Game of thrones returns with an action pack and tragic episode as more of the past is revealed, one character shows what a true hero looks like, and Sansa begins to marshall her troops.  These are our top moments from the episode.

Sansa and Jon

Sansa is really coming into her own in this episode as she starts to plan with Jon the best way to take back the north.  Her part in this episode starts with a very tense conversation with Petyr Littlefinger, who has come to the North with Robin Arryn and the knights of the vail.  Sansa really showed her strength in that she faced down someone who betrayed her on her own, and she did it with such power.  She essentially told Petyr that she did not want nor need his help, and put him in his place when she forced him to tell her of the things he imagined Ramsay did to her.  She wanted to reiterate to him how she was abused by that monster, and how he was the one who fed her to Ramsay.  Did she use Brienne’s prowess with the sword to strengthen her threat?  Sure, but she did not back down nor allow Petyr to use his silver tongue and worm his way back into her favor.  She stood her ground, and faced him on her own.  The one good thing she got from Littlefinger was some vital information.

And what was that critical information?  It was that her mother’s uncle, Brynden “Blackfish” Tully, has taken back Riverrun and reformed the Tully army.  It seems that Sansa has more on her side than she previously knew.

This is definitely good news for her alliance.  In the meeting she has with Jon, Tormund, Brienne, Ser Davos, and even the Red woman, it quickly becomes clear that the major houses of the North, the Karstarks and Umbers, have sided with the Boltons.  Ser Davos pointed out that, even though the Northerners are more prone to be loyal, they still need a good reason and belief that they are fighting for the winning side to join them.  This is especially so with the Bolton’s predilection for flaying people alive they consider their enemies.  It is at this point that Sansa lets them know of the information about Blackfish and Riverrun.  The one thing she did that may come back to haunt her is that she lied as to how she got that information by telling them that Ramsay got a raven on the news just before she left.  She should have been up front about her confrontation with Littlefinger.

Jon agrees that they need more allies and sets up a plan to engage the smaller houses of the North and form a united front with Sansa (having the Stark name) in the lead.  This sounds like a solid plan.  After the meeting, Sansa adds to the plan by asking Brienne to journey to Riverrun and secure the Tully forces on her side.  Brienne is not too keen on the idea as she doesn’t really want to leave Sansa’s side especially with the “the bearded one” around.

The “bearded one” in question is Tormund, and we have to say the scenes with Brienne and him are really funny, especially the last scene as they are riding out from Castle Black with Jon, Sansa, Ser Davos and the Red Woman who are on their way to get allies.

We have to say that Sansa has really impressed us this season with her new found strength.  We hope to see more of this to come, and maybe even see her knife slammed into Ramsay’s chest.

Arya

Arya’s part was not a large one in this episode, but we think it was an important one.  She is given an assassination assignment, her second chance, and, as Jaqen H’ghar said, she would not get another.  Her assassination target is to kill an actress in a local stage play.  When  she goes to see the play and scope out her target, Arya starts to have a hard time watching the play as it is a reenactment (and a very skewed on at that) of the events leading to her father’s death.  The actress she is to kill, fittingly enough, plays Cersei on the stage, but it turns out she is a decent person in real life.

It is at this point that Arya starts to question her mission as she still has problems killing decent people for the greed of others.  She quickly ascertains that the younger actress (who played her sister Sansa in the play) was probably the one who paid for the hit.  Arya is now faced with a serious dilemma: does she kill the decent actress and truly become a faceless one, or does she remain as Arya and not kill her?  We will have to find out next episode.

Theon and Yara

In past episodes, Theon came back to the Iron Islands where he did not receive a warm welcome by Yara.  Yara was under the impression that Theon came back to make a claim at the Kingsmoot for the right to be King of the Salt Throne.  As Yara wants to make a claim herself (which would make her the first Queen of the Salt Throne), she is none to pleased to see Theon back (as he is the last remaining male heir to the former king).  Theon promised to back her claim for the throne.

Well in this episode, the famous Kingsmoot takes place, and we get to see if Theon really has changed as we know too well that he can promise allegiance (Robb Stark), but not actually follow through with that allegiance.

Yara makes her claim for the Salt Throne in front of the leaders of the Ironborn, claiming that she is a true Ironborn who has been with the people sailing the ships and reaving all along.  Theon steps up to speak at the Kingsmoot after he is mentioned by someone in the crowd (as Yara has some support for her claim, but most of the men are skeptical of having a Queen).  It seems Theon has turned over a new leaf, and he makes a rousing speech in support of Yara as being the new Queen which swings more support her way.

It all seems like Yara may be made the first Queen of the Salt Throne until her Uncle Euron (the man who killed her father and his own brother) steps up to make a claim.  Yara flat out calls him out for killing the previous king to which he does not deny doing it.  In fact, he affirms he did it because he believed Balon was leading them in the wrong direction.  Euron wins the votes in the Kingsmoot, and is declared the next king despite what he confesses to doing.  His plan is to raise a huge fleet, and sail over to meet up with Daenerys where he “plans” on wooing her and making her and her army (and dragons) his.  He wants to conquer the world.  We would really like to see that confrontation as we know what Daenerys does to men who think they are going to rule over her or through her.  We hope she eats him alive.

After losing at the Kingsmoot, Yara, Theon and those loyal to her have the sense to escape the Iron Islands as Euron undergoes the ceremony to become the next king.  They know full well that his first act as king will be to kill them.  So Yara and Theon as well as a decent sized group of followers steal the best ships in the Ironborn fleet, and sail away in them.  This will definitely put a dent in Euron’s plan.  He watches them sail away as he is on his way to do the very thing they knew he was going to do (which was kill Yara and Theon).  He changes his plan by ordering his men to start building a massive fleet.  Looks like things will start getting interesting once the Ironborn get into the mix.

Bran and Hodor

Bran, Hodor and Meera’s storyline was probably the best (and largest ) part of this episode, which why we saved the best for last.  Bran has been hanging out with the Three-eyed Raven for awhile now, and learning how to control his powers, but this episode brings an end to that part of his life as now his storyline is propelled forward, and we finally learn the true meaning of the word Hodor.

Bran is still having visions of the past and the Three-eyed Raven is leading him along as his mentor.  He learns that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers as a counter to all the human destruction that was being brought down on their magical world.  In the vision Bran sees Leaf, the leader of the Children of the Forest, making the White Walker king.  Bran awakens from his vision and questions her on it to which she tells him that men were destroying their forest, trees, and, essentially, their way of life.  The White Walkers were made as a countermeasure to men, but we can clearly see that she feels some guilt over this as now the White Walkers will kill them all.

The Three-eyed Raven decides to end Bran’s practice for the day, but Bran wants to see more.  Without the Three-eyed Raven’s guidance, Bran goes under again by touching the root of the tree.  He has a chilling vision where he is facing a White Walker army who are unaware of him even as he winds his way through them. He comes up to the White Walker king whom he remembers from the past vision, but the White Walker king actually sees him.  It is at this point that we see that Bran can affect the past, present and future in this vision state (that the young Ned Stark may have actually heard him in the previous episode and so on).  This is why it is so dangerous to go into the trance without a guide (Three eyed raven).  The White Walker king, in the vision, actually reaches out and grabs Bran’s arm, and luckily for Bran he is awakened just in time, but there is still a mark on his arm where the king touched him.

Unfortunately, the mark on Bran will make him easier to find, and the Three-eyed Raven states that now Bran has to run because the White Walker king is coming for him despite the protections surrounding the tree.  According to the producers of the show, Bran and the three eyed raven go back into a trance, this time back to the time when Hodor was a young Wylis and the stable boy, in order to “download” as much information that the Three-eyed Raven had to give to Bran as they are now out of time.  While in the vision, the White Walker king has arrived as Meera figures out when she noticed the drop in temperature.  She rushes to the entrance of the tree.

After seeing the massive army of the dead standing just outside their door, Meera rushes back to Bran to wake him which she can’t pull him out of the trance.  Hodor starts to lose it, and she can’t get him to pick Bran up to start to run.  Meanwhile, the remaining children of the forest make a stand outside the tree and try to hold off the army of the dead with their fire bombs which they succeed on making a circle of fire to keep out the horde, but not the white walker king and the higher ranking white walkers.

Meera gets Bran strapped to the sled, but can’t move it quickly, and needs Hodor’s help, but Hodor is having a bit of a melt down.  She needs Bran to warg into him to get him moving. White Walkers are getting inside despite the wall of fire by eating their way through the tree.  Bran hears her, and wargs into Hodor from the past.  He gets Hodor moving.  Bran is still in the trance as they are running.

 The children of the forest are trying to hold back the horde to allow Hodor (Bran), Bran and Meera time to escape.  In the process, Summer charges at the White Walkers to protect Bran and is slaughtered, but manages to hold them off long enough for Hodor to get Bran out of the room and into an escape tunnel.  The White Walker King gets in and kills the Three-eyed Raven, which Bran witnesses in the past trance he is still in as the Three-eyed Raven disappears in a puff of smoke.

Leaf watches as her fellow Children of the Forest fall to the White Walkers leaving her to be possibly the last Child of the Forest in existence.  Leaf is protecting the rear of Bran’s group and nobly suicides herself by fire bomb to block the tunnel and the White Walkers from Bran.

This stalls them, but not for long as they keep on coming.  Hodor, Meera and Bran make it to the back door and only way out.  Bran is still inside Hodor and is still stuck in the past with the young Hodor (Wylis).  Meera pulls Bran’s sled out the door, but Hodor is left to hold the door against the White Walkers.

And here is where the saddest part of the episode happens.  Meera tells Hodor to “hold the door” as she and Bran escape.  In the past, the young Wylis collapses as his eyes turn white (presumably while Bran wargs back to his own body).  He starts convulsing and screaming “hold the door” which eventually turns into Hodor, and we finally come to understand the true meaning of the word Hodor as does Bran.  Bran is devastated by the fact that he is watching his friend sacrifice himself for him, and that it may have been Bran’s fault.  The Hodor in the present remains at the door and holds the door against the White Walkers who start to get through the door, and are attacking him.  He sacrifices himself to allow Bran and Meera to escape.

 This shows that one of the biggest heroes of the series was a simple stable boy who would risk everything to protect those he cares for and we think he did care for Bran.  It also shows that you don’t have to have a fancy sword or dragons to be a hero.  This part was an emotional gut punch as you watch Hodor sacrifice his life to save Bran and Meera.  We also got to see how dangerous warging can be if done in different time periods as Bran may have changed the past by warging out of Wylis in the past.  This may have fried Wylis’s brain (Hodor’s brain) leaving him to remember only one thing: Hold the Door.  We do believe he was aware of what he was doing, and bravely decided to stay and hold the door to protect Bran, but it is still such a sad moment to watch.  Hodor you died with a heart of a dire wolf and more honor than most of the people in this story!

Notable Moments:

• Daenerys finally forgives Jorah for his transgressions after she learns that he has Grayscale.  She orders him to find the cure for himself and return to her side.  She then marches with her new army to what we assume is Meereen.  Where is Drogon in all this?
• In King’s Landing, things are still at a standstill as this episode focused mainly on the North, but in the promo for the next episode, it looks like the Sparrows may be getting a come uppance.  It also looks like Margaery may be in grave danger as we see her standing on the steps to do her penance surrounded by Sparrows and with an armed Lannister/Tyrell force facing her.
• Ramsay still has Rickon in his dungeon.  What will happen to Rickon when Ramsay finds out that Sansa is gathering allies and troops?  Will the army of the Vail still follow Sansa if Littlefinger is on her bad list?
• Tyrion is trying to enlist the help of a Priestess of the fire temple to rally the people to Daenerys’s side in the still unstable Meereen.  The fire Priestess,Kinvara, is very willing to do so as she sees Daenerys as being the one promised to come, and suggests purging non-believers.  Tyrion disagrees with this method as he points out that Daenerys’s subjects come in all faiths.  Varys is very skeptical of the Priestess and points out how a fellow Priestess (Melisandre) had been certain that Stannis was the promised one, and how she had been wrong.  We have seen what things Melisandre did in the name of her belief (burning little girls alive and all).  We believe Tyrion better keep a close eye on this one.
• The producers of the show stated in the inside the Game of Thrones segment just after this episode that the meaning of Hodor and how it came about was something they got from George RR Martin.  Since this season goes beyond what has been published in the books, there are going to be moments that are purely made from the producers, but this moment was directly from George RR Martin and as a fan of the books, that is nice to know.