‘Game Of Thrones’ Recap: Season 5, Episode 8 — The Battle At Hardhome

Kit Harington as Jon Snow, Kristofer Hivju as Tormund Giantsbane, Ben Crompton as Dolorous Edd (Helen Sloan/HBO

Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen finally got down to business and discussed her Westeros ruling goals, but the intriguing interaction between those characters wasn’t the biggest thing that happened on Sunday’s “Game of Thrones.”

The big drama was up north, beyond The Wall. The most epic supernatural event to take place on the HBO series happened after Jon Snow went to Hardhome with Tormund Giantsbane to try and convince the Wildlings to take a deal to move south in exchange for helping the southerners in the fight to come against the threat to the living.

Only that “fight to come” — or at least the first major battle — came moments after some of the Wildlings accepted Jon’s terms and 5,000 of them were being rowed out on small boats to Stannis’ ships. While some Wildlings made their way to the fleet, and others – like a new leader of the Thenns stayed on the icy land (he turned down Lord Commander Snow), what looked like an avalanche started on the mountains around Hardhome. The Thenn knew it was bad news – and not an avalanche — and ordered the gates shut. Immediately, the Wildlings outside the gates clawed at the wooden doors, and screamed. Until… they didn’t.

PHOTOS: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 5, Episode 8 — ‘Hardhome’

For a moment, there was silence, and then, wights! Hordes of skeletal creatures (like the ones that attacked Bran Stark as he made his journey to the Three Eyed Raven in Season 4), fought their way through the gate. Chaos erupted on the dock side of Hardhome and Tormund turned to Jon to lead. As he unsheathed his sword – Longclaw, made of Valyrian steel – Jon called his men to his side and charged into battle with the undead.

Jon, fellow Night’s Watch man Edd, Tormund and the Thenn fought the creatures left and right, but a sight on a hilltop made them all stop in their tracks – four White Walkers on horseback (very Horsemen of the Apocalypse) looking down on everything. As he regained his senses, Jon got smart. “The dragonglass,” he shouted (earlier he’d given a bag of dragonglass as gift to the Wildlings as he tried to make the deal). Tormund and the Thenn took on the undead while Jon made his way to the place the dragonglass was last seen – the small hut where Jon spoke with the Wildling elders (including a woman named Karsi, who put her children on the boats, but died in the battle).

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One of the Wildling giants busted out of the building as Jon reached it, making it easier for the Lord Commander to get inside. It was on fire, but before Jon could dart around the flames to find the dragonglass, a White Walker walked slowly and steadily through the fire. “Get the glass,” the Thenn told Jon, as he took on the blue-eyed icy creature. The Thenn’s Wildling axe though, was no match for the White Walkers blade, and the creature broke it in pieces, and then killed the Thenn. He knocked Jon to the ground too, but as Jon stumbled outside, the Lord Commander managed to grab his sword, Longclaw. He met the White Walker’s blow, and much to the Walker’s surprise, Jon’s blade – made of Valyrian steel – didn’t break. That moment of shock for the Walker gave Jon the opportunity he needed to kill the creature.

As he stumbled back into the fighting, Edd ran up to his friend. “We’re going to die here,” Edd said. And for a moment, it looked like that would be the case. From the hilltop, the White Walker leaders commanded more wights and Walkers to join the battle.

(HBO)

The Wildling area was quickly overrun with the undead, so the living ran too – to the boats. Jon, Tormund and Edd made it to a boat where they watched men and women get slaughtered in the attack from the White Walkers and their army.

As their boat floated out to sea, the White Walker king walked on to the dock and stared out at Jon. Then, he raised his arms up and raised the newly dead for his army.

PHOTOS: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Characters Who Have Died On The Show

Here’s what happened to everyone else…

Daenerys Targaryen & Tyrion Lannister

When things left off last week, Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen had come face to face. In Sunday’s episode, they looked at each other from across Dany’s Meereen Throne Room, and Tyrion was as witty as he’s ever been. She asked him why she shouldn’t kill him for what the Lannisters did to her family. He answered back by joking that he’s the “greatest Lannister killer” of their time after killing his mother when he was born and his father (on the privy). There were more quips, but Tyrion also did Varys proud, explaining why he could actually help Dany. “Because you cannot build a better world on your own. You have no one at your side who understands the land you want to rule, the strengths and weakness of the Houses that will either join or oppose you,” he told her of why she needed him. And when she replied, telling him she has an army and dragons, Tyrion told her, “Killing and politics aren’t always the same thing.” He also gave her some good advice when she asked what she should do about Jorah.

“A ruler who kills those devoted to her is not a ruler who inspires devotion, and you’re going to need to inspire devotion — a lot of it — if you’re ever going to rule across the Narrow Sea,” Tyrion said. “But you cannot have him by your side when you do.” And with that, Dany told her guards to escort Ser Jorah out. In the sun, Jorah looked at his wrist and saw the disease from the stone men was spreading, so his next move was to return to the slave master who bought him, and ask to fight in front of the Queen in the pits.

Later, Tyrion and Dany had wine at a table and he quizzed her on why she’d make a good ruler of a land she didn’t grow up in, especially when she knows nothing about the great Houses. Houses are spokes on a wheel, Dany replied. “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break the wheel,” she said.

Cersei Lannister

It was bad news for Cersei, who sat in a filthy dress in a cell, as the High Sparrow’s nuns tried to get her to confess. Instead, she spit out insults at her captors, telling the woman who came to her with food and water that she was using her time in the cell to think of think of hideous ways to put the woman to death. Her situation inside wasn’t good, and from the outside world, there was more bad news. Qyburn, who came to visit Cersei told her her uncle, Kevan Lannister, was back in the capital, and serving as Hand of the King. As for her son, King Tommen — without Margaery or Cersei around, he was staying behind closed doors and not eating.

Arya Stark

At the House of Black and White, Arya was getting better at lying and was being trained in how to serve up justice on behalf of the Many Faced God. She even went out in disguise and gathered information on a wicked man, as she pretended to be “Lana,” a young woman with an oyster cart.

Sansa Stark & Reek (Theon Greyjoy)

Sansa confronted Reek over telling Ramsay about the candle-in-the-window, but Reek said he did it to help her. Reek detailed some of the horrible things Ramsay did to him, and Sansa said she was glad, because he was responsible for her having no family left. What ended up happening though, was as they talked, with emotions running high for both of them, Reek/Theon admitted he didn’t kill Bran or Rickon, but some farm boys, giving Sansa some hope that her brothers are alive.

Roose Bolton

With war on the way, it was time for the Boltons to strategize. Roose told his son he wanted to let Stannis Baratheon’s army freeze and starve, as they sat behind Winterfell’s sturdy walls, without engaging them, but Ramsay suggested getting into the conflict. “We hit first, and hit hard, and leave a feast for the crows,” Ramsay told his father. And he told his dad he needs just “20 good men” to do it.

WATCH: George R.R. Martin On ‘Game Of Thrones’ S5 & ‘The Winds of Winter’

“Game of Thrones” continues Sunday at 9 PM ET/PT on HBO.

— Jolie Lash