The Reach: Sam & Gilly
Sam & Gilly’s voyage ends and they finally reach the Tarly ancestral home of Horn Hill. Sam is nervous – he told them about Little Sam (albeit that it was his son, not Craster’s) but refrained from saying the mother and son are Wildlings. They received a warm welcome from his mother and sister.
Gilly gets her first costume change since 2012 (you read that right). Given Hannah Murray’s rising star, it’s good to see her get play something different for a change. The family dinner is pretty amazing; James Faulkner’s Randyll Tarly seems set to fill the sternly-stern patriarch role that needs filled after the deaths of Tywin Lannister, Stannis Baratheon and Roose Bolton. He wastes no time reminding us what kind of dick disowns his son because he’s fat.
Unfortunately, Gilly is not as practiced as Sam; when she defends him from Randyll’s insults, he susses out she is a Wildling. For all Sam’s growth, he’s still fundamentally a coward and his father is the source of his pain. The whole scene is frustrating until its put of its misery by Sam’s mom who can’t take anymore verbal abuse. Randyll tells Sam, Gilly and their “half-breed” to leave by morning.
Surprisingly, this segment ends on a happy, satisfying note as Sam takes it upon himself to leave with Gilly on his own, stealing his family’s Valyrian steel sword Heartsbane on the way to spite the old man. Just that little bit made it all worth it.
