This episode starts where the last left off, with Jon Snow preparing to leave the Watch. When Sansa, Brienne, and Pod suddenly arrive. Wow we’re actually going to have two Starks together for the first time since about season 3. Sansa’s the one who is trying to motivate Jon to try and take back Winterfell, whilst Jon is tired and wants to stop fighting.  There’s also a lot of tension between Brienne and Stannis’ former servants Davos and Melisandre. Brienne gives them the news that she executed Stannis.

We finally get to return to the Vale. Robin is another of the young actor who has been hit hard by puberty, but more importantly we get the return of Littlefinger. It appears the Littlefinger is able to manipulate Robin with relative ease, he gets him to enter the war, and go to assist Sansa and Jon.

Over in Meereen Tyrion has invited the masters of Slavers Bay to negotiations. Tyrion offers them seven years to end the practice of slavery. The freed people of Meereen are justifiably angry, Grey Worm and Missandei do support Tryion, but we can see those difference in upbringing that the show brought out last week coming in to play.Back to the most heartbreaking storyline for me, Ser Jorah and Daario’s quest to rescue Daenerys. My poor guy Jorah really is the true king of the friendzone. As Daario continues to mock Jorah for Dany not loving him, they arrive at Vaes Dothrak. Daario discovers Jorah’s greyscale as they are disarming. The rescue goes wrong very quickly as they are discovered. Daario has to save Jorah’s life, all be it by breaking the two big rules of Vaes Dothrak, don’t bring in weapons and don’t spill blood. Dany befriends one of the other members of the Dosh Khaleen, when Daario and Jorah arrive on their rescue mission.

Margery is still being held by the Sparrows, as is brought to a meeting with the High Sparrow. And boy this guy loves giving sermons, and he gives a bit of his back-story as a cobbler. She is permitted to see Loras, who is also being imprisoned, and he appears to be breaking far more than Margery. Cersei discusses the High Sparrow problem with Tommen. Cersei had been planning to wait for her trial, but instead uses the fact that Margery will be forced to do a walk of shame to gain support from Olenna and the Tyrell army. We get a little bit of the Rains of Castamere, this is Cersei coming into her own and taking command of the situation, and I love it, and I loved the use of this musical cue.

Theon finally returns home to Pike to discover his father’s death. He wants to help his sister Yara rule the Iron Islands. And that’s really it for Pike.

In Winterfell Ramsey has Osha, and she stands up to his attempts at intimidation, let’s not forget that she was a Wildling and as she said ‘she’s seen worse’. I thought that Osha and Rickon were playing the long game here, deliberately being brought to Ramsey so as to get close enough to kill him. If that is the case though, it goes badly wrong for Osha as Ramsey simply stabs her through the throat, having learned from Theon that how she helped Bran and Rickon escape.

There’s a nice mash of styles up at the Wall now, we have Sansa and Brienne, Night Watchmen, and Wildlings all sharing a table. Meanwhile a letter arrives from Ramsey mocking Jon. It’s probably not sensible that he also threatened the Wildings; make them certain enemies well done. The Bastard bowl is very much on now, Jon knows he’s going to have to get some Northern support as Ramsey outnumbers him.

The Khals meet to discuss Dany’s fate. They debate selling her to the masters. Dany offers them a chance to serve her, and when they refuse burns down the tent, this is first badass thing she’s done in quite a few seasons, but she need to bring more of that, just straight up brutal murder of your enemies. And with out their Khals the rest are sure as hell going to follow her now. This was such a great moment, and more of this Dany and she can start winning me back to her side.

For parts of this episode things continued to slowly edge forward, but thankfully Jon got some great moments, reuniting with Sansa was great, and Dany’s storyline took a big step. Jon despite quitting the Nights Watch has still not actually left, but Sansa and Ramsey’s goading has motivated him to attempt to retake Winterfell. He doesn’t know he’s going to be getting support from the Vale, but that’s bound to make him the favourite in that battle. Speaking of the Vale, Littlefinger has Robin Arryn wrapped around his little finger, pardon the pun, it was nice to see how easy it was for him to get what he wants from Robin. Ramsey once again showed his complete ruthlessness, he briefly played with Osha for a while, but didn’t give her a chance to strike, taking her out of the equation with a quick knife to the throat. Meanwhile Cersei’s plans of destroying the Sparrows have been moved up, and whilst she has got the small council on side, and I loved her taking charge, she still hasn’t got to the murdering yet, hopefully next week. I was a bit upset we didn’t get to see the Tower of Joy, they teased us last week and now they’re keeping us waiting. Once again we could have been heading to an all build up episode, but Dany was having none of it. I think the last big moment for her was when she won the Unsullied army, but this was another. I like it when Dany shows her ruthless side, that’s what you need to get ahead in this world, it’s not about being good, it’s about burning all the Khals alive. Overall I wanted a bit more progression from the likes of the King’s Landing storyline, which has been inching it’s way forward for a couple of weeks now and I still don’t have huge interest in what’s happening in Meereen, even though I love Tyrion the dragon scene it the one stand out part of hat story for me. Although you can see why they were really pushing the differences between Tyrion as a highborn and the freed slaves last week. But I was a big fan of Jon and especially Dany’s storylines this week. They took up the bulk of this episode, and both really drove those stories forward.

8.5/10