Joel Fry-days: Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 5 - “Kill the Boy” (2015)

*Spoilers for episode 4*

I liked this episode quite a bit. It covers three main settings, with a little bonus Tyrion and Ser Jorah at the end, and each plot is given plenty of space to breathe. It’s also the most screentime Joel Fry has had on the show so far—that’s definitely a factor in my appreciation for it, although it’s not the only reason.

In Meereen, Daenerys is reeling after a brutal coordinated attack from the Sons of the Harpy that killed numerous Second Sons and Unsullied, along with her loyal advisor Ser Barristan. She plans her response. At the Wall, Jon is considering asking the wildlings to join with the Night’s Watch in the coming fight against the White Walkers. Sansa, back at Winterfell, has been engaged to Ramsay Bolton. She tries to figure out who to trust as she navigates her new situation. Tyrion and Ser Jorah’s journey takes them somewhere Tyrion never expected.

• Shoutout to Maester Aemon! As Jon deliberates over whether to partner with the wildlings, he says, “Half the men’ll hate me the moment I give the order.” Never one to mince words, Maester Aemon points out, “Half the men hate you already, Lord Commander. Do it!”
• Oh Stannis, having to mutter the correction under his breath when one of the Night’s Watch says “less” instead of “fewer”—I know I’m going to hate you, and rightly so, but also they could never make me hate you.
• Good line from Jon here—“We can learn to live with the wildlings, or we can add them to the army of the dead. Whatever they are now, they’re better than that.”
• Brienne is in the North, waiting for an opportunity to reach out to Sansa in Winterfell. It’s pointed out to her that, although she swore an oath to protect Sansa, the woman she swore it to is now dead, and she replies, “That doesn’t release me from the oath. I served Lady Catelyn. I serve her still.” And then, awesomely, she ends with, “Who do you serve?”
• I hate all the horrific suffering and sexual violence Sansa endures throughout the show, but one thing I’ve always liked is her soft skill of knowing how to keep herself alive when she’s surrounded by really dangerous, volatile people. First with Joffrey, and now with Ramsay, she does what she needs to do to wade through these kinds of minefields.
• Look, it was bad enough for me back when I first started Game of Thrones and realized this show was gonna have fantasy zombies (White Walkers.) The moment I realized it also had a contagious disease that turns people into zombies (greyscale)? Game over. The infection angle is what makes zombies so horrible for me in the first place, so to have it as an actual infection is even worse. Shireen Baratheon is my girl, and I’ll ride under her banner, but the Stone Men? Oh my god, I can’t deal with it!
• Grey Worm was gravely wounded in the Sons of the Harpy attack, and Missandei spends most of the episode sitting at his bedside, squee! By the time the dust settled on this show, these two had emerged as my favorite ship, so I really like the scenes we get with them here.

Hizdahr is in two key sequences for a total of three scenes in this episode—look at the heavy hitter out here! The attack, and particularly Ser Barristan’s death, has Daenerys simmering with cold, quiet rage, and she’s out to send a message. When Hizdahr comes to the pyramid to pay his respects, he’s really knocked sideways as he gets swept up in that, rounded up with the leaders of the other Great Families and shown firsthand what Daenerys Stormborn can do.

In addition to getting more screentime than usual, this episode gives us Hizdahr in a very different circumstance than what we’ve seen from him before. He’s always been careful and precise in his scenes with Dany, conscious of how quickly things could turn badly for him, but the way things escalate here catches him completely off guard. For once, he has zero control, and he desperately tries to just get through it alive.

I’ll avoid spoilers, so I won’t get into too many details here, but Joel Fry is really great at showing this side of Hizdahr. At first, he’s so bewildered that he can hardly react at all, stumbling forward almost in a stupor as he and other former slaveholders are herded toward their possible doom. Later, he freezes, almost as if he thinks he might be able to hold off the inevitable if he can just stay still enough. And later still, he has no dignity left, surprising even himself at how low he’s willing to bend to plead for Dany’s mercy. For a character who’s been so calculating, it’s really interesting to see him in a situation like this where he has no cards to play.