Blood of My Blood
Samwell Tarly returns to his family's home in Horn Hill, accompanied by Gilly and little Sam; Jaime Lannister attempts to rescue the Queen, Margaery Tyrell; Arya Stark defies the Faceless Men; and Daenerys Targaryen rides on Drogon and emboldens her newly acquired khalasar.
He tells Bran that he is the Three-Eyed Raven, and that he must learn to control his abilities and be "ready" before the Night King comes south.
Jaime orders the High Sparrow to release Margaery and Loras, threatening force against the Faith Militant.
The High Sparrow declares that Margaery will not perform a walk of atonement, and presents Tommen, who announces that he has agreed to unite the Faith and the Crown.
As Daario, impatient, prepares to follow her, Drogon flies over the khalasar, having grown much larger, with Daenerys on his back.
Daenerys lands nearby, rallying the Dothraki by stating that she chooses them all to be her bloodriders, rather than the traditional three chosen by khals.
His mother and sister and brother are all fundamentally decent people but his father is just a cold hearted bastard when it comes to his distant son.
There's a painful part of the scene where his father just unloads on him and tells him every hateful thing he ever thought about him and Sam can't defend himself.
We're able to lovingly spoof ourselves but also play with ideas about how audiences view the show, good and bad, and how a perspective of a story changes.
"[3] Benioff continued, "Part of Arya's amusement is just that she knows that they're getting so many details wrong, but she always regretted that she didn't have a chance to watch Joffrey die, and now she gets to.
"[3] Weiss also noted, "Arya is slowly getting seduced by these performances, and Lady Crane, the actress that she's charged with killing, this is somebody who like her has taken as her life's work the job of becoming other people.
"[3] In regards to the final scene of the episode with Daenerys Targaryen riding Drogon and emboldening her newly acquired khalasar, Benioff stated in the "Inside the Episode" featurette that the scene is a reflection of the speech that Khal Drogo gave before his death, with Benioff saying "One of our favorite moments from season one was watching Khal Drogo deliver a speech to his gathered khalasar, that speech clearly lingered in Daenerys's mind, and she's echoing almost the exact same language when she's talking to the Dothraki now.
[5] Another return involved the story of the Riverlands with actor David Bradley returning to the show as Walder Frey, who last appeared in the aftermath of the Red Wedding, as well as Tobias Menzies as Edmure Tully, who also had not appeared since the Red Wedding episode "The Rains of Castamere", in the third season.
[9] In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) spoke about the introduction of his family to the series, stating, "When you see Sam with his father and mother and brother especially, he starts to make sense.
[11][12] For Bran's brief vision sequence at the beginning of the episode, actor David Rintoul was cast as King Aerys II Targaryen in a scene that had only been described to that point.
[19][20] The director of the episode, Bender, conducted an interview with The Wall Street Journal following the airing of the episode, and spoke about filming the play with Arya in Braavos, stating "I staged the whole play, we did it, and the producers came in to watch the rehearsal, including all the fart jokes, all that stuff, some of which was written.
"[22] The new scenes of the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, are interspersed with previously shown footage of the White Walkers, as well as wildfire explosions, and other landmark moments from throughout the series, such as Ned Stark's beheading, the Red Wedding, and Bran falling from the Broken Tower in the series premiere.
[24] The show's version portrayed his look in a more tidy fashion, with David Rintoul playing the role of the Mad King.
If you've read the books, then you know about the Coldhands character, who was cut out of the Bran, Meera and Jojen storyline on the show.
Benjen is sort of like the Coldhands character in that he's a slightly suspicious guy who is half-dead and half-alive with blue hands.
"[25] "Blood of My Blood" was viewed by 6.71 million American households on its initial viewing on HBO, which was a modest decrease from the previous week's rating of 7.89 million viewers for the episode "The Door", likely due to the Memorial Day holiday in the United States.
[26] In the United Kingdom, the episode was viewed by 2.684 million viewers on Sky Atlantic, making it the highest-rated broadcast that week on its channel.
"[29] Matt Fowler of IGN wrote in his review of the episode, "Some sluggish stories took better turns this week – albeit sometimes by just ending things for now – while a book character many thought would never appear on the series made a notable splash, answering a big mystery that the novels hadn’t even revealed yet in the process.
"[28] He also continued by noting, "this installment probably speaks, more than any other episode so far this season, to the accelerated rate of payoffs we're now getting that the show isn't directly following the books.
"[30] Emily VanDerWerff of Vox likewise praised the structure of the season, noting the recent absence of Ramsay Bolton as a positive, but continuing, "Though it wasn't as good as the last two episodes, "Blood of My Blood" continued the general upswing in quality Game of Thrones season six has undergone.
"[31] Comparing the episode to "Book of the Stranger", Jeremy Egner of The New York Times said, "The problem with emerging naked from a flaming temple is that it's hard to top.
