Hold the door.

You can’t laugh anymore. Hodor, a character that seemed to be literally created as an extra body, has now ascended into the realm of tragedy and incredible storytelling.

Episode five’s climax comes with Hodor helping Bran and Meera escape The Night’s King and his army of extras from “The Walking Dead.” In a vision, Bran sees The Night’s King, and The Night’s King sees him back, branding him with some sort of transdimensional ice magic. The sorcery allows his army to break into the cave where Bran and his crew are hiding. Another big mistake by a Stark Male.

The Night’s King himself delivers the finishing blow on the Three-eyed Raven, whose death echoes that of Obi-Wan Kenobi. As Bran is trapped inside of a vision of the past, his useless body gets escorted by Meera and the Children of the Forest towards the conveniently recalled back door. All of the Children of the Forest die protecting Bran, although don’t feel sad: turns out they created the White Walkers.

Within Bran’s vision, he wargs into Hodor’s mind. Hodor then takes action, throwing his body in support of the back door to try to keep the White Walkers out. Meera drags Bran away, while commanding Hodor to “Hold the Door.” We cut back to the vision, and Hodor’s character begins to seize, sputtering the same phrase. As he continues to rile, his words begin to slur, into the beautiful one-word line: “Hodor.” Hodor gets mauled by the onslaught of White Walkers. Hodor’s entire life was an extension of his death. This also cements Bran’s capability of altering the past.

Stop laughing. Hodor forever.

Elsewhere in Westeros, Sansa encounters Baelish for the first time since he dropped her off with Ramsay. Saying that she was pissed off at Baelish is akin to saying that “Good Eats” was an alright show (dramatic understatement). She even considers letting Brienne practice her Julienne.

Later on, Sansa, Jon Snow, Davos, Brienne and Tormund have a strategic meeting on how to win back the North. The odds are completely stacked against them, but Jon Snow insists on a Bernie Sanders-esque enlisting of the common people, or minor houses. We’re not even talking about the Carstarks or Freys, we’re talking about the Reed’s, and the Harkonnen’s. With the help of all of the minor houses, and with the Tully’s now being an operational ally, the Stark’s plan on defeating the Boltons.

In a plotline with far less intrigue, we got to see another scene where Arya gets the crap kicked out of her. Oh, goodie! Just what we all wanted.

Seriously, the Arya-Braavos marriage needs to end quickly. Here is an actual dialogue between herself and Jaqen H’ghar, her master. Arya is asking about the origin of the overly-cryptic assassin society she is for some reason insistent upon joining.

Arya: Who was the first?

Jaqen: He was no one.

Jaqen actually smiled during this exchange in the same way a father would smile when telling his daughter “Nice to meet you hungry, I’m Dad.”

There was a nice breather from the monotony of child beatings in this episode. Arya is tasked with scouting out a woman she must kill. She is led to a community-theatre/Shakespeare in the Park rendition of the Lannister’s rise to power. The woman she’s tasked to kill plays Arya Stark in the play.

The last bit of action in Westeros takes place on the Iron Islands; a place so archaic, that it makes baseball look fun and exciting.

The Greyjoys are having a Kingsmoot, the selection process for crowning a new leader of the House. Yara steps forward claiming the title for herself, with an emotionally-charged and well-delivered monologue. Pressure mounts as a random dude points out that there has never been a Queen, and that Theon, a male heir, is present. That kind of move always comes from a random dude, doesn’t it? Theon silences the man, endorsing Yara and inciting momentum in her favor.

Enter Euron Greyjoy.

Euron basically argues that because he killed the lame-duck king, Balon, that he should be entitled to the throne. This leads to a comical exchange between Euron and Yara over who is best fit to lead their Navy. Euron wins the day.

But, as a perfect symbol of House Greyjoy itself, Yara steals the entire fleet while Euron is getting drowned for his crowning ritual. Euron vows revenge.

Across the Narrow Sea, Dany has an awkward conversation with Jorah. Jorah reveals his growing stone-mark on his arm, and decides that he shouldn’t be near Dany. Borrowing a line from his favorite TV show, “How I Met Your Mother,” Jorah wishes Dany goodbye by saying: “I love you, I will always love you.”

Dany, coming off of an unbelievable, literally patriarchy crushing crescendo in the last episode, completely drops the ball. She commands Jorah to fix his incurable and fatal condition. Brilliant, brilliant idea, Khaleesi. Her sage words resemble the sentiments of the people who tell mentally-ill people to “just choose to be happy. Smile more!” Uncharacteristically obtuse comment from the Mother of Dragons.

Marry

The love connection between Tormund and Brienne continues to blossom.

Screw

The Children of the Forest screwed all of Westeros. Because they were worried about their sacred forests, they created a monstrous race to eradicate men. Only fitting that their own monster destroys them. Think “Frankenstein.”

Kill

The Night’s King kills the Three-eyed Raven. George R.R. Martin kills our souls with Hodor.

Prediction

Bran caused the voices inside the Mad King’s head, causing the whole damn thing.

Stray observation

Another fart joke? Another dead Dire Wolf?