'Game of Thrones' Season 5, Episode 8 - 'Hardhome' Recap

This season of "Game of Thrones" has been a lot of talk and not a lot of action thus far. That changed tonight with an epic battle against that army of the dead we've been hearing so much about.

Here's what happened this week, by location.

Meereen

The week begins with an awkward silence, as Daenerys eyes up Jorah and Tyrion. When asked why she shouldn't just kill Tyrion out of revenge against the Lannisters, Tyrion explains, "I am the greatest Lannister killer of all time."

He has a point.

In his first act as advisor to Dany, Tyrion goes over what exactly she should do with Jorah. He explains, with some heart, just how devoted Jorah is to her, and how rulers shouldn't go about killing those who are devoted to them. She decides to exile Jorah once again...and considering that Greyscale mark on his arm, that's probably the best move.

Jorah goes back to the slaver who bought him and Tyrion, and makes an offer: If he's allowed to fight for Dany, he says, then he'll offer himself back up as a slave.

Later, Tyrion and Dany have a heart to heart about their respective, terrible families. Tyrion defends Varys, of whom Dany is understandably distrustful. Dany officially invites Tyrion to advise her, and reveals that she does indeed want to take the Iron Throne by being the queen of the common people. "I'm not going to stop the wheel," she says. "I'm going to break the wheel."

King's Landing

Cersei is still wallowing in jail. As a bonus to us, she continually gets smacked in the head with a ladle. Fun! She's offered the opportunity to confess to her crimes (incest, fornication, treason and the murder of King Robert), but refuses.

She continues to be deprived of water, to the point where she's actually trying to slurp it off the floor. We're still getting a good deal of schadenfreude from this.

Braavos

Arya finally seems to be getting the hang of her new gig, as she comes up with a new identity as a seller of clams in order to fulfill a mission for the Many-Faced God. She is tasked with offing a loan shark with some poisoned clams and learning more about a gambler whose debts are ruining his family.

Winterfell

Sansa corners Theon and lays into him for ratting her out, and for killing Bran and Rickon. When she continues to berate him about her dead brothers, Theon finally lets slip that it wasn't really Bran and Rickon that he had killed.

Meanwhile, Ramsay and Roose talk about what to do about Stannis. Roose wants to just let them freeze out there, but Ramsay, probably out of a desire to prove himself, says he'll take out their camp with "twenty good men."

Castle Black

Sam continues to recover, and Olly confronts him about Jon's decision to recruit the remaining wildlings. Sam defends Jon fully, even though it doesn't seem like Olly is buying it.

Meanwhile, Jon arrives at the wildling camp, Hardhome, without much more than a few rowboats to meet with the Lord of Bones. The initial discussions don't go well, as Tormund ends up just smashing the Lord of Bones' skull in.

Jon and Tormund state their case, and though things are tense (Jon makes a bad move in revealing that he killed Mance without adding any context) some of the wildlings are convinced. The Thenns, however, are still not on board with the plan.

Just as Jon is leaving with as many wildlings as their ships can carry, there's a thundering boom heard beyond the camp's gates. A wintry mist descends over them, and any who are caught outside are pulled away and torn apart by the dead. Winter isn't coming. It's already here.

Jon calls the men of the Night's Watch to him to help defend the gate, and the remaining wildlings and Thenns (and one giant) go with him. As they fight, Jon sees the White Walkers overlooking the battle. He comes face-to-face with one, the Thenn holding it off until Jon can uncover the dragonglass shard.

Unfortunately, Jon isn't quick enough. He stumbles awak, only to have the White Walker pursue him...but as it turns out, Jon's sword is strong enough not to shatter from the Walker's attack. He uses it to strike the Walker down, as if it were made of dragonglass.

This means one of two things: either Jon's sword is infused somehow with dragonglass, or Valyrian steel can also kill the Others!

The efforts of the men are not enough to hold off the forces of the dead, and they're forced to retreat. Jon, Edd and Tormund make it out alive, but the wildling woman who decided to ally with them was torn apart by undead children. The giant that was fighting with them stumbles into the sea, but who knows if he survived.

As Jon retreats, he watches in horror as the White Walker walks to the front of the battlefield, raises his arms, and brings every corpse lying on the ground behind him silently back to life.

It's eerily quiet. So as it turns out, this week began and ended with a silence...one much more chilling than the other.