S6·E7 — The Broken Man
The hour retold
Sandor Clegane, presumed dead since a hillside beating two seasons back, turns up very much alive and swinging an axe for a peaceable little religious commune — a Hound gentled, however briefly, by a septon who talks to him like a person rather than a monster. The show gives him just enough of that fragile peace to make its destruction, when rogue members of the Brotherhood Without Banners arrive and take what isn’t theirs, land as a real loss rather than a plot beat. North, the recruitment drive for Jon and Sansa’s war finds its most memorable ally in Lyanna Mormont, ten years old and utterly unimpressed by grown men’s speeches, who pledges her house’s sixty-two soldiers with the flattest, most withering stare the season offers.
At Riverrun, Jaime Lannister arrives to find the castle held not by loyal Freys but by the Blackfish, and discovers that his gift for diplomacy has limits when the man across the table has nothing left to lose and no patience for Lannister charm. And in Braavos, Arya’s attempt to finally book passage home ends on a bridge with the Waif’s knife in her stomach — the season’s cruelest cliffhanger, closing on a girl bleeding into a canal in a city built on the idea that identity is negotiable and death is a service anyone can order.
What happens
- The Hound lives, swinging an axe for a septon's little commune — until the Brotherhood's rogues visit.
- Jon, Sansa and Davos recruit the North: Mormont's ten-year-old Lady Lyanna pledges her sixty-two.
- Jaime arrives at Riverrun to find the Blackfish holding it and Freys embarrassing themselves.
- Arya books passage home — and the Waif's knife finds her belly on a bridge.
The people of the episode
Sandor Clegane — Buried the only man who ever talked to him like a person.
Lyanna Mormont — Sixty-two soldiers, one unimpressed stare, zero patience.
Jaime Lannister — Parleys with the Blackfish and loses on style points.
Arya Stark — Stabbed, swimming, bleeding out in a city of assassins.
Jon Snow — Counting swords: the Boltons still have more.The fallen — spoilers
- Septon Ray — The Hound's septon, hanged by rogue Brothers with his own words in his mouth.