GAME OF THRONES (S6E02): "Home"

Episode 2 of Season 6 (S6E02) of HBO's Game Of Thrones is titled "Home." There was no indication from Episode 1 (S6E01) that the follow-up would become one of the most significant episodes of the entire show, but that is what happened this week.  Spoilers Follow Below!

Summary
Ever since 2011 when George R.R. Martin published A Dance with Dragons which included a scene in which fan favorite Jon Snow appears to be murdered by his brothers in the Night's Watch speculation about Jon's fate has been one of the key plot points of the entire story being told in A Song of Ice and Fire. These are the events that were depicted in the Season 5 finale (S5E10).

In "Home" we learned that even though Jon Snow has been killed, he does not stay dead. Jon Snow is dead! Long live Jon Snow!

There were also other important things that happened in this episode besides the resurrection of Jon Snow (which happened in the very last seconds of the episode).

We got to see Bran experiencing past events and we see Hodor as a young boy (still huge for his size) and we discover his name is Willis! And that he could talk!

Also in the North we see some very disturbing events at Winterfell (see lowlights below) and also in the North we see Brienne and Sansa talking about Arya, ad Theon tells Sansa that he is not going to go with them to the Wall to find Jon Snow and ask for his protection, since he's pretty sure that Jon will want to murder him for Theon's cowardly actions of attacking Winterfell and proclaiming the deaths of Rickon and Bran.

We move directly from Theon, to his father, Balon Greyjoy, arguing with his sister Yara about strategy. Balon is the last survivor of the five Kings, the War of the Five Kings was about but Yara points out that the War has not gone well for the Ironborn. Later we see Balon fall to his death when he meets his younger brother Euron (who has been missing in action for a long time, and is certifiably insane). It's not a coincidence in the same episode where we see Melissandre's prediction that all of the "pretenders to the Iron Throne" would be killed finally come to fruition is the one where it looks like her magical powers are weak because she can't resurrect Jon Snow.

There's an important scene in King's Landing when Jaime meets the High Sparrow at Myrcella's funeral and gets into a showdown between him and the Faith Militant. They both walk away from it without any bloodshed but you just know things will not go so smoothly next time! We also get to see more of Cersei's Personal Zombie Knight, i.e. the reanimated Ser Gregor Clegane a.k.a The Mountain who kills Some Random Dude who was besmirching Cersei's name in public. We see that even the Goldcloaks are scared of the Mountain when they try to enforce an order not to allow Cersei to go the Great Sept for the funeral, at King Tommen's explicit orders. Later, after speaking with Jaime, Tommen goes to his mother and apologizes, and she appears to forgive him. Cersei is acting surprisingly low-key, but I'm pretty sure she is biding her time and collecting her forces before she strikes wrath upon her enemies. Look out, world!

In Essos, Tyrion argues that dragons are very intelligent creatures and finding out that they have been refusing food and appearing to grow sickly, volunteers to make sure they have their dinner." He goes down to the dungeons where Dany had tied up the two remaining dragon with Varys, and incredibly bravely walks up to the deadly beasts and unclasps both of their shackles, not getting burn to a crisp in the process. This is interesting on multiple levels because there are lots of fan theories that Tyrion must have some Targaryen blood in him and his ability to walk away with a close encounter with dragons just increases that speculation.

Now, finally we get to the moment we have been waiting for. Melissandre attempting to resurrect Jon Snow, at the explicit request of Ser Davos, and clearly against the wishes of Big Tall Redheaded Wilding Dude (what's his name?). She washes Jon Snow's body, revealing the horrible lacerations the multiple stab wounds from his Night's Watch assassins left in his body. She cuts his hair and puts in the fire, saying incantations multiple times. NOthing appears to happen, and Redheaded Dude storms off and slams the door. Eventually Melissandre and Davos leave as well. And, then, of course, Jon open's his eyes, gasps, and sits up! He's alive!

Highlights
The highlights of this episode were:

• Seeing Kit Harrison's almost-nude body as a corpse was a highlight. Here was an opportunity to "Free the peen!" but, alas, the showrunners missed this chance!
• The last seconds when Ghost stirs from his sleep and Jon Snow opens his eyes and gasps awake will probably be the highlight of the season!
• Seeing Hodor as a youngster and Bran walking about (even if it is in a "greenseeing" dream) was pretty cool and a definite highlight especially since the character didn't appear in all of Season 5.
• Dragons! The scene with Tyrion and Dany's two shackled dragons (Viserion and Rhaegal) was all osrts of awesome. The special effects were particularly convincing heree and the dragons looks as big as houses!

Lowlights
The parts of the episode I could have done without:

•  We know that Ramsay Snow is bad, horrible evil guy. Sheesh! In this episode, he stabs his father to death and follows that up by having his stepmother and her newborn baby devoured alive by bloodthirsty dogs. Srsly! This was way over the top. Even though we didn't see their deaths we did get audio of the snarling canines as they attacked and it was way over the top!
• Do we really need to see Arya as a blind girl getting the crap beaten out of her for yet another week? With so many characters and so much story to tell, this seemed like a waste of

Grade: 10/10.