Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 1: Winterfell
The final season of HBO and George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic Game of Thrones debuted a while back, and... yeah, it was definitely a relatively long wait between seasons 7 and 8, especially since the two seasons were originally supposed to be one.
And after that glorious new opening with the broken wall (no White Walkers in this episode, though!) and a generally darker filter placed over everything, we get a 55 minute long episode that does a lot of homage to the very first episode of the series. Plot-wise, we're pretty damn far from the simple set-up of the dysfunctional royal Baratheon family with its drama arriving to meet the naive Starks of the North, with the vague threat of ice zombies in the background, but it's always nice to get plot points, callbacks and shots that mirror the first episode, starting from the very first shot with that one random kid mirroring Bran and Arya as he excitedly looks at the incoming royal procession.
And let's talk about the ice zombies for a bit, because, well, while I doubt that the series will end without a huge fighty-fight scene, that is still my biggest complaint about the White Walkers in general -- they are so vague and nebulous that I really wished we had more payoff instead of just buildup all the time. There's "Hardhome" and that one episode with Viserion's death, sure, but while Game of Thrones' focus has always been with the characters, I am really afraid that we're just going to get an unsatisfying conclusion for the White Walkers, a la Lost. We'll see.
The episode itself primarily takes place within Winterfell (again, just like the first episode), although not exclusively so. We're blazing through a fair amount of plot points while lingering a bit longer on some... and I really wish that season eight wasn't so blazingly-paced. Would it kill HBO to add one or two more episodes just to space out the huge events a bit more? To give things like, say, Theon's rescue of Yara a bit more impact?
The main Winterfell plotline that goes throughout this episode is how the Northerners are reacting to Queen Daenerys's seeming usurption of Jon Snow's rightful "King in the North" mentality. Now Jon is basically on the up-and-up with the audience, and he knows just how much more important the alliance is and how they really need the power of Daenerys's insane army and her two fire-breathing dragons to even stand a chance against the incoming onslaught of the White Walkers. But honestly, everyone in Westeros is kinda dumb and are pretty dang used to just arguing about titles and formalities instead of, y'know, focusing on the imminent threat of the pressing extinction of mankind... but, eh, pretty accurate for politicians IRL, I suppose. Although it is pretty much the height of stupidity for House Glover to just straight up leave the alliance. Well, piss on you, House Glover, you didn't help Jon during the whole Ramsay Bolton incident either, I hope the wights get to you in the next episode.
It is annoying to basically have what seems to be a bit of a rehash of "who rules Winterfell?" plotline from the past couple of seasons, but it seems to just going to be a bit of a bizarre relationship dilemma as Jon clearly is in awe with Daenerys, while Sansa is not impressed and may be more than a bit accurate that Jon's
There's a lot of set-up here, but I do really adore just how technically polite but infinitely cold Sansa is towards Daenerys, throwing in well-placed barbs about how Winterfell is supposed to feed Daenerys's massive Unsullied/Dothraki army and two massive giant lizards, and later on in private, telling Jon about how much of a mistake it is to trust Daenerys so wholeheartedly. She's begrudging about the whole thing, I guess, recognizing why the alliance is necessary while not being too happy about it. As problematic a character as Sansa has been throughout the series, I really do love the end-point, someone scheming and trying to do the best for Winterfell and her people.
There are a lot of reunions and character moments that happen, which you'd expect when you slam two massive parts of the casts together. Of course, the biggest reunion everyone's been waiting for is Jon and Arya's reunion, appropriately done near one of those heart-trees and it's... it's just fills my heart with happiness, y'know? It's a fun, quiet but pretty emotional affair, and just like Arya's own reunion with her wolf in the previous season, it's a bit muted. There were a lot of nice moments like their hug and them trading jokes about swords and whatnot at each other, but when Jon makes a remark, asking if Arya has "ever used Needle", you really get the sense that no one really knows the depths of the assassin's creed/dark brotherhood training that Arya Stark has been through (and, really, how are you going to begin to explain that?), really shows off the distance that has grown between the two. Arya also subtly reminds Jon to remember who his family is, showing that, no, she doesn't fully approve of this dragon queen yet.
Other brief reunions that I guess I should talk about, but I really don't have much to say... Sansa and Tyrion (are they still technically married? Divorcees?) have a fun little talk about schemers, moving up the world, and making callbacks to how they last saw each other, and Sansa calls Tyrion out for trusting Cersei at all. Tyrion, Varys and Davos have a brief little lark about how they totally ship Daenerys and Jon, while also having some trademark dry humour. Jon ends up having a brief reunion with Bran, but it's way more subdued than Sansa or Arya and honestly just feels brushed off -- not the writer's fault, but more of Bran's whole Three-Eyed Raven avatar thing. Arya meets both Gendry and the Hound, and the meeting with Gendry is... well it's sort of like the meeting with Jon where both Gendry and Jon recognize that Arya's grown, but neither realizes just how much. The Hound and Arya just basically call each other names, although there's definitely a huge pang of disappointment in the Hound's mannerisms that show that he's still more than a bit hurt by Arya's betrayal. Meanwhile, Jaime arrives at Winterfell to be met by Bran, ending as the cliffhanger to the episode, mirroring how the cliffhanger for the first episode is Jaime pushing Bran off of a window.
I am very disappointed that Lyanna doesn't interact with Jorah, by the way. I'm sure she's going to have some choice words to say to him.
The two 'big' scenes that take place in the Winterfell scenes mostly involve Daenerys and Jon, and one that takes place in the middle of the episode involve Daenerys basically letting Jon ride Rhaegal the dragon, leading to a fun moment of the two of them riding the two remaining dragons around Winterfell and just looking pretty awesome. It's a shame that I genuinely feel that the emotional impact of the scene is nowhere as powerful as the visual spectacle, because both Jon and Daenerys end up being way too stoic and dry-witted for me to really buy the scene as... as what? Does Daenerys consider Jon the first worthy man? Are they just going off for a tryst at some random frozen waterfall? More than anything, the Jon/Daenerys romance feels particularly muddled and considering how much of the story hinges on this, it's a bit unfortunate.
The two dragon children glaring and scaring the balls off of Jon while he's smooching their "mom" is hilarious, though.
The final important scene in Winterfell ends up being Daenerys and Jorah seeking out good old Sam, thanking him for his help in curing Jorah of Grayscale and it seems like them making buddies with each other with Daenerys talking about how she's going to have to revamp the rules of the Citadel and we get some fun jokes about how Sam stole books from the Citadel and needs a pardon for that... but then the revelation that Sam is from House Tarly, and the mechanical way that Daenerys ends up telling Sam about the fate that befell his father and brother ends up being pretty tragic and hurts the poor boy. Sure, Randyll Tarly is human filth and I'm not sorry that he's dead, but he's still Sam's dad. Some amazing acting from both Emilia Clarke and John Bradley in this scene, with Daenerys's conflicted emotion really conveying how she doesn't like doing this, but she's going to own the responsibility of killing people and she won't lie to Sam. Sam's utter grief and confusion about how he's feeling is also pretty amazingly done.
Throw in a cryptic wrench called Bran into the mess, and poor Sam is basically shanghaied by Bran-but-also-not-Bran to reveal Jon's true identity to him. We get a pretty awesome bro-hug between the two, before Sam ends up blubbering and confronting Jon about how Daenerys killed his family... and then talking about how Jon is truly Aegon Targaryen, trueborn heir to the Iron Throne. Jon's initial anger and denial is well-done, and I really do like how Sam, coloured by his anger at Daenerys, basically talks about how she shouldn't rule Westeros because unlike Jon, Daenerys isn't someone who would lay down her crown for the greater good, and that his buddy Jon is basically the perfect, infallible chosen one to lead the land (something we've seen is that Jon is way too fallible). A pretty great revelation and setup scene, albeit one that we didn't really linger on too long. For someone who's trying his best to keep his head in the game and screaming at everyone to stop caring about trivial politics and the like for just one moment while they deal with the undead scourge, poor Jon's being bombarded from all sides about how he shouldn't trust Daenerys, about his true parentage, about how his 'father' lied to him all these years... Oh, and also, y'know, the whole incest thing.
That's a lot of fun intrigue in Winterfell, but we do get a bunch of scenes outside! We get to see that Beric, Tormund and Edd did survive the undead dragon blowing up the wall by virtue of an offscreen escape, and their whole scene is a bit of a long scene as they walk around Last Hearth and discover poor little Lord Umber pinned onto the wall with limbs splayed out in the same pattern that the White Walkers like. It's also a neat little bit of foreshadowing earlier where little lord Umber had a more prominent scene during the Northerners' little talk. Some really horrifying shit with the screaming and the tension in the scene for sure.
At King's Landing, though, Euron and the Golden Company has arrived, even if they didn't come with elephants -- something Cersei is hilariously disappointed about. We really don't get much of the Golden Company's spokesperson (who's called Harry of all things), and the scene's mostly revolving around Euron and Cersei's... weird relationship. Euron himself is kind of a weird if hilarious character, and I'm genuinely not sure where the show's going for with him. He does end up "fucking the queen", as he puts it, in an offscreen moment. Cersei clearly finds him amusing, but while she definitely isn't unwilling, it's also clear that Euron's whole "I have a fleet that you need" thing is something that Cersei can't afford to give up. It's curious that Euron's remark of putting a prince inside Cersei seems to catch the queen's interest, although I'm not sure if that's just her scheming to pass off Jaime's baby as Euron's (like what she did with Robert Baratheon), or fear that Euron would harm her baby... or something else.
By the way, I'm not sure about the whole pregnancy deal. Tyrion notes that Cersei's got something to fight for, which is why she's going to send her army to the north -- something that we, the audience, know isn't true. But here we get to see her drink wine she had refused to drink in front of Tyrion last season... so I've seen theories that Cersei might be faking her pregnancy last season to keep Jaime around and to get Tyrion to let his guard down, which... I wouldn't actually put past her, and it'd give a lot more nuance to Cersei beyond "you crazy bitch".
Speaking of Cersei having schemes, she sent Qyburn to recruit Bronn to use the same bow Tyrion used to kill Tywin on the shitter to go up north and assassinate both Tyrion and Jaime. We get some hilarious sexposition -- albeit one done in an intentionally hilariously mechanical way as the whores talk about people injured by dragon fire, turning Bronn off. Qyburn does give some rather inelegantly shoehorned exposition about his loyalty to Cersei, but otherwise the scene's pretty neat.
The final scene I have to talk about is... Theon rescues Yara, who's stuck on a boat, tied to a mast by Euron. And while Euron is off fucking Cersei, Theon leads a small contingent onto the boat and shoot down a bunch of troops before rescuing Yara. It's a neat scene, and another neat reunion, but not one I really care about compared to the rest. Yara heads off to prepare the Iron Islands as a fallback route should Daenerys need to retreat, while Theon heads off to help the Starks in the North. They didn't suffer as badly as Dorne, but the Iron Islands really flit the line between being prominent and just a subplot that's hard to care about, huh?
Overall, though, it's still a pretty damn strong opening to the final season of Game of Thrones, and one that while paced slowly, makes up for it with a lot of great moments and reunions. Considering how few episodes we have left in this season, this might very well be the final reunions some of these characters have on-screen as well.
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