Holy shit, guys. Holy. Shit. We're going to get to the big scene everyone's talking about, because they are talking about it for a reason, but first let's just briefly recap what happened during "Hardhome." Arya Stark has made incredible progress in one episode as she tries to become a faceless foot soldier in Jaqen H'ghar's Merry Men of Braavos. Instead of cleaning corpses, she's now selling oysters in the city under an assumed name, and in our final look at her in the episode, she seemed very happy with the prospects of killing a man.Meanwhile, her sister Sansa is still a prisoner in her own home, but she learned an interesting bit of news that no one but her psychotic husband's invalid knows: her younger brothers might actually still be alive. Obviously we know they are alive, but we're just the audience, we can't talk to these fictional characters, which is a very frustrating position for us to be in. So Sansa's list of allies might be growing, while Cersei fucking Lannister's list grows shorter by the day. She's still in jail being beaten and tortured and even her own son, the King, won't come see her. It has to be one of the more enjoyable story lines of this season.From one wannabe Queen to another, we are then whisked away to the Dragon Lady, who's come upon Cersei's dwarf brother. He's an expert bullshitter so he's talked his way out of shackles and into an advisory position, an especially curious move because his brother, Jaime, killed her father. Dragon Lady is gearing up for war and world conquest, but war has already begun, and only folks in the North seem to be concerned about it.Jon Snow's plan for self preservation requires destroying everything the Night's Watch stands for, and he is personally recruiting Wildlings to come live on the right side of the wall and fight the crazy-ass White Walkers together when the time comes. He's got a secret weapon thanks to his tubby friend Sam Tarly, who killed the seemingly unkillable Walkers with Dragonglass, which we're all going to just accept as a thing that exists and works. So Jon goes to their outpost, Hardhome, and tries to win them over with the promise of safety in numbers and Walker kryptonite. Most give this offer a hard pass, but soon enough it doesn't matter because the undead are upon them and they are destroying the Wildlings, setting up the dramatic moment everyone is talking about this morning.The entire outpost is under siege and the White Walkers are controlling the army of the undead. During the melee one Walker comes down from his perch atop the mountain and meets Jon Snow. Snow knows the only way to kill him is with the Dragonglass, but he can't find any while he's getting his ass kicked by the Walker. The fight is a sprawling mess and Snow gets tossed around until he eventually finds his own sword, made of Valyrian steel. It's not Dragonglass, but it's his only chance for survival. And with one mighty swing—
—poof, the Walker is destroyed and the threat minimized. For the time being, anyway, because we also learned that the Walkers can resurrect the dead and use them to swell their numbers during battle, so who knows we may see fight next. Old Hoss Radbourn? Babe Ruth? Jamie Moyer? Two episodes left to find out!
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