Never has the word ‘spoiler-free’ hanging up there in the review title been a bigger handcuff than it is now. Almost the entire of The Broken Man, the seventh episode of season six, was about a character whose name I cannot even mention without spoiling everything for you.
It is also yet another episode of disappointing fan service, and marks the clear descent of Game of Thrones (GoT) on the graph of quality vs creativity.
Remember when every week was a shock because one or another character was killed off? This season has reversed that by bringing them back from the dead.
In the first 10 seconds of this episode, you are reintroduced to someone you wouldn’t have expected, not by a long shot. Then again, after Benjen Stark, this character probably did turn up on your dead-people-that-can-come-back-this-week list. Apparently, what is dead never dies indeed.
Anyway, the episode is more or less about this person and so there isn’t much we can discuss here. Except for whether the return was justified, how it fits in the big picture and how all these resurrections are affecting the series as a whole. We’ll come back to this in a bit.
Apart from dead people being resurrected, the Broken Man does bring some fresh blood into the series: Lady Lyanna Mormont, a 10-year-old protector of the Bear Islands. The fire-spewing kid, who would’ve been ignored in any other episode of the previous seasons, becomes the best part here which is just sad. No hate to the kid.
Last week’s Blood of my Blood had brought relief to Margery Tyrell – and anguish for Natalie Dormer fans – after her Walk of Shame was cancelled by the High Sparrow. This week see her maintain the same, boring, ‘I am pure and pious now’ act. But, somewhere in there is still a Margery who is plotting revenge and it shows a bit. She is the only character here who seems to have finally learnt that being hot-headed never got anyone anything except a month-long character building exercise with Septa Unella. But am I excited about what she will do? No.
The show has ceased to excite me anymore and I am so close to giving up. (There. I said it.) All my social media status updates are getting more and more negative and I am in no mood to advocate it to the haters anymore.
Coming back to the return of the dead, I have said it before and I’ll say it again: Bringing back slain characters is digging a hole for the series. After Jon Snow came back, Hodor’s death just rolled off my back. And after the latest character return, I am pretty sure Hodor’s chances of return are higher than ever.
Why kill these characters for cheap thrills? It is so maddening, I’m this close to drawing a comparison between GoT and Ekta Kapoor! You have frustrated me enough GoT. Y’all need GRRM.
Read the episode 1 review here
Read the episode 2 review here
Read the episode 3 review here
Read the episode 4 review here
Read the episode 5 review here
Read the episode 6 review here
Follow the author @soumya1405
