Last Night's 'Game of Thrones' Was About Sisters, Brothers, and Lots and Lots of Fire

Warning: Spoilers through season six, episode four.

Here is a perfectly nice episode of television's Game of Thrones that you could watch with a stranger, a friend, your mom, a Lost fan, or someone otherwise unversed in the wars to come. We begin with those precious couple of minutes where the recently-promoted-to-memorable Dolorous Edd begs Jon Snow to consider his future—will he hit up Amsterdam, get warm, go for a joyride, get his MFA?—until Sansa arrives in the most heartfelt reunion I have ever seen between two characters that have never actually been onscreen together. But forget all that, I know what we're all here for: the unexpected sexy look between Brienne and the transfixed Tormund Giantsbane (will he woo her with animal bones? American Gladiator trading cards?), a bit of 'shipping fanfic in the season of fanfic and everything we never knew we were missing in life. This is "The Book of the Stranger," the gratification episode where we resolve the best and the worst of storyline and strap in our stuffed tigers (for those of us without Shaggydogs) for the long sled journey downhill.

Much of the excitement of this season, at least for die-hard fans, is getting to see far-flung characters next to one another at last, and while there's no question that Sansa's bittersweet reunion with her half-brother is plot impetus, there's no denying the feels of getting drunk with your sister and saying all that you meant to say: "You were occasionally awful, I am the prince that was promised," "Did you know I am a murderer of children," and so on. More fun is had in Castle Black's courtyard, oh venerable set, as Davos, Melisandre, and Brienne have an awkward moment regarding the fact that they are still alive post-character arc. I'm not complaining about anything, except maybe the weird fantasy accents everybody is conversing because I was initially misled into thinking that when Davos said "What about Shireen," he was asking the Red Woman, "Whatcha readin'?

One of the true pleasures of television is watching your actors age in and out of character. So it's basically a nice thing to admire what puberty has done to idiot-boy-lord Robin Arryn in the time since we last saw him simpering, as the lad is simply huge as fuck. Littlefinger arrives, at peak Irish, with a gyrflacon and ably threatens Arryn's custodian Lord Royce into service of the real lord of the Vale: the plot of this interminable television show.

I'm a big fan of this installment of Raceistan 2: Electric Boogaloo, as Tyrion has a charming allotment of slave owners over for drinks only to (more than justifiably) face the recriminations of Missandei and Grey Worm. A note to would-be-diplomat: Lap dances are not the answer to everything. Actually, the consequences of Tyrion's rather dilettantish dispersal of tensions via compromise makes for fairly good atmosphere of exactly the kind that has been heretofore missing from this season. "Seven years is a long time for a slave" isn't just good advice for our wee hero, it's the appropriate rejoinder to a character we've loved for his amelioration between justice and what is presented as necessity. But those who have suffered understand suffering, and Tyrion is soon revealed to be a well-heeled apologist for atrocity, a role familiar to lots of national security advisors. If Game of Thrones rewards Tyrion for his auxiliary command of Meereen, it will be the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize all over again.

It's the angina dialogues with our Jorah the Andal/Daario from Vermont buddy comedy, as they embark on a mission to rescue a princess who does not need saving. In a show of dudely solidarity, Daario acknowledges Jorah's disease before they infiltrate the Vaes Dothrak, and soon after, Darrio stabs a man and then smashes the dead guy's face with a rock. Improvisation!

I very much admire what would be a soaring pass of the Bechdel test were we not in a city of the widows of famous dead barbarian men, as Danerys takes counsel from a young widow. This scene is excellent until the intrusion of the savior-men, but they have the right line—"All we can do is try"—before Khaleesi has the brilliant idea of setting everybody on fire.

Never have I been more certain of our hero, the show's premier villain, the High Sparrow, as when Jonathan Pryce explains the labor theory of value to Margaery Tyrell in her cell, and we witness the first of three beautiful scenes where sisters comfort their weepy younger brothers in the moment of their weakness. Loras just wants an end to his abuse at the hands of an evil nun, Theon wants his sister Yara to be queen, and Sansa wants Jon to man up and fight for the North's right to party. But we all want the same thing: an end to gratuitous nudity in the Seven Kingdoms. This is the errand on which Cersei and Jaime attend the small council, to wrest power Never-Trump-style from the Sparrow's "dirty peasant hands" in a scene that is as full of intrigue as a meeting of the Park Slope Food Co-op directors, and which results in the same level of skullduggery usually reserved for amaranth. It's a top-notch meeting of the city brass compounded by the extraordinary 77-year-old sex bomb Diana Rigg's observation that, should King's Landing be engulfed by civil war, it's "better then them us." Sic Semper Ty-Lannis.

I'm a big booster for Theon's journey into mediocrity, and Yara's "spoiled little cunt" dialogue is a merciful end to Gamergate in the Iron Islands. Telling her brother to "stop crying! Look at me!" is more than a good reproach to the accusations of sexism that accrue around the show, it is a demand to #niceguys to hail the competent pirate queen whose been sidelined for nigh on three seasons (Gemma Whalen in a killer performance as the queen-apparent).

Is all I can think to say about the dispatch of Osha, a character we haven't seen in two seasons is that, as much as I admire this season's screws-tightening-of-extraneous elements—for those counting we've had two Martells, two Boltons, and Thorne and fucking Olly—Osha's death-by-coring was super disrespectful for a figure that feeds that of villain-of-the-season Ramsey who, if I'm not mistaken, is coming off very Joker in the scene where he proves nothing so much as how awful he is at peeling apples. Viewers at home, here is a test: See if you can unleash the polypyrenous you (or look up this absurd word) in the time it takes this show to brutally murder a supporting female.

But if we're looking for a silver lining in this absolutely bronze-medal episode, we have it in Castle Black, where Tormund lustily bites a leg of potted meat food product while staring at Brienne. That's what will pass for swiping right in a kingdom where most attractions are ordained by the will of the seven gods, or the khalasar, or the books of a mad sea captain, or the High Sparrow—a little autonomy, and a room of one's own.

Recent work by J. W. McCormack appears in Conjunctions, BOMB, and the New Republic. Read his other writing on VICE here.