S6┬ÀE7 ÔÇö 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 ÔÇö 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 isnÔÇÖt theirs, land as a real loss rather than a plot beat. North, the recruitment drive for Jon and SansaÔÇÖs war finds its most memorable ally in Lyanna Mormont, ten years old and utterly unimpressed by grown menÔÇÖs speeches, who pledges her houseÔÇÖs 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, AryaÔÇÖs attempt to finally book passage home ends on a bridge with the WaifÔÇÖs knife in her stomach ÔÇö the seasonÔÇÖs 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 ÔÇö 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 ÔÇö and the Waif's knife finds her belly on a bridge.

The people of the episode

The fallen ÔÇö spoilers

• Septon Ray ÔÇö The Hound's septon, hanged by rogue Brothers with his own words in his mouth.