Game of Thrones New Episode Review: 'Kill The Boy' Centers on Jon Snow, Ramsay Bolton

The latest episode of HBO's Game of Thrones, "Kill The Boy," aired Sunday night, and the pieces continued to shuffle around the chess board as Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Ramsay Bolton, Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and the rest o the players in this game made some important moves.

Once again, the show wisely decided to present an episode in large chunks rather than jump from place to place, which helped the narrative flow throughout the hour. We'll start at the end with the adventures Jorah and Tyrion as they sailed toward Meereen to meet with the Mother of Dragons herself.

Jorah had the brilliant idea to sail through Valyria, where the Stone Men attacked. And as we know, the touch of a Stone Man leads to grayscale. It was a tense situation, as Tyrion was in chains and Jorah was fighting off multiple assailants at once. Tyrion fell into the water to avoid the touch, but a Stone Man dragged him down. At that point, a friend of mine with whom I was watching remarked that this was a fantastic ending to the episode. But then it kept going. That's how brilliant Game of Thrones is and how engrossing each episode can be.

But no, Tyrion was alive and untouched by the stone attackers. Jorah, however, closed the episode with a twist by peeking at his arm and noticing some scales near his wrist. It's worth noting that the writers cleverly brought grayscale back to the forefront of the viewers' minds with the conversation between Stannis and his daughter last week, and now here they paid it off by afflicting poor Jorah with the disease. Of course, Stannis' little girl has proved that grayscale isn't a death sentence, so we'll have to see how this unfolds.

Staying in the east, Dany finally decided to take some decisive action in Meereen and execute one of the former slave masters. This led to an unbelievably cool scene in which her two chained dragons roasted the man alive and then ripped him in half like Hulk Hogan tearing off his T-shirt. But from there, Dany decided to finally act like a queen and realized that she cannot simply roll into a foreign land and change everything. So she acknowledged tradition by reopening the fighting pits and agreeing to marry one of the former slave masters.

Jon Snow also tried to forge peace at Castle Black by convincing the de facto Wildling leader to return to his people and convince them to fight alongside the Crows against the White Walkers when winter comes. Jon even offered to throw the gates wide open and give the wildlings lands on which to live and settle. He informed the Lord Commander that the free folk would rather die than work with those south of the wall, and Jon smartly replied that that's exactly what will happen if they don't all unite.

This is a strategic, long-term move by Jon Snow, and one that will hopefully pay off when the undead arrive. Of course, most of the men of the Night's Watch hate this idea, but as Aemon correctly pointed out, most of the Night's Watch hates Jon anyway, so why not go for it?

A little further south in Winterfell, Ramsay Bolton continued to be his deranged and psychotic self to...well, pretty much everyone around him. His lover, the kennel master's daughter, became jealous of Sansa and sent her into the kennel to come face to face with Reek, the man formerly known as Theon Greyjoy. Ramsay, after learning of this development, forced Reek to apologize to Sansa for killing (or so they think) her two brothers in Winterfell. Then, to make the situation even more upsetting, he decreed that Reek would give Sansa away at their wedding.

Roose Bolton then dropped the news that he and his wife are expecting another child, likely a boy, which unsettled Ramsay. But father and son put differences aside to combat the incoming threat of Stannis, who marched out of Castle Black and toward Winterfell to take the North. This should be fun to watch.

Notes:

- Stannis Baratheon, The One True King and also the King of Grammar. "Fewer." "What?" "Nothing." It's little touches like these that make Game of Thrones so great.

- We had no Arya, Cersei, Jamie, etc. this week and I didn't even flinch. The roster on this show is so deep.

- Stannis vs. Roose has to be the big battle in the penultimate episode, right?

- When will Tyrion get to Daenerys already?!

What did you think of "Kill The Boy"? Let us know in the comments section.