Hardhome

In King's Landing

Cersei (Lena Headey) is visited by Septa Unella (Hannah Waddingham), who offers her water in exchange for a confession of her sins. Cersei asks to speak with Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) and is struck by the Septa. Later, Qyburn (Anton Lesser) visits Cersei and tells her about the crimes she is charged with, including incest and the murder of Robert Baratheon, which she rejects as lies. Qyburn also tells her that Grand Maester Pycelle has taken control of the Small Council and has sent for her uncle, Kevan, to return from Casterly Rock and serve as Tommen's Hand. Before leaving, Qyburn tells Cersei that "the work continues".

In Braavos

Arya (Maisie Williams) assumes the identity of Lanna, an oyster seller. While practicing acting with Jaqen, she describes her typical day to Jaqen (Tom Wlaschiha), who tells her to change her daily route, and to instead head to the harbour. There, she encounters, and sells oysters to a life insurance salesman. Jaqen explains that the family of one of the salesman's clients hired the Faceless Men to kill him after he refused to pay out when said client drowned at sea. He tells Arya to return to the harbour and learn everything she can about the insurer before poisoning him.

At the Wall

Gilly (Hannah Murray) treats Sam's (John Bradley) wounds, before Olly (Brenock O'Connor) asks for a word with Sam in private. Olly asks Sam why Jon trusts the wildlings, noting that the wildlings, including Tormund, attacked his village and killed his family. Sam explains that Jon had to make a difficult decision, and that they have no chance of defeating the army of the dead without help from the wildlings.

In Winterfell

Theon Greyjoy/Reek (Alfie Allen) brings food to Sansa (Sophie Turner), who remains locked in her chamber. She asks Reek why he told Ramsay (Iwan Rheon) about her escape plans, and Reek replies that there is no escape from Ramsay. When he tries to leave, Sansa confronts him about murdering Bran and Rickon, but Reek confesses that he was unable to find them, and killed two farm boys instead and passed off their charred remains as those of the Stark children. Hearing this revelation, Sansa finds hope once again.

In the great hall, Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) and his advisors plan for battle with Stannis's army, which is six thousand strong with half of them mounted. Roose plans to wait out the invaders, noting that with Winterfell fully repaired and supplied, they are better prepared for a siege than Stannis. Ramsay insists that the Boltons should take the fight to Stannis, and asks his father for twenty good men.

In Meereen

Jorah (Iain Glen) and Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) are brought before Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), who asks Tyrion why he should be allowed to live and serve her. Tyrion explains that he understands how politics work in King's Landing, and would be of great service to her, due to his experience as former Hand of the King. Tyrion is able to convince Daenerys to spare Jorah's life, though he tells her that Jorah should not be allowed to serve her, and she orders Jorah exiled from Meereen again. Later, Daenerys tells Tyrion that she will not have him killed or exiled, and intends to allow him to advise her. She also tells him about reclaiming the Iron Throne, her birth right. When she claims that the common people of Westeros will support her claim, Tyrion points out that her rule of Meereen has not gone smoothly with only the support of the common people, and tells her that she will not succeed without the backing of a powerful Westerosi house. She bitterly remarks that the powerful houses of Westeros are spokes on a wheel and that she intends to break the wheel. Meanwhile, Jorah returns to Yezzan zo Qaggaz (Enzo Cilenti) and asks that he be allowed to fight in front of Daenerys in the Fighting Pits.

At Hardhome

Arriving at Hardhome, Jon (Kit Harington), Tormund (Kristofer Hivju), and a group of Night's Watch brothers meet with the Lord of Bones (Ross O'Hennessy), who has become the de facto leader of the wildlings. After a tense standoff, Tormund kills the Lord of Bones and orders his advisors to gather the elders, including Wildling leader Karsi (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen). At the meeting, Jon shares the dragonglass with the wildlings, telling them how Sam killed a White Walker with a dragonglass dagger. Jon offers to allow the wildlings to farm the lands south of the Wall, if they will aid the Night's Watch in the coming war against the White Walkers. When asked what became of Mance Rayder, Jon admits that he killed him. Outraged, the assembled wildlings move to kill Jon, but Tormund is able to calm them by explaining that Jon killed Mance out of mercy. After more discussion, Jon and Tormund are able to convince roughly 5,000 wildlings to come with them, though the Thenns, led by Loboda (Zahari Baharov), refuse to join them.

While loading the ships with wildlings, Hardhome is attacked by an army of wights. Hundreds of wildlings attempt to flee, forcing their way onto the boats and attacking each other. Jon and the Night's Watch brothers assist in the defense of Hardhome, helping defend the walls from wight attacks. Jon and Tormund see several White Walkers observing the battle, and Jon moves to recover the bag of dragonglass weapons. Entering a large hut, Jon and Loboda are attacked by a White Walker, who easily kills Loboda before moving onto Jon. Jon is attacked before he can recover the dragonglass, and manages to escape the hut. The White Walker pursues him and they fight, but the Walker is momentarily stunned when he is unable to break Jon's Valyrian steel sword Longclaw, and Jon manages to kill him. His victory is short-lived, as the walls surrounding Hardhome fall to the wights and Jon and his remaining allies are forced to flee. As Jon returns to the boats, he witnesses the Night King (Richard Brake) reviving the dead, including Karsi and many of the wildlings and the Night's Watch, as wights.

Writing

This episode was written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the series' creators. It contains content from George Martin's novels A Feast for Crows, chapters Cersei X and Cat of the Canals and A Dance with Dragons, chapter The Ugly Little Girl.

Like other episodes this season, "Hardhome" contained a large amount of original material that does not appear in Martin's novels. According to Erik Kain of Forbes, "We have now fully parted ways with the books. If the rest of Season 5 hadn't convinced you that the show was forging its own path, this episode is the final nail in the coffin." This includes the battle scene in which the Wildlings and Night's Watch are ambushed by the White Walkers and army of the undead, as well as the meeting of Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister.

Casting

Birgitte Hjort Sørensen was cast as Karsi, a wildling chieftain originally written as a male character. Zachary Baharov appeared as Loboda, a Thenn leader, and Ross O'Hennessy replaced Edward Dogliani as the Lord Of Bones in this episode. Ian Whyte who had previously been cast as a White Walker and Gregor Clegane appeared as the giant Wun Wun. Members of the metal band Mastodon acted as wildlings at Hardhome in a cameo appearance.

Filming

"Hardhome" was directed by Miguel Sapochnik. He joined the series as a director in the fifth season. He also directed the previous episode, "The Gift". The sequence at Hardhome was filmed at the Magheramorne quarry and took nearly a month to film.

Ratings

"Hardhome" was watched by an estimated 7.01 million American viewers during its first airing.

With Live+7 DVR viewing factored in, the episode had an overall rating of 9.94 million viewers, and a 5.1 in the 18–49 demographic. In the United Kingdom, the episode was viewed by 2.383 million viewers, making it the highest-rated broadcast that week. It also received 0.211 million timeshift viewers.

Critical reception

The episode received universal acclaim from both critics and viewers, with critics calling it the best episode of the series. It received a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with an overall rating of 9.7/10 and the critics' consensus reading "Following several episodes of setup, 'Hardhome' blends a sharp script with spectacular blockbuster action to offer viewers a powerful, game-changing payoff." The episode holds a rating of 9.9/10 on IMDb, being one of the ten only episodes ever to get a 9.9 or higher on the website. It's also one of the most voted episode of a television series on IMDb, with over 55,000 votes.

The Atlantic named "Hardhome" one of the best television episodes of 2015. Erik Kain of Forbes called this "one of the best, most exciting episodes I've seen in the entire show's run, let alone this season," citing "High action and a series of pretty crazy revelations." Matt Fowler of IGN gave the episode 10/10, labeling it a "masterpiece". He praised the Tyrion/Daenerys scenes but predominantly the final sequence, which he described as "edge-of-your-seat exciting" and also "quite terrifying". This made "Hardhome" the first episode in season 5 to receive a 10/10 rating from IGN. Matt Fowler also named it the best episode of the entire series. Both Myles McNutt and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club gave the episode the website's highest grade, "A". They called it "a welcome reminder that [the show is still unpredictable]," with McNutt citing it as his favorite episode of the series thus far. Bridle Roman of SFX gave the episode a perfect five stars, and highlighted the character of Karsi, played by Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as a great addition and "her death hits hard" even if "we have only seen her for a few scenes". The episode received praise even from some of its usual critics: Madeline Davies of Jezebel wrote, "I feel like I haven't said this in a long time, but last night's Game of Thrones was ...cool?" Davies cited the quality of the battle scene and unifying theme of hope in desperate situations as the episode's key strengths, specifically that the abused and tormented Sansa learns that her brothers may still be alive and that though Jon faces "the seemingly impossible task of defeating a constantly growing army of White Walkers, he at least possesses a sword that can kill them." Kirsten Acuna of Business Insider reports that this is the single most popular episode to date as rated by fans, noting that the "tremendous reaction is in complete juxtaposition with reactions to an episode that aired two weeks ago," which received one of the series' lowest fan ratings. Acuna credits this response to the quality of the battle scene, which featured "a fighting army of the walking dead which would easily give the AMC series of the same name a run for its money."

Accolades

Due to his nomination, Peter Dinklage submitted this episode for consideration for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, for which he won.

At the 67th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the episode received six nominations, winning two – Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour).