,” and suddenly a nickname is born, for all too terrible reasons, especially as Hodor, holding back the zombies is eventually overtaken and killed. RIP HODOR. And RIP SUMMER, who jumped into a crowd of zombies and presumably died. Dire wolf count: Ghost, and Nymeria who is off somewhere.

There was a ton of drama on this week’s episode, especially with the death of a major and majorly well-liked character. There’s also some question as to just how exactly a death in the future caused brain damage in a younger character, except that maybe the double-warg was just too much. Please leave your theories, comments and ponderings below!