Game of Thrones’s reputation as “the fastest hour on television” didn’t quite live up to the billing this Monday morning as the fifth episode of the fifth season plodded along with the main characters struggling to decide  their next course of action. Clearly not everyone’s as sorted as Littlefinger or Cersei, neither of whom features in this episode called “Kill The Boy”.

“The Boy” is Jon Snow and that line comes from Maester Aemon who advises the recently elected Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch to “kill the boy and let the man be born”. And how does Jon plan to become a man? By inviting the Wildlings to come live south of the wall, so as not to be turned by the Whitewalkers into more Whitewalkers. This, of course, doesn’t please the other members of the Night’s Watch, who not too long ago were fighting the Wildlings across The Wall.

In the previous episode, both Barristan Selmy and Grey Worm had fallen to the Sons of the Harpy attack in Meereen but now we learn that only Barristan the Bold died while The Unsullied leader has survived. Not only that, even as he recuperates, Grey Worm professes his love for Missandei. That’s the Dany effect you see — transforming the castrated commander of the invincible warrior-eunuch army into a lovesick man.

As has now become her hallmark, Daenerys has no clue as to how to handle the civil war. She first decides to round up the heads of the great families and feeds one of them to her chained dragon sons, who flame-roast their surprise evening snack. “A good mother does not give up on her children.”

Then she backtracks to Daario’s advice of reopening the fighting pits, but only for free men. And if that wasn’t enough, she gets herself betrothed to imprisoned former slavemaster-turned-adviser Hizdahr do Loraq in an attempt to become one of the Meereenese. And we thought she would march into King’s Landing within the first couple of seasons!

Marching into Winterfell, however, is Stannis Baratheon and his army. We wouldn’t know by which episode he would get to the Boltons there but he has started his journey south from The Wall with his wife and daughter and the Red Woman and the Onion Knight, having discussed war strategies for far too long with Jon Snow.

What’s surprising — and very convenient — is that word of Daenerys struggling in faraway Slaver’s Bay can reach Maester Aemon up there at The Wall, but Jon doesn’t get any raven-ous whiff of Sansa Stark’s marriage being arranged to Ramsay Bolton. And that young lady is not having a good time at the castle she grew up in. “This isn’t a strange place. This is my home. It’s the people who are strange.” 

The strange Myranda, Ramsay’s jealous lover, leads Sansa to the Winterfell kennel where she discovers a curled up Theon Greyjoy, who the Stark girl believes killed her two youngest brothers, Bran and Rickon. In a creepy family dinner that follows, Ramsay assures Sansa that Theon is now (his slave) Reek and makes him apologise to his wife-to-be, completely bypassing the fact that the Boltons should apologise first and foremost for killing her mother and brother Robb. 

But then what more does one expect from monster Ramsay, who also has the only sex scene in the episode — a brutal bout with Myranda. Cut out, of course, from the Indian telecast.

It’s only in the last few minutes of what is halfway into the latest season that Game of Thrones really comes to life. And again it’s that Half Man who’s responsible for it. Tyrion has the most discombobulated expression on his face as he spots Drogon, Dany’s rebel child, fly away merrily over the “smoking river” where he and his captor Jorah Mormont are sailing along, on their way to Meereen.

But that’s not the big twist of the episode, since the trailer had already given it away. Before Tyrion and Mormont could exchange notes on the dragon, they are attacked by the Stone Men in that Doom-ed city of Valyria. These men are all suffering from the last stage of Greyscale, where not only their bodies but even their brains are taken over by the deadly disease, driving them into mad monsters. 

And the Stone Men can pass on the disease just by touching. One of those two men in the boat, the two men we have been following — and rooting for — from Season One, does get that touch! Is another character we love being readied for a tragic exit? But then we were also told in that long Stannis-Shireen father-daughter scene in the last episode that the spread of Greyscale can be halted. Cross those fingers, like always.

Pratim D. Gupta
Catch episode 6 of GoT Season 5 on May 18, 6.30am on HBO Defined