A new iconic benchmark for 'Game of Thrones'

A series that built its reputation on exciting, controversial moments topped itself again last Sunday. And it needed to.

First things first: HBO's "Game of Thrones" has not had its best year. In diverging from the novels upon which the show is based, executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss have delivered an up-and-down fifth season that reached its publicly perceived low point May 17: Heroine Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) was raped on her wedding night while Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) - whom she believes killed her brothers in Season 2 - was forced to watch.

That scene prompted The Mary Sue, a pop culture blog with a feminist perspective, to declare it would no longer promote the show, and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill to tweet that she was "done" with it.

Sansa's tragedy - which happened to a different character in the novels, and seemed to make Theon as much of a victim by the way it was shot - was followed in Episode 7 by another attempted sexual assault that was thwarted, essentially, by a deus ex machina.

Viewers also are waiting for anything interesting to happen to Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) as she learns about the "many-faced god" in Braavos, and for Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to exit his disappointing subplot. Surprisingly, the previously dull Castle Black storyline has been consistently entertaining, culminating in last Sunday's battle.

Jon Snow (Kit Harington), commander of the Night's Watch sworn to protect the realm from monsters that live beyond a towering wall of ice, came face-to-face with those monsters in a harrowing 20-minute sequence that must have the makers of "The Walking Dead," "The Hobbit" and, well, everything else feeling jealous. The episode ends with the Night's King, a zombie with icy horns atop his head, staring down a fleeing Jon and defiantly raising his arms. Behind the creature, all of Jon's murdered allies rise from the dead and become monsters themselves.

That instantly iconic scene feels like a new benchmark for "Game of Thrones" in an episode that also saw the long-awaited meeting of audience favorites Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clark). With one more episode before the June 14 finale, Benioff and Weiss will have a hard time topping Episode 8 - but giving Sansa a much-deserved victory could do it.

Speaking of HBO:

The feature film version of "Entourage" opens in theaters this week, and you can watch all eight seasons of executive producer Mark Wahlberg's slice of Hollywood life on HBO GO or HBO NOW. The show is most famous for giving Evanston-bred actor Jeremy Piven a juicy juggernaut of a role in Ari Gold, acerbic agent to movie star Vincent Chase (Adrien Grenier). Look for the quick shot of an extra wearing a Chicago Wolves jersey in the show's opening credits.

And speaking of Chicago:

Chicago-born filmmakers Andy and Lana Wachowski ("The Matrix") took another big risk earlier this year with the critically reviled, commercially ignored "Jupiter Ascending," an absurd sci-fi tale starring Mila Kunis as an unlikely action hero and Channing Tatum as a half-dog alien. (Yes, really.) The film arrived this week on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD. I'm not going to tell you it's good, per se, but I am going to tell you that it's colorful and crazy, and contains one heck of an aerial battle filmed in downtown Chicago. Check it out.

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald copy editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.