"Fight no more, sweet child, your wars are won," says Lady Crane onstage to a dead Joffrey in the opening moments of Game of Thrones Season Six Episode Eight. The dead are the only lucky ones on this show. Wouldn't you rather be Ned Stark, who was swiftly killed before seeing his family brutalized and murdered, before watching all of Westeros torn apart by their stupid war? Instead these people are trapped in an endless struggle for power, for honor, for survival, for love.

Arya has never given up. She's been beaten, blinded, stabbed, and abandoned in a training session that makes the Rocky montage look like a tea party. And finally, this episode, she got hers, which we'll get to as we run down the least garbage person on Game of Thrones this week.

The Hound

Boy, The Hound's pacifism didn't last long. Those chill scenes with the religious community in the woods seem like a totally different show as Sandor Clegane walks up behind one of the men who killed his friends and chops his head off. "Violence is a disease," Ray had told Clegane, "You don't cure a disease by spreading it to more people." This being Game of Thrones, sadly no one seems to understand this, but now that he's linked up with The Brotherhood—men to claim to fight for a higher purpose—maybe they can give direction to The Hound's anger.

Tyrion

For Tyrion, Meereen is everything King's Landing was not. Back home, Tyrion received no recognition for his successes as a leader while acting in his father's absence. In Meereen, he's getting all the recognition for his failures as a leader in Daenerys' absence. Even in terms of payout, Tyrion's character this season has delivered none of the intrigue, none of the emotion that he's had the rest of the series. The writers walked him into Meereen, and abandoned him with no support. They really tried to build chemistry between him, Grey Worm, and Missandei, but it just wasn't there—something they so kindly gave a nod to as he tried to force them both to drink and tell jokes with him to no avail. At least we had Varys. Tyrion and the eunuch have always been a powerful team, one that thrives on mutual respect and charm. And in Episode Eight, Tyrion and Varys bid each other a sweet farewell.

"I can't go off on a secret mission in the company of the most famous dwarf in the city," Varys tells Tyrion.

"Varys! The most famous dwarf in the world," Tyrion says.

Let's hope these two are reunited soon. And thankfully, just when you thought Tyrion would be stuck with the two most boring people in this entire world, Daenerys makes her triumphant return. Time to watch those dragons mess up that slaver fleet.

Cersei

She chose violence. Since her son betrayed her and outlawed trial by combat, we might not see The Undead Mountain fight for her. Instead, she'll take matters into her own hands, and that might have something to do with the leftover wildfire hidden throughout King's Landing.

Pod and Bronn

Aren't Tyrion's friends the best?

Brienne and Jaime

It's been an absolute delight watching Brienne save Jaime. Never fighting on the same side, the two built a mutual respect as Brienne delivered Jaime back home from his imprisonment. She taught the knight, famous for killing his king, about honor. Reunited at Riverrun, the two are in a tough situation. Again fighting on different sides, Brienne is bound by honor to gather the Tully army for Sansa. Jaime is under orders to take Riverrun from the Tullys. But should the Blackfish refuse to abandon the castle, the two sides would be forced to fight. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Jaime tells Brienne. With The Blackfish a stubborn old badass, Jaime puts his faith in Edmure Tully surrendering to save his family. In the scene with Edmure, Jaime tells the prisoner, "The things we do for love," which stretches back all the way to the pilot, when he kicked Bran out of a window in fear of his romance with Cersei being discovered. Here, he's telling Edmure that he'll stop at nothing—including killing Edmure's family along with the rest of the Tullys to get back to Cersei. But perhaps he's talking about a different love here, one that's surprisingly more complex than an incestuous relationship with his sister. And you can see it in his eyes as he waves to Brienne from the battlements of Riverrun.

The Least Garbage Person on Game of Thrones This Week Is...

HBO

While what exactly happened in that darkened room remains a mystery (including who was keeping those candles lit while Arya was recovering with Lady Crane), Arya has finally defeated her tormentor, The Waif. As I predicted, Arya made her way to Lady Crane, who fixed her up just enough to rebuild her strength for this final showdown. After training for a few seasons to become no one, Arya has reclaimed her identity as Arya Stark of Winterfell. Oddly enough, this pleases J'aqen H'ghar, her stoic, strange talking mentor who cuts faces off of people. Now trained as an assassin (right?), Arya will return to Westeros, where she'll hopefully start checking some names off her list (remember the list!?). No matter where she ends up, at least she's getting the hell out of Braavos, a place where no one cares about a young woman bleeding from a gut wound in the middle of a crowded street.

This show's biggest weakness is its many loose ends or ends that are tied up too early with a swift death. Which makes for such a satisfying moment when one of these plot lines actually gets solved. Like Tyrion's story in Meereen, Arya seemed abandoned in Braavos and going nowhere. Heading into the final episodes of the season both Tyrion and Arya finally have a sense of direction again. Like Brienne fulfilling her oath to Jaime or The Hound getting revenge on the men who killed his friends, even these small resolves can offer a sense of completion as the greater struggle seems to have no clear conclusion.

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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