After months of official denials and futile obfuscation, that thing you’ve been waiting for happened. You know, that thing you guessed was going to occur as soon as the credits rolled on the season five finale of Game of Thrones. Jon Snow got a haircut and a second shot at living. When I go to the barber, I don’t even get a free rinse.
Unfortunately for fans pining for a Game of Thrones/Weekend at Bernie’s crossover, the deed was done and Jon Snow’s alive again. Or whatever it is you call a corpse reanimated by black magic. Where last week’s episode occasionally felt like an exercise in stalling, episode two resembled an especially frantic level of Sonic the Hedgehog where so much was happening on the screen that it all devolved into an animated blur, but with more exploding heads. Way more exploding heads, in fact. I counted two crushed skulls in 20 minutes, which is probably not even a record for this show.
Every fan of Game of Thrones saw this coming, though. George RR Martin teased it. The novels upon which the show is based left plenty of breadcrumbs to follow. News outlets around the world did their part by running a “Jon Snow isn’t really dead, is he?” story once a week for the last six months. HBO, showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, and star Kit Harington all made a valiant effort to keep up the charade that Jon was kaput, but none of their truth-bending (Jon was technically dead for two episodes, so it wasn’t an outright lie) made the reveal any less anti-climactic. At least it’s done and the narrative can now push forward. The Wildlings have overtaken Castle Black, Alliser Thorne and his co-conspirators are locked up, and zombie Jon Snow is running around that little room completely naked, save for a strategically placed towel.
The plot machinations that led to Jon’s return are still a bit hazy for me, though. Ser Davos Seaworth – Game of Thrones’ sad-faced puppy dog sidekick – decided off-screen to approach Melisandre about defying the most unassailable law of nature there is, a fairly bold move on his part. Davos and Jon really became best friends quickly, didn’t they? Why was he so set on bringing him back to life? Did he just miss having someone to boss him around? Did he yearn to see that trademarked grimace/brow furrow combination one more time? Oh, and Davos was also very fortunate that Melisandre brought her pocket-sized guide to witchcraft to the Wall. Either that or she wrote the incantation she used on her hand and we just never saw her look at it. Maybe she just has an excellent memory for procedures she’s never done before.
For next week’s episode, the stage is set for some particularly awkward reintroductions. “Hi, I’m Jon. Again. Still. Last time you saw me, I was a very fit corpse with great cheekbones.” Will the rank-and-file of the Night’s Watch and the perpetually skeptical Wildlings actually embrace our slowly decaying hero? Is Jon still bound by his oath to the Watch even though he only promised to stick around until death? Will anyone acknowledge how absurd it is that dead guy Jon Snow’s direwolf is named Ghost or will they all just pretend that’s not a really weird coincidence? Is someone going to get the man some pants? My guess on that last one is a big yes. They will be loose-fitting in the waist but tapered at the leg, preferably a jogger or sweatpant for extra mobility. These pants will be comfortable, too. Very comfortable. There will be no underwear. I have seen it in the flames.
