‘Game of Thrones’ season 5, episode 9 review: Stannis and Shireen; Dany, Jorah, and the Fighting Pits

Tonight’s “Game of Thrones” episode messed us up. There’s no other way we can say it. We don’t consider ourselves to be even remotely soft when it comes to what we watch on TV; we see every genre of show, and it’s our job, so when something like this comes up that truly disturbs us then we know it’s really messed up.

Yet, we still have to say that what happened tonight with Stannis and his daughter Shireen was the first moment with this show, and maybe the first moment all year where we almost felt like it was too much. We give a lot of the credit to the show’s producers for creating this scene, mostly because we were so emotionally invested in what happened. Ultimately, Stannis decided to follow the doctrine of Melisandre once again, and this meant sacrificing his poor, intelligent daughter who he had previously fought so hard to save.

This moment will undoubtedly change not just Stannis as a person, but everyone close to him. What will Davos think?

Now, let’s move from what was the extremely devastating part of the episode to the extremely awesome: Don’t mess with Drogon! Right when it looked like the Sons of the Harpy had orchestrated a perfect assassination attempt when it comes to Dany in the fighting pits, the dragon was the game-changer. Everyone else in Meereen on her side is safe, but they’ve all been left behind while she flew away with the dragon at the end. This leaves almost everyone in a strange place.

We’re honestly still trying to wrap our head around the Shireen shocker that we have a hard time processing everything else. We find Dorne entertaining, for example, but it’s almost a completely different show. The Sand Snakes are still a massive letdown, and while we like Doran, we don’t know what the point of all of this was yet if the end result is just Jaime and Bronn coming back with Myrcella. Jon Snow is back among the Night’s Watch at Castle Black planning his next move, Arya is close to taking out someone on her list (if she doesn’t resist), and there wasn’t anything when it comes to Cersei or Margaery this week, which is a little disappointing since we love the stories at Kings Landing.

Ultimately, whether or not you enjoyed this episode probably comes down to if you can buy into what happened to Shireen, and at the moment, we just can’t wrap our head around Stannis killing his own daughter for the sake of power, and not even tangible power, just promised power by the Red Woman. Grade: B-.

What did you think about the Stannis scene in particular; was it too much? Share with a comment, and head over here to see some other news on the show, including a preview for the finale! Also, you can sign up here in the event you want some other TV updates on all we cover, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: HBO.)