6x06 Blood of My Blood

8.5/10. Blood of my blood. The title gives it away. One could say this every week about a show so centered around familial legacy, but this episode of Game of Thrones in particular circles around familial connections, between parents and children and the other ties of kin that pull us into place and break our hearts in the process. These people save us, help us, make us stronger, but they also have a unique capacity to wound us, to frustrate us, and to unravel us.

Nowhere does the episode explore all sides of this than more than Sam's return visit to Horn Hill, which proved to be the most magnificent slice of the episode, despite the smaller stakes and lack of major reveals. Much of the time on Game of Thrones is spent focused on the larger machinations of the plot. Even when we're not devoting time to the dragons or magic or other fantastical elements of the world, we're focused on the stakes of not just the individual characters, but on the titular game of thrones as different players vie for power, and on the existential threat coming from the north.

Despite this, Sam's visit home has the feeling of something apart. There's no magic at play. While his stop is intended as a respite for Gilly and Sam Jr. on Sam's way to the Citadel to earn his maester's chain and ostensibly help Jon, there's little larger relevance to it when it comes to the show's overarching story. Instead, it's a quiet character piece, one whose chief purpose is to tell us more about who Sam is, where he came from, and what he's become since he left home.

To that end, in many ways the scenes at Horn Hill feel more like a costume drama, something of a piece with Downton Abbey than with the swords and sorcery and political intrigue of business as usual on GoT. It's a pleasant departure, and it feels so unique because it puts the focus on something very rare within the world of Westeros, at least the part of it we're privy to -- an intact family, and the harshness and difficulties that can exist within them even when your kin are not being torn apart from one another by rivals and medieval honor.

So we see Sam embraced by his mother and sister. We see his Wildling bride, clearly not the type of highborn lady who might be expected to meet with their approval, welcomed as a daughter and a sister into their homes. We see little Sam Jr., held by his grandmother and promised the world, spoken of with love and told he'll one day be great like his father. In the beautiful open air of Horn Hill, family is a kind embrace and a welcome home.

And then they all sit at that table. And the silence and tension is thick. And Sam and his brother make small talk, and Gilly struggles with her knife and fork, and a perfectly cast Lord Randyll Tarly scowls at the head of the table. All of a sudden, a conflict between Sam's old family and his new one occurs. Lord Tarly barks and growls at his son, calls him fat, a disappointment, unworthy of his mother and his name. Sam looks down, confessing later that he worried his father would not take his erstwhile wife and child in. But Gilly will not stand for it. She's seen him be more than measure up as the kind of man his father claims he'll never be. He's defended Gilly and Sam from worse than any horror Lord Tarly is likely to face. But the head of House Tarly continues to debase his son, continues to tear him down in the way that only a father can. And at that table, family is judgment and pain and something to suck you back down into who you used to be.

Finally, Sam goes to say goodbye to Gilly and Sam Jr. He is a defeated man. He's capitulating to a father who hates him in the hopes of protecting the people he cares for. There was something so unbelievably endearing about he and Gilly's walk to dinner, like a pair of teenagers dressed to the nines, stumbling off to the prom like baby deer. They keep each other up, and now he feels he has to leave her. He kisses her, and walks out that door, and seems to be giving in to his father's assessment of his life, love, and worth.

But then he comes barreling back through the door and declares that he's taking Gilly and Sam with him to the Citadel. They are his loved ones now, and it's them who make him feel like the man he is, who enervate him to become stronger and do more rather than be resigned to the weakness Lord Tarly ascribed to his first born son. Sam takes House Tarly's valerian steel sword, claiming his birthright and his place as a Tarly worth of the honor. He brings his wife and his son and storms off to claim his own destiny, to forge his own kin apart from the man who degrades him. And here, family is strength; family is the future; and family is love and devotion once more.

But in King's Landing, choices that strain the relations between father and son do not move only in one direction. As Jamie leads the Tyrell army to the steps of the Sept, ready to take back Margaery and Loras and Lancel, he challenges the High Sparrow. The crowd jeers as the spears and shields are raised and conflict seems imminent. Then, the High Sparrow reveals his trump card. Out walks Tommen, Jamie's son, to announce a union between the Crown and the Faith.

Olenna, the grand dame of Game of Thrones announces in memorable fashion that they've been outflanked. The High Sparrow is craftier than anyone in the Red Keep imagined. He found how to get to the king -- through his mother and through his wife. And now the group that Cersei brought into the fold has taken over, has the ear of her son. Jamie is stripped of his command and sent off to Riverrun. Though Tommen does not wield the kind of hatred Lord Tarly does, he too has his kin before him and deems him unworthy, and though Jamie doesn't blame his son, he's clearly infuriated.

It's then that his sister calms his nerves. She too is aghast at their son having been swayed by the Sparrows, but she has a plan to retake control. As uncomfortable as it is to see, Jamie and Cersei are blood as well, and when they describe one another as the only two people in the world, it is an affirmation, to an extreme degree, that their family is all that matters.

And in one of the episode's most striking scenes, Arya actually seems to understand Cersei for just a moment. When she's prodded by the actress whom she admires to explain how she would change the stage-Cersei's response to her son's death, there's a moment of recognition. Arya says that Cersei loves her son more than anything, so she wouldn't just be sad, she would be angry and want to kill the people responsible. And as Arya witnessed her father killed in King's Landing and felt those same emotions, it's a stark moment of maturity and growth from Arya, an understanding that she and Cersei are not as different as they might seem, that they both felt strong connections to their family, to their loved ones, and were moved to shake the world on its axis in order to defend and avenge them.

The way the actress helped her reach that realization, to remember who she is and how she started on this journey, helps her to cast aside her mission. She is not no one. She is a Stark. And Starks are not murderers for hire. Her father taught her to be someone with honor, even if honor in Westeros is a fractured, fragile thing. Like Sam, she reclaims her sword, and with it, her birthright and heritage. She is not simply a girl; she is Arya Stark, and carries with her all that it means.

And even that is not the last of the familial bonds shown to be brought closer and exploited in "Blood of My Blood." A long absent Walder Frey admonishes his sons for failing to hold Riverrun. He summons Lord Edmure, his prisoner since the Red Wedding, in order to hold power over his father, The Blackfish. He too speaks of his legacy, of the way his children have disappointed him, and how they can use the connection between a father and son to defeat the Blackfish.

And the mother of dragons returns to her "son." Named after Dany's fallen husband, Drogon is indeed the blood of Targaryen blood. While the CGI is still a little shaky, only someone with that sort of bond of kinship can ride the back of a dragon. She is strengthened by this connection, made greater and more powerful by her "child." She tells the Dothraki who have followed her into these desert mountains that though Khals of the past have taken only a few bloodriders to protect their leader, she will not be so constrained. They will all be her bloodriders; they are all her children, and they are all the blood of her blood.

Finally, when Bran Stark seems done for, when the wights are about to engulf him and Meera and extinguish the fire they have begun, a mysterious cloaked figure emerges, wielding a fire and a scythe and defeating the undead warriors in impressive fashion. After he takes them to safety, he has Bran drink the blood of his kill to fortify himself. And he reveals that he too is the blood of Bran's blood. He is Benjen Stark, Bran's Uncle, who has been saved and turned by the Children and called to be the latest of Bran's protectors. Unseen since the first episode of the show, Benjen is a welcome return, who shows that, as Arya demonstrated, the blood of the Starks still flows across the land, even if it's threatening to freeze.

For the first time in forever, it feels as though the pieces are falling into place as we moved toward the end game for Game of Thrones. Dany wonders who would have the ships she needs to take the Seven Kingdoms just as Yara and Theon are heading her way with a fleet of them. Benjen once again shows the effect that fire has on the Wights as we see, halfway across the world, a queen ride a dragon. Long forgotten corners of Westeros, from Walder Frey, to Balon Greyjoy, to the Blackfish, emerge once more poised to make their impact on the major stories of this world. Jon and Sansa are poised to rally their allies to retake Winterfell, Arya is ready to return to her former mission, and Bran has been reunited with his family as more of the ever-expanding world of Game of Thrones starts to come to a head.

And in the midst of all this, we are reminded that from the nation-altering strife of the king and his parents, to the simple, sweet moments between a disowned son who hopes to do better by his own adopted child, these events are shaped by families great and small. There is no doubt much more blood to be spilled in the game of thrones, but its current pulls each of the players across their great land, and makes them stronger, more devoted, more certain, more powerful, and helps to clarify who they are and where they belong within it.

This episode was kind of disappointing. It may have to do with the fact that the previous one was possibly the best episode in the series, but regardless it didn't further the plot much, and it gave us an unexpected twist in the kings landing plot, where it seems that Margery has turned to support the faith that imprisoned her and her brother. This doesn't make sense as an action from this character, unless of course in a future episode this proves to be the case of using the faith to further her cause (that I admit would redeem this episode somehow). That the teenage king do whatever she says makes sense. Daenerys plot hasn't been furthered much. The re-appearance of the dragon is always dramatic, but she already had enough loyalty from her men, after they witnessed the unburned in action. She didn't really need the dragon to convince them to ride the wooden horses. Finaly Brans plot remains de attached from the rest, although we are finally starting to suspect that he may play a part in the battle against the white walkers. The return of Benjen has potential, and he can possibly act to unite the north under the Starks, as he could possibly fill the need for a strong lead in the Starks plot line.

Not bad
Pros
+Bran's escape is getting more interesting
+Sam, Gilly, and the rest of the Tarly's dinner was great. That sword will come in handy when fighting the Others even if it seems a little out of place that he stole it now.
+Arya parts were spectacularly written. How she is able to feel sympathy for the actress even when she portrays a person that she despises (considering her reactions to the fates of every other person she knows are the same as she feels about that actual person). I really like the way that this performance actually draws her back to her previous life and how the actress who played Sansa had sort of drawn her in by planning this dubious assassination of actress Cersei when real life Sansa innocently played a part in pushing her out into Essos with her cooperation with Cersei not knowing that she was planning on taking out her father. The connection with acting's figuratively putting on the face of another and the Faceless Men literally doing so is also potent and did an excellent job at emphasizing how Arya was more interested in the idea of doing the things she planned and less so with the literal actions. The acting, cinematography, and general atmosphere wasn't anything special but the writing was on point.

Neutral
*Frey talking shit/Jaime talking about being sent out to the Riverlands- hopefully they stick closely to the books on this matter, can't see a better way of doing it.

Cons
-Sparrow making the Royalty his bitches (on one hand I get why Margaery would have a change of heart after being held captive like that and how the plot needed to progress fairly quickly to keep pace with the rest of what was happening around the world but on the other hand it felt like a really fast changing of heart especially since Loras still remains trapped. Tommen also has a change of heart because his parents don't understand that he is the King and they should notify him of any big plans that they have which I think sort of made sense but also could've been done in a better way, especially if they drew it out and had him objectively choose the faith and repentant Margaery over his over politicized parents I think that would be far more interesting and make the whole thing feel less forced.)
-Danaerys' scene was cheesy as fuck, it's going to be hilarious when Euron purposely sinks the Dothraki while at sea and steals her dragons with the Dragon binding horn which for some reason they still haven't shown