Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the 9th episode of a season of Game of Thrones was one of the best of said season. Crazy, right? For whatever reason, the second to last episode is when shit historically blows up. Boy, did shit ever blow up in “Battle of the Bastards”.

Winterflay No More

Throughout the first season of Game of Thrones, Winterfell was a place of warmth and comfort. It was not only the home of the Starks, but also the viewers. It was the one place that felt safe from all of the chaos in Westeros. Then, Theon Greyjoy had to go and ruin it. Since then it’s been burnt and taken hostage by the owners of the grossest similar around: The Boltons. The Flayed Man’s presence on the walls of the Starks’ home never felt right. It was a violation of what we cared about on Game of Thrones.

Ramsay’s violation of Sansa was just salt in the wound. Just how long can this piece of shit continue to win? We watched him turn Theon into a husk. He made feel for Theon! Theon was the worst before Ramsay was the worst! He repelled Yara and the Ironborn with little more than a crazy look. Stannis’ forces lost their morale due to Ramsay’s 20 good men. It had gotten to the point where Reddit was claiming that Ramsay had too much “plot armor” to be killed. Really, though, Ramsay needed to take on his mirror image in Jon Snow.

The “Bastard Bowl” didn’t disappoint. Game of Thrones has often skimmed the epic battles due to budgetary reasons. The Battle of the Blackwater, for instance, was a little fighting outside the gates of King’s Landing and some green explosions. Stannis’ defeat last season wasn’t even seen on camera. That said, the action and the budget have increased each season. Sure, we didn’t get the last Baratheon (besides ever floating Gendry) vs. Ramsay, but we did get the incredible “Hardhome”. Miguel Sapochnik did such a great job with that one that he was called back to show which Snow was better.

It is an incredible accomplishment for a television show to give us the scaled of the battle shown in “Battle of the Bastards”. From the gorgeous shot of Jon’s initial encounter with the Bolton army cavalry, you knew this was different. Horses colliding, guts spilling out, a mass of corpses so large it was used to trap all of Jon’s forces. WUN WUN. Holy shit, who knew that you could put Lord of the Rings scale fantasy on a weekly television show?

The tension is high throughout the encounter. Jon’s forces are drastically outnumbered. Ramsay’s ploy to piss off Jon by hunting his brother, Rickon, was gut wrenching. Poor kid, he got to come back for about two scenes of looking dirty and sad. As awful as that was, it didn’t hold a candle to Jon nearly suffocating below a mass of humanity. As Snow struggled to breathe under his own allies, I found myself running short of breath.

“Battle of the Bastards” is the anti-Red Wedding. It’s a rousing crowd pleaser of an episode that sees the remaining Starks (sorry, Rickon) triumph over that human pile of horse shit that was Ramsay Bolton. The Direwolf is once again draped over the walls of Winterfell and it feels oh so good.

What price did Sansa pay to see Ramsay’s own hellhounds devour him alive? Littlefinger is as close to the devil as Westeros has. I imagine there has to be a marriage pact in the cards, giving Sansa a cool hat trick. Is it to her sickly cousin, Robin? Gross. Is it Baelish himself? Grosser. Whatever it is, it’s not good. Dude cannot be trusted. He has a plan to climb that chaotic ladder. It increasingly seems like the whole thing may come down to Baelish and the North vs. Varys and the South.

And where does Jon Snow go from here? He has no intention of marching south and putting himself on the Iron Throne. He will certainly want to protect his half-sister and their family’s home. Does that involve uniting the North against the real threat beyond the Wall? He may have to do it without the red priestess, Melisandre. The Onion Knight found the Princess Shireen’s burnt stag. He may be mostly illiterate, but he can do simple math. Davos would have words with thee.

Dracarys is Valyrian for “Ya Burnt!”

Oh no, the Masters are here, whatever shall Tyrion, Grey Worm, and Missandei do? It turns out that they didn’t have to do jack shit. Daenerys Targaryen came back and absolutely wrecked the slavers with her fire-breathing friends. Even Grey Worm got to do something badass, with that double Master knife swipe. Is that the first time he’s ever done something particularly cool? Meereen scenes tend to lump together in my mind when there aren’t dragons involved.

Thankfully, even though the situation looked quite bad upon Dany arriving home, Tyrion wasn’t fed to Drogon. Hey, maybe a Targ is actually being reasonable! It would be the first time in fictional history. Adding to that reasonableness, she agrees to meet with two people from a very unreasonable area: the Iron Islands. Yara and Theon have beaten their mad Uncle Euron to Meereen and have offered their services to Dany. Yara is certainlya little more, um, willing, with the offers than her brother. He has some understandable issues. I kind of love Yara and Daenerys together, chumming it up over being ladies in charge. Frankly, the Meereen crew needs all the personality it can get. Now get your ass to King’s Landing.

Next Episode Predictions

• Walder Frey laughs so hard about the Blackfish’s death that he crumbles into a pile of dust.
• Littlefinger gets drunk and rubs his butt all over the Ned Stark portion of the Winterfell crypts.
• It turns out that the Sand Snakes went back to their home in space, far away from everything.
• Arya is named the new Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.
• Sansa declares Jon a legitimate Stark. Jon responds with a simple, “Meh.”
• The Mountain finally takes off his helmet to reveal the head sewed on is none other than…Ros the prostitute!? WOW.
• Melisandre accidentally brings Ramsay back to life. Whoopsie daisy!

Book Stuff

• It looks like the show didn’t even want to deal with the Meereenese Knot and burned right through it. The Battle of Fire wasn’t even remotely a battle.
• Given where Stannis is at the beginning of The Winds of Winter and the legitimacy of “The Pink Letter”, the Bastard Bowl may not even remotely happen in the same way in the books. Hell, Theon and Asha are his prisoners and not remotely close to gaining the support of Daenerys Targaryen.
• I guess no one is getting Quentyn’d. Aw man.
• Another large deviation is Davos’ storyline. In the books, we were lead to believe he was dead for a couple chapters before finding out that he’s been recruited by Wyman “Fatty McBadass” Manderly to bring Rickon Stark back from the wilderness. I imagine things work out a bit better for Rickon in the book. They have to, right?