This week on “Game of Thrones,” episode 4, “Book of the Stranger” showed a marked improvement from last week’s misfire. Who knows why, since the same team of director Daniel Sackheim, plus writers/show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss resume their duties there, but let’s just chalk it up to the mid-season doldrums, when all the pieces are being moved into place. This one felt more cohesive, more satisfying and decidedly more thrilling than last week’s episode, “Oathbreaker.” Maybe I just feel that way since I’m still high from seeing two Starks together in the same frame.
“Book of the Stranger” is all about siblings reconnecting — Sansa Stark and Jon Snow, Yara and Theon Greyjoy, Margaery and Loras Tyrell. These reunions are significant on both the personal and political levels — the personal is political in Westeros afterall. These bothers and sisters who have been torn apart by war are able to come back together to combine their strengths — to what ends, we don’t know yet, but two is always better than one.
Right away, we see that though Jon Snow (Kit Harington) has quit his job in a dramatic fashion, he’s still on site at Castle Black, packing up his stuff. Though he has his sights set on parts south to “get warm” (SPRING BREAK WOO NO OATHS Y’ALL), his sister Sansa (Sophie Turner), along with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and Pod (Daniel Porter) have arrived at the gates of the castle. A rousing cheer went up when they saw each other, and hugged, and even more squeals were emitted at the moment when Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) laid eyes on Brienne — clearly smitten with the lady knight. Hubba hubba. Also, the way he eyed her while gnawing on a piece of meat? Pure seduction.
While Sansa and Jon are clearly enjoying being back together, reminiscing about their home, Sansa wastes no time in urging Jon get himself and a Wildling army down to Winterfell to upset Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon). Jon’s reluctant because he’s “tired of fighting,” and also, he hanged a boy the other day. Whine, whine Snow, this is only the beginning, everyone keeps talking about the Wars to Come. Also, remember those White Walkers? They aren’t that cool (well, they are very cool, cold, in fact) either, as Ed (Ben Crompton) will remind you.
Behind the scenes, Davos (Liam Cunningham), is trying to get right with a clearly spooked Melisandre (Carice Van Houten) about who exactly was The Prince that Was Promised, cause, wasn’t that Stannis? Davos realizes he has missed some serious shit going down while he was invested in the resurrection of Snow, including what happened with Shireen. Brienne is more than happy to inform the two that she worked for Renly, she’s not ready to forgive and forget the blood magick, and she also executed Stannis. The best part of this interaction is just how scared of her Melisandre seems.
Jon is more persuaded to go down to Winterfell and lay the smackdown on Ramsay when they receive a strongly worded letter from Lord Bolton, threatening to do all all manner of horrible things to him, his army, and his siblings, including Rickon in his dunegon. It’s poetry in the way that only the sadistic trash-mouth Ramsay can express. This is bullying and Jon Snow won’t stand for it one more minute.
Ramsay Murder Count: He murders Osha (Natalia Tena), which is horrible and we hate him.
We also get to see the return of our favorite slimeball, Petyr Baelish aka Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen). He rolls up to an Eryie archery class with a gift for his quasi-stepson Robin Arryn (Lino Facioli), who has grown up into a little mini Shia LaBoeuf/Schwartzman brother. Robin keeps referring to Littlefinger as uncle, which seems… wrong? The kid is confused enough about family lines.
Littlefinger has brought Robin the gift of a falcon, in order to curry his favor. But Lord Royce (Rupert Vansittart) is totally onto his scheme with the marrying off of Sansa to Ramsay Bolton, and calls him out on it, claiming Baelish said he was taking Sansa “back to the Fingers” (amazing). But of course, Littlefinger manages to twist Robin against Royce, ensuring the Lord’s loyalty. Littlefinger convinces Robin that the Knights of the Vale should go to Castle Black to defend Sansa, “the time has come to join the fray,” he says. Hopefully this might be a good thing for the whole Winterfell sitch, since they don’t have enough Wildlings to defeat Ramsay.