Game of Thrones S08E06 Review: Now Our Watch Ends

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 6: The Iron Throne

Ending a series is hard. Sure, nowadays with the thought of marketing things and shared universes and spin-offs and tie-in media and the simple power of nostalgia, no franchise is ever truly dead, and with what's rumoured to be five different sequel/prequel/spin-off series pitched to HBO, Game of Thrones is far from being dead, but... but this is the end. Whether the two remaining books George R. R. Martin has yet to write will have a similar conclusion, and however you feel about this extremely divisive final season... this final episode of Game of Thrones is the end. 

And honestly? It could've been much, much worse. I've been on record multiple times in my reviews -- particularly of the preceding two episodes -- that the eighth season of Game of Thrones is a bit of a trainwreck. Yes, sure, the cinematography is absolutely on-point and beautiful, and all of the actors bring their A-game into the show, and so on and so forth. But it took me quite a while to write this final episode review because I sort of have to sleep on it for a while, and at this point I'm pretty sure that while I don't begrudge this episode itself since it's a pretty fine epilogue, the sheer mishandling of the show's final season pretty much makes gives this final season a very, very odd and bitter taste in my mouth.

Which, honestly, has to do with the speed and sheer apathy for pacing or organic character development. I've said multiple times that the character arc of Daenerys eventually succumbing to her own hype and deciding that she must be right all the time makes sense. From what we've seen in the past seven seasons, it makes sense that she ends up becoming a villain. It makes sense, the events that happened are enough to drive anyone mad... but the way it's shown in these past couple of episodes and the exact moment where Daenerys goes nuts and carpet-bombs King's Landing is pretty poorly done. And the same goes with the characterizations for Jaime, and to a lesser extent Jon. For a show that's been driven by the characters, this final season has been absolutely poor at handling character development. And I really, really don't like criticizing this show I love, but when doing a review, I will not make excuses for something that I genuinely think is done poorly. 

Throw in a sheer amount of vitriol on both sides of the camp -- the ones that decry this final season as utter garbage (that's hyperbole) and the ones that defend this season as being the most satisfying conclusion ever (that's absolutely untrue) and it's frankly hard to try and maintain an attitude of neutral commentary. The fact that the previous episodes were so poorly paced doesn't help, either. Where characters are clamouring for a couple of extra scenes to make their character turns more meaningful and believable, we get self-indulgent "give the director an Emmy" shots like the completely gratuitous long-shots of Arya running through the streets and chaos of King's Landing, or the whole silliness with the horse. I'm not saying these shots are well done, because hell yes they are, but the fact that the season's really gasping for air for more screentime to properly pace out its stories, poor decisions like this end up hurting it more than anything. 

And despite my complaints... I did pretty much enjoy this episode. It's cleanly divided into two halves, with the first half basically dealing with Daenerys basically becoming the biggest mass-murderer in Westerosian history, and the remaining heroes dealing with it. The second half is more of an epilogue than anything. And the episode does both pretty competently! I have very little problems with this episode, if we're being honest, or even the events that happened, and my problems stem from the sheer mismanagement of the season as a whole. 

The episode starts off somber, with Jon, Tyrion and Davos sort of taking in the sheer destruction left in the wake of King's Landing, and we get a short, brief scene of Tyrion finding the corpses of Jaime and Cersei and crying over their deaths. We get Jon and Davos trying to stop Grey Worm from killing the surviving Lannister men, because Grey Worm is essentially in full evil Punisher mode at this point, but is honestly unable to legally stop Grey Worm since they're under Daenerys's orders. And then we get that huge, very dictator-esque speech from Daenerys Targaryen, and... as evil as that was, it's a perfectly executed speech and an amazing shot with Drogon spreading his wings behind Daenerys. (Memes notwithstanding, it is a pretty shot). Daenerys goes on this long, long speech about how she's going to 'liberate' and 'free' everyone in the world, basically so wrapped up in her own hype that she's the only legitimate ruler in the world. 

And, again, it's... she makes for such a cool villain, but I really would've really loved a proper, logical and emotional character twist that makes this change of heart believable beyond "the story demands it, she's ga-ga crazy now". Even the Star Wars prequels try and attempt to really show Anakin's descent to madness and paranoia, y'know what I'm saying? 

Tyrion ends up confronting Daenerys, who, in turn, is so focused on Tyrion's betrayal of her that she doesn't even really about Tyrion's condemnation of her slaughter of the city. Tyrion throws his symbol of the Hand away, enraging Daenerys who immediately orders Tyrion's arrest. While all of this is going on, Arya confronts Jon, basically telling him a brief talk about how she "knows a killer when she sees one". It's... it's pretty disappointing, really, that all of the scenes focusing on Arya in the previous episode ends up being genuinely pointless since Arya sorts of exit the plot, stage left, in this sequence. No token attempt to try and kill Daenerys herself, no face-swapping Faceless Man Assassin's Creed sequence, no galvanized attempt to stop the tyrant who would unleash so much horror... no nothing. And, again, as much as I do think that from a visual and cinematic standpoint the Arya sequences in episode 5 were fantastic... ended up to be a whole load of nothing, which, considering how so many other character turns and plot turns in this season could've used more time... it's kinda poorly thought-out. 

Jon then meets Tyrion in prison, leading to one of the best conversations between characters in this season. And this scene frankly really should've happened in a previous episode, in a different context. Probably from Daenerys's viewpoint, and with Daenerys's own words. It's a huge "tell, don't show" segment as Tyrion and Jon play internet commentator argument, with Tyrion pointing out how so much worse their legal 'queen' is than any of the Lannisters or any other tyrant Westeros has seen before, and that the sympathetic excuses (losing Missandei, Jorah and Rhaegal) is no excuse for snapping and burning a city full of civilians. Tyrion then goes over how Daenerys has been killing other evil men throughout the past seven seasons and everyone supported her for it, and she becomes more and more convinced of her rightness... but, again, I really wished we could've seen more of this from Daenerys's viewpoint. Maybe more push-back when she burned the less-evil nobles in Mereen, or more push-back when she kills the Tarlys, or something. I dunno. It's nice that the show at least gives us a little Tyrion speech to properly lay out everything, but it's like getting the cliffs notes version of the complex character development I would've rather seen on-screen, you know what I mean? 

Jon trying to make up excuses to not kill Dany, and Tyrion appealing to his sense of duty, and later on to the sense of preserving the lives of his sisters... those are genuinely well-done, and both Harrington and Dinklage get some of their best material in this scene. In Harrington's case, I'd argue that this scene is the first real good material he's gotten all season long. 

And as Jon walks up the Red Keep, we get this completely gratuitous but amazingly awesome scene of Drogon rising up from the pile of ashes, having previously been camouflaged. That was completely pointless, but god damn that's the special effects people flexing their muscles. 

Then the confrontation between Jon and Daenerys, this final confrontation is the best Jon/Dany material we've ever had. And it's such a shame, because the two actors do have great chemistry, but I have never for a second over in the past two seasons really bought into their romance. I wonder how different I would've felt about the two if we had been given a couple of extra seasons to really flesh out their romance beyond boat-sex and the How To Train Your Dragon scene? Regardless, though, Daenerys refuses to really acknowledge Jon's anger at children being killed in the wake of the slaughter, deflects the request to release Tyrion from jail, and she's just so convinced that she can't let mercy be her weakness anymore, and that the other people who "think" they are good don't get to choose. So after an anguished Jon declares that Daenerys is his queen now and forever... they kiss and Jon stabs Daenerys in the heart, forced to kill the woman he loves for the greater good. 

What a dick, Dany didn't even get to sit on the throne!

And... again, I really have no problems with Daenerys becoming a villain in the last part of her arc. Not every wannabe hero ends up becoming heroic to the end, after all... but the sheer wasted potential and the genuinely abrupt turn that we got honestly leaves a sour taste. The Jon/Dany scene is admittedly a nice one, and I could think of a thousand worse ways to have Jon stab Daenerys... but it could also have been better.

The next scene is genuinely touching, with Drogon arriving and like the huge, huge dog that he is, he ends up just nudging Daenerys with his chin and looks so fucking lost and I am so sad for this dragon. I'm not quite sure why he suddenly unleashes flame to blow up the Iron Throne, though, since I'm pretty sure Drogon doesn't quite understand symbolism. Drogon then picks up Daenerys's corpse and flies away to the East in grief, leaving Westeros forever. 

Smash cut to a brief time-skip later, and... apparently, somehow during this time skip, Jon gets captured by the Unsullied and other Dany supporters and... doesn't get killed by a vengeful and no-longer-honourable Grey Worm? The dude was killing surrendering soldiers left and right before, and he doesn't kill the person who presumably admitted to killing his beloved queen? Yeah, I don't buy that.

But whatever the case, Grey Worm escorts Tyrion from the prison to the dragon-pit from season seven, where all of the leaders in the nation are assembled. And, well, side-characters we care about. We get Sansa, Bran, Arya, Brienne, Davos, Sam, Gendry and Yara... as well as a bunch of others we haven't seen in a while. Robin Arryn and Yohn Royce from the Eyrie are here, Edmure Tully is here, and... and I'm not sure who the nicely-dressed Dornish prince is, and apparently no one does since the GOT wiki just lists him as "Martell". And... it's basically an argument about what to do with Jon Snow, because the Dany-loyalists want him dead, while the Stark-loyal Northmen are ready to fight to the death for him. And... and this went a bit too fast, with Grey Worm immediately refusing to take Davos's proposed deal of the Unsullied setting up their own great house or whatever in the Reach, but Grey Worm doesn't really give a shit -- he and the Unsullied (and presumably the Dothraki?) want justice. 

Somehow, this conversation sort of inelegantly leads to "we need a new king or queen", and after a hilarious comedic gag with Edmure Tully trying to give his little speech and being told by Sansa to sit down... and then we get an even more hilarious sequence as Sam's idea of democracy is straight-up just laughed at by the other royals. "Maybe I should let my horse vote!" Because, after all, this is the medieval times and there's no way that a proper democracy's ever going to be accepted by these lords. 

Tyrion then gives this long, long speech about how stories unite people, which is... kind of interesting? It's certainly a valid and well-done speech, even if it is a bit too meta for me, but then Tyrion talks about how the person with the best story is "Bran the Broken", who was crippled after a fall but became the Three-Eyed Raven. So at least we do get a conclusion to Bran's honestly sorta-pointless bit of becoming the Raven. I really wished we had gotten more out of it, considering how after the whole Raven thing all Bran really did was reveal Jon's heritage (which ended up being completely worthless and mostly-ignored outside of the Dany drama) and be bait for the Night King. It is, though, a wee bit sudden, and I really wished Bran has displayed a bit more of his Three-Eyed Raven powers to other characters to properly show just how the sheer extent of his storytelling. 

Tyrion also points out that they're setting up a new system of having the nobles elect one of their own instead of having a bloodline successor, remembering how vain and cruel some "sons of kings" like Joffrey are. It's... it's a bit bizarre that everyone present just votes "aye", particularly since half of the people there probably have never really met Bran before, and, yeah, this is yet another scene that probably would've been more epic with some proper buildup. Also, the weird transition from Bran being this detached walking oracle earlier in this season to snarking about "why did you think I came all the way here" is genuinely bizarre and off, and I really wish we had seen more with Bran, oh, I dunno, struggling to regain his identity after being transformed to the collective sum of human history? Or something? It's another thing that I don't have a problem with -- Bran being the king is unexpected, but I can live with that -- but it's so sudden and Bran's always been shown to be all "I have no desires" until like, this episode. 

Also seemingly a bit off is Sansa demanding for independence, making Bran Stark the king of the Six Kingdoms instead of Seven. It's totally in-character for Sansa to do that, and after all the shit the North has had to put up with after the past rulers in the Iron Throne, it's logical... but the fact that no one else objects to this, or offer an Independence request of their own is bizarre. Particularly Yara. 

But hey, Bran then makes Tyrion into his Hand, noting that this will be Tyrion's atonement, and we quickly brush away Grey Worm's objections. We then cut to more Tyrion/Jon stuff, with Tyrion delivering the sentence that to placate everyone, the compromise is that Jon needed to be punished but not executed or jailed up... so he gets exiled to the Night's Watch. Which... I'm going to assume that people like Grey Worm and Yara just don't know that the Night's Watch doesn't exist anymore? It's clearly the Stark-loyalists and sneaky people like Tyrion pulling the wool over the Dany-loyalists' eyes, but it's a hilarious, if ironic, punishment.  

We cut away to Jon leaving King's Landing, and... and apparently the time-skip between Daenerys's death and the meeting in the dragon-pit was longer than I thought, or the time between the meeting and Jon's release was longer than I thought, because King's Landing is already half-rebuilt. We get Grey Worm and the Unsullied leaving for the isle of Naath, and... exit Grey Worm. Kind of a "shrug" ending, honestly. It's not a bad ending, and I don't know what I would've written otherwise, but I dunno. I sort of expected kind of... more? But I'm not complaining too much. 

The Stark siblings have one final meeting, with Sansa and Jon getting a nice, emotional forgiving embrace. Arya also states what she's planning to do, basically explore the world, particularly whatever is "west of Westeros". Jon and Arya have another hug, and then Jon kneels down before Bran, and that's... that's a sweet ending. Also kind of a sweet ending is Brienne going through the Kingsguard book, implied to apparently been promoted to the leader of the Kingsguard off-screen, and writes the record for Jaime Lannister, closing it off with "died protecting his queen."

You could argue that Brienne writing Jaime's story, or Arya wanting to go West to carve her own destiny on her own terms, or the super-meta "A Song of Ice and Fire" record of the recent conflict that the Arch-Maester Ebrose has written all thematically tie in to the whole "stories unite people" thing, but... I dunno. It's not portrayed as well as it could've been, I guess. 

We get a pretty fun scene with the new Small Council, with Tyrion straightening chairs and we see the new Small Council -- Sam as the Grand Maester, Brienne as head of Kingsguard, Bronn as the Master of Coin and Davos as the Master of Ships. Bran notes that they have no more Master of Whisperers or War, which, of course, is a bit indicative of the priorities of the Six Kingdoms. After the whole gag about the "Song of Ice and Fire" book, and a brief talk about how Drogon was last spotted "flying east", we get a relatively productive meeting where Bronn's happy to use his new title as Lord of Highgarden to provide food supplies, Tyrion and the others discuss about improving the health of the city with sewer systems, and Bronn argues with a couple of the others about building brothels. God bless Bronn, he's hilarious. 

Oh, also, Podrick Payne is a knight of the Kingsguard and apparently is the official wheelchair-pusher of King Bran. 

And then we get Jon Snow finally arriving at the ruins of Castle Black, met by like two Night's Watch people and a whole bunch of Wildlings, including Tormund... AND HE MEETS GHOST AND PETS HIM WHAT A GOOD BOY GHOST. I'm sorry. I know it's a bit of a meme, but I genuinely loved this scene. It's so nice that after all the shit Jon has been through in the past couple of seasons, he at least ends up happy with Ghost, and, honestly, I don't think he minds exploring beyond the Wall and helping the Wildlings carve their own destiny and reclaim the lands in the North. 

We get a pretty fun little cut-around of the three main Stark children as they basically embrace their final roles in the show, set to a majestic remix of the opening theme. Jon and the Wildlings going outside of Castle Black as plants seem to sprout a bit from underneath the snow ("spring is coming!"), Sansa being crowned Queen in the North, and Arya going off on a ship towards uncertain lands. The final shot of the episode is Jon and the Wildlings entering a massive snowy forest, in a nice mirror of the first sene of the series. 

And... and it's satisfying enough, I suppose. Again, I still complain about the season's lack of properly showcasing character development and being lost in essentially crafting cool shots and special effects instead of showing us what's going on. And while the actual events that happened is... it's logical, I suppose, and a direction that I wouldn't begrudge, the fact that the series was built so much on character and it sort of dropped the ball on that front is genuinely disappointing... particularly considering they split the original "final season" into season 7 and season 8. And my complaints about all of those still stands -- only the actors' fantastic performance really salvages what would otherwise be a nothing-but-pretty-shots season. But honestly, it's nowhere as poorly-done as the season's detractors make it out to be. It's a nice enough ending to the massive saga, and it's far from perfect, but I am happy enough with what we got. 

What's next? I'm happy to take a long, long break from reviewing Game of Thrones, because this season was so exhausting to go through. I had thought of rewatching the series, but I'm going to give myself a year or so to breathe... I currently have reviews of season 6 through 8 in this blog, so maybe sometime in the future, when I rewatch the series, I'll do episodic reviews of seasons 1 through 5? I'm not sure how I will feel about that "Bloodmoon" prequel, or whether I'll watch it as it airs. We'll see, will we? But for now... my watch has ended. 

Game of Thrones S08E05 Review: Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 5: The Bells

You know... it really hurts me deep inside to criticize this episode. I went and looked at the "behind the scenes" feature on how they did the special effects on this episode, and it's clear that the production and special effects team poured their all into this episode. And for what it's worth... it's an amazing visual spectacle. I have absolutely no complaints about this episode from a visual standpoint. But the writing part?

Like, I'm not angry that Game of Thrones didn't end in a happy-fun-times bit where everyone sits around a campfire and sings kumbaya. I'm not. Game of Thrones can only end in a tragic and/or bittersweet ending, and I approve of that sentiment, if not the execution. I also agree with some people's defense of this episode that the characters (bar Jaime) reaching what they are in this episode is... it's logical, and you can do essays on why Daenerys has always been showcased as being pretty trigger-happy, or that Jon was always naive, or whatever. Like, show me a cliff's notes summary of season eight (including what's happened in the previous episodes) and I would probably raise my eyebrows and go "cool, that makes sense, it's going to be interesting to see how we reach this point."

Except we never see that. We just see the end of a non-existent character arc, and that's going to be jarring no matter how many foreshadowing you place in previous seasons. The fact that she basically embraces all of her vices practically overnight is honestly pretty poor writing. 

We just have Daenerys doing a huge 180 from being harsh but reasonable to just going completely nutso and unleashing firebombs on all of King's Landing, not the keep. And honestly, I don't think the show's earned this twist. I'm not sure what could've helped. An episode between the previous one and this one? Move Missandei and/or Rhaegal's death to happen after the bells, making Daenerys's hideous war crime be a crime of emotion instead of a temper tantrum? Again, I have no problem with the whole "Mad Queen" storyline, it's just that the execution of how we got to this point is honestly pretty crappy. 

An even worse offender from the writing department is Jaime going back just to die with Cersei, and while I could buy season one Jaime doing some shit like this -- hell, I'd probably buy season six Jaime doing this -- you can't just give a character this whole story arc in season seven and then suddenly jerk the car to the other side for no good reason. That makes the whole Brienne/Jaime storyline in the previous episode look utterly shit and becomes even more irredeemable in my eyes. Jaime's sudden heel-face-turn is just handwaved with him wanting to be with his sister and that's... that's kind of nonsensical particularly after the character development Jaime's been through. 

Again, I don't mind the idea that Jaime finally ends up choosing Cersei over honour or whatever, but the haphazard and completely slipshod way that they executed said choice is just so poorly done and apropos of any real huge character moment that I genuinely kept thinking "man, they did not explain Jaime's thought process very well". And considering a good 60% of Jaime's screentime in this episode is just him running around in the crowd, we really could've had more insight, be it his scene with Tyrion earlier in the episode or his final meeting with Cersei at the end. 

This episode isn't anywhere as bad as the previous one, but the events in what's otherwise an okay, solid action episode is marred by the completely shit buildup throughout the past couple of episodes. And I honestly am not sure how to fix it. Adding a couple more episode to flesh out Daenerys, Jon, Cersei and Jaime would've worked wonders, sure, but I honestly don't know. Even while I intellectually do like the fact that we're shown some classic old Game of Thrones "realities of war" and "war is hell" and bitter ending or whatever, things have been so haphazardly handled on the pacing and writing front that I really don't feel much out of this episode but just a very hollow sense of catharsis.(Except for Cleganebowl, because Cleganebowl was awesome). 

The episode starts off on a bit of a dud as Tyrion, Varys and Jon basically resolve their little conflict with what amounts to a conversation, before Daenerys sentences Varys to die by dragonfire when she realizes what's going on. It honestly felt pretty rushed -- we just learn of the confirmation that Varys is planning to swap Dany out for Jon in what's basically the final scene of the previous episode, and now he's just killed off like that? Again, I don't necessarily mind the story idea of Varys's advice to Daenerys falling on deaf ears, and then his minimal-effort coup ended up in his death. But the lack of any sort of substance to this story -- just the barest minimum of setup, before the conclusion -- ends up being how I feel about a good chunk of other character developments, or rather, lack thereof, in this season in general. At least the scene between Tyrion and Varys before the latter is roasted is well-acted. 

We then have Tyrion meeting Jaime, who off-screen was apprehended by Daenerys's people and captured while riding south from Winterfell... which, again, makes me wonder why the fuck that whole Brienne/Jaime sequence was necessary at all. Have the sex scene, have Jaime leave with the group going to King's Landing, and have him get an epiphany while seeing Rhaegal fall or some shit. That whole sequence in episode four honestly just makes me angrier the more I think about it. 

Despite Daenerys warning Tyrion that she will not tolerate any more failures (Tyrion's been full of failures since he became Dany's hand, admittedly), Tyrion then basically tells Jaime to bugger off and talk Cersei down, and have the two of them escape somewhere in a boat that Tyrion's got Davos to prepare in some random cove. 

Meanwhile, Daenerys continues her tumble into madness. Again, I stress that I don't mind this character arc necessarily -- some of the best antagonists in fiction are ones that start off as heroes and who we've followed the journeys of throughout the series. And, intellectually, I know that Daenerys has lost two of her three dragon children, lost her two most loyal advisers, and has been met with treachery and doubt everywhere she goes in Westeros. The episode and its predecessors, though... they don't really show a lot of these complex emotions, and kudos for Emilia Clarke in using her expressions and inflections in dialogue to show any sort of hints at all, because god damn the pacing and the writing for Daenerys is utter shit this season and only the actress's acting chops made the scenes even work at all. 

It is very unfortunate, too, that the straw that broke the camel's back isn't her being angry that Jon Snow betrayed her by telling the whole Aegon thing to Sansa, or Missandei's death, or her being forced to execute Varys. No, the thing that ended up causing her to go full "fear it is, then" is... Jon refusing to have sex with her? Really? That's fucking stupid, the romance between Jon and Daenerys is always been a contentious plot tumour at best, and the fact that out of all of the reasons that the show writers could've used to signal Daenerys's "fuck this, I'm going to burn the city to the ground" mentality ended up being... Jon refusing to "love" her? It's just dumb, and honestly quite a fair bit sexist as well. 

Again, I intellectually understand what the show writers are trying to say about Daenerys as a character, something that the episode itself barely touches. Dany is a person whose first instinct to any sort of conflict is to burn her enemies down in her crusade to free Mereen, Astapor and all those cities in Essos, and she's viewed herself with such a jaded "child of destiny" lens that there's more than a bit of entitlement going on, and when things just simply don't go her way in Westeros, her tunnel vision and the trauma of losing her loyal advisers causes her to resort to drastic schemes (schemes that Jorah or Missandei would've talked her down from in the past) and justify it with a whole "it's a mercy to kill thousands now to prevent another tyrant from rising again" speech. 

I intellectually understand it... but the show definitely doesn't earn this twist. It's the equivalent of going from season two Theon Greyjoy, the cowardly opportunist, and after a couple of scenes that the handwave as "development", we're presented with the badass final stand from earlier this season. It does not work without the legwork. And whether it be adding one or two more episodes this season, or to have this development show up a bit earlier in the previous seasons, they really could've made Daenerys's sudden turn to tyranny in a lot more logical manner. 

Of course, we then cut to one of the most awesome action scenes in this series, and I will give credit where credit's due. After the somewhat-confusing Battle of Winterfell, the straight-up spectacle they gave us as Drogon dive-bombs Euron's stupid Iron Fleet and firebombs multiple ships at once as the Greyjoy sailors try their best to reload the Scorpion ballista-crossbow things is badass as all hell. 

It is also woefully inconsistent with the portrayal of both the dragons and the crossbows in the previous episode. Where's the accuracy that the sailors showed when they were able to hit Rhaegal in vital spots? Where's all this firebombing ability that Drogon should really at least attempted in the previous episode? Again, I don't expect some slavish adherence to, oh, D&D rules or something, but it really made the whole sequence of the dragons fighting the Iron Fleet last episode feel even worse. Either play up the element of surprise last episode, or give an explanation to either Drogon's increased competence or the Scorpions' incompetence this episode. It just feels bizarre.

It is, however, awesome to see the Iron Fleet's ship explode, and the scorpion crossbows mounted on top of King's Landing's castle walls erupt and get completely destroyed. Say what you want about the quality of the writing, the visual effects of this episode is nothing short of spectacular. 

Also awesome is the visual effect of the two armies facing off against each other, with Harry and the Golden Company being unnerved as they hear explosions ringing out in the distance... and then the gate itself erupts in an amazing explosion from the inside as Drogon flies out. That is amazing. We then have a bit of a "fuck yea" moment as the Golden Company gets absolutely massacred by Grey Worm leading a gigantic horde of the Unsullied and Dothraki (apparently they aren't wiped out in episode 3) as they quite literally wipe out the Golden Company. 

Meanwhile, Cersei is standing in the Red Keep, with a face full of composed confidence while Qyburn informs her that, hey, the walls are fallen, Daenerys's troops are in the city, the Iron Fleet's burning, and Daenerys is still on top of a dragon. We get a scene of Jon, Grey Worm and Davos leading the bulk of their forces as they face off against an army of soldiers (King's Landing guards, or the Lannister men? I'm not sure), and the standoff is utterly tense before the King's Landing guards eventually give in and toss down their swords. Something that Tyrion has been begging and planning throughout the first half of the episode -- a peaceful surrender, and the ringing of the bells -- is finally achieved. All that is left to do is to arrest and execute Cersei, right? And all that's lost are the pretty villainous Iron Fleet and the here-for-money Golden Company. 

But then Daenerys goes full-on crazy, and, as I mentioned before... it's really not earned. She just hears the bells, makes a very angry face, and then... burns a random street. It's one thing if she makes a beeline for the Red Keep and attacks it to get to Cersei, something that I feel would completely be in-character for her, because even in her worst Daenerys never really hurt civilians. But no, she takes a good 15-20 minutes just having Drogon firebombing random soldiers and civilians while leaving the Red Keep intact, and I feel like, again, this supposed "twist" isn't earned. 

Meanwhile, Arya and the Hound, who last episode rode off to kill Cersei and the Mountain, finally end up making their way (mostly offscreen) into the Red Keep just in time as the world's going to shit while Drogon is setting off an apocalypse right throughout the city. The Hound manages to convince Arya that a life lived fully for revenge is not something that he wants for Arya, and Arya ends up leaving the Red Keep and thanking the Hound for everything. It's... it's a moment of character change from "killing is who I am" to deciding to abandon revenge, but it's not as bad as the utter tripe of the writing that they did for Dany and Jaime. Again, ever since Arya's left the House of Black and White, she's always been on the fence on whether she wants to commit to the whole soulless-assassin bit or embrace the girl that was Arya Stark with family and friends, and while it is annoying that the flip-flop happened so abruptly within three episodes, it's at least keeping in-character. 

And then we just get a bunch of repetitive scenes. Again, all of these scenes are genuinely well-shot and well-directed, and are a visual spectacle to behold... but considering how one of my biggest complaint in this season has been not enough time to develop characters, all of these artsy scenes showing Jaime shoving his way through crowds or wanton scenes of violence and murder and Arya just going through the crowd and escaping destruction and Jon being horrified at the murder and rape... they're all redundant to the actual story, aren't they? They're like... they're honestly like action scenes in a Michael Bay Transformers movie. A visual spectacle, costs a lot of money to make, and I enjoy them for what they are, but completely irrelevant to the story and could be removed without making much of a difference. The difference is that in a Transformers movie, the action scenes are what you're here for, whereas Game of Thrones is supposed to be about character development. 

While all of this is going on, there are two actual conflicts where characters are involved, and it's not just a pretty, expensive montage -- Jaime fighting Euron, and the Hound fighting the Mountain. Jaime fighting Euron is... it's just sort of there, I guess? Euron has been such a bland one-dimensional character that has survived this long because of plot armour, and the fact that he washed up onto that very cove that Jaime is planning to enter the Red Keep from is utterly ridiculously convenient contrivance, and the fact that Jaime and Euron really doesn't have a whole ton of actual character connection doesn't help either. Euron gets a couple of stabs in before Jaime finally kills him, and the scene's shot well, don't get me wrong, but at this point with the poorly-written where-are-they-taking-your-character Jaime and the always one-dimensional Euron, I really couldn't care less about the two of them. 

Cleganebowl, on the other hand... Sure, the Mountain's essentially a zombie at this point and not so much a character but a plot device, but the sheer atmospheric badassness of the scene as the Hound walks up to Cersei, Mountain and Qyburn while this amazing circular staircase collapses into rubble all around them... it's nothing short of spectacular, and the scene of the ceiling of the building being destroyed while the Hound looks up at the Mountain while Drogon flies around in the background... it's nothing short of cinematic. 

The Mountain himself, again, is more zombie than man, but he gains enough composure to ignore Cersei and Qyburn's orders, and even kills poor, faithful Qyburn in a pretty shocking and brutal manner, splattering the poor man's brain all over the staircase. Cersei is left alone and buggers off while the two Clegane brothers fight each other on the bridge. 

And it's... it's an amazing action scene, and if we're being honest, the only one that I have any sort of emotional investment in. Because as neat as Jon and Arya helping random civilians go to safety, as well-choreographed as the Gray Worm spear-dancing is, as gruesomely detailed the makeup and the destruction are... they're, again, sort of surplus to requirements of a good story. 

The Hound and the Mountain's fight is brutal, with the Mountain being slow but unstoppable, and genuine kudos to the make-up team for making such a horrifying set of prosthetics to sell the FrankenMountain look. As much as I feel like the "Arya running through rubble" scene was way too long, the sequence where her falling down to the ground is inter-cut to the Hound feeling similar injuries is well-done. We very nearly get a horrifying moment where the Mountain is about to pull another "squish the skull" like what he did to Oberyn Martell, but the Hound manages to stab the Mountain straight in his stupid zombie face. 

But eventually, the fight ends in a Game of Thrones-esque bittersweet ending, of the Hound charging this indestructible monster, the creature that has traumatized him since his youth, and falling out of the crumbling tower into the sea of flames below. It's an end to the Cleganebowl that many fans were disappointed with, but I'm actually very okay with how this ended. After all, Hound was telling Arya about how destructive fighting for revenge would be. That was an amazing end to the Cleganebowl, and it's everything I hoped it would be. 

Significantly less amazing is Cersei and Jaime meeting in the dragon room underneath the Red Keep, and... yeah, it's sort of heartwarming, I guess, that these two fucked-up people can only find solace in each other's arms, and that they enter the world at the same time and exit the world at the same time. But on the other hand... they really jump through a fuck-ton of hoops to get Jaime to where he is now, and Cersei effectively just spends the entirety of season 7 and 8 just standing around looking mean with a smug smile, rendering her almost as one-dimensional than Euron. Cersei is absolutely scared and she doesn't want to die, but the two of them are trapped underneath a keep. I keep expecting Drogon or Arya or someone to jump in and kill them... but nope, they die because of rocks. That's more hilarious than poetic, honestly. 

What else? The rest of the episode is honestly a lot of scenes of Jon and Arya trying their best to help people in the chaos, which, as I mentioned, went on for way too long and ended up just being repetitive... even if they are pretty well-shot. The final scene is a weird bit as Arya picks herself up from rubble, failing to save a little girl and her mother from being Drogon-style flambe, before she sees a horse and rides off into the distance... to kill Daenerys? Maybe? 

Again, this episode has... has a solid theme. That anyone who tries to conquer is in itself a tyrant. That vengeance will only end in you and the other person falling into flames. And mostly, that this show really needed more episodes to justify the build-up of many major characters. Because this episode feels less like the resolution of the character arcs of many major characters, but just a random jump from point A to Z without going through B through Y. 

We've also got a hefty set of casualties. Cersei, Jaime, Varys, the Hound, the Mountain, Qyburn and Euron, really trimming out a lot of the cast members. With one final episode that seems like it's setting up Jon, Arya and Tyrion united against Mad Queen Daenerys, I'm curious to see how this is going to pan out. Again, the lack of proper, significant build-up to Daenerys's heel-face-turn will always ruin a good chunk of what's going to happen next week, but I'm at least curious to see how this will all end. If nothing else, this was a gorgeous episode to watch from a purely visual and visceral standpoint. From the standpoint of someone who's always been invested in the character development, and someone who admittedly has kept an open mind about the whole Mad Queen storyline... it's nothing short of a lukewarm disappointment. 

Game of Thrones S08E04 Review: Idiot Ball

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 4: The Last of the Starks

-insert your own Starbucks cup joke here, I'm not going to make one. There's enough for me to mock in this episode without joking about a random oversight-

Game of Thrones is a complex show, but on its core, it's a show that's never been afraid to pull its punches and do extremely unexpected plot twists. In previous seasons, and even arguably in the previous one (which has proven to be quite controversial among the fanbase, as I gather), the twists are earned, and even if the buildup might not be ideal in a compressed, budget-restricted television show, if you sit down and think about it, the twists in Game of Thrones tend to make sense. Sure, Khal Drogo dying to sepsis or the Red Wedding or Cersei blowing up the sept or Ned Stark being executed or Arya jumping and stabbing the Night King can all be argued as jarringly paced and odd narrative choices... but you can't say that those aren't illogical. They all make sense in the context of the story. 

The events that took place in this episode, however, particularly the latter half... they all honestly felt like they were just the barest cliff's notes of the developments of a battle, without any of the nuance, just shoving in plot twists without any sensibility. Throw in some random "twists" in terms of fucking over characters' characterizations... the supposed developments that happened in this episode felt far, far more abrupt for the sake of being abrupt in a way that felt far worse than the teleporting armies in season six and seven. I've always loved the moral ambiguity of Game of Thrones, I've always loved how honour is almost always never the right way, but murder is also bad, I've always loved the shades of moral gray between the characters... but this episode really ended up feeling off, like all of these characters suddenly do shit that is just flat-out stupid for them to do. It's not until writing this review that I find out that this is one of, if not the lowest-rated episodes of the show, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. 

Throw in some very problematic handling of characters, and while this episode isn't suddenly "the show's horrible now", it's certainly taken a fair bit of a nosedive. I'm genuinely not sure just why so many scenes in this episode felt off to me. Partly, of course, it's because of just how wooden and artificial the Jon/Daenerys romance and situation felt. I've gone and watched some of the director commentary about how they felt the scenes between the two leading characters of this show are supposed to be, and boy oh boy do the scenes not work at all in trying to inform me of Jon and Dany's respective conflicts and priorities. It's not until this episode that we really get an honestly rushed mission statement, and it's sort of devolved into an honestly pretty predictable soap drama of Daenerys telling Jon to keep it a secret, but Jon, despite being certain that he doesn't want the throne, blabs anyway. And, fair enough, it's Jon, and it's established that he's got a whole lot of that Stark honour in him... but I dunno. I really felt like all of this ended up just being melodramatic for the sake of melodrama. 

And honestly, as much as I understand and applaud Emilia Clarke's performance in portraying Daenerys's increasing frustration about the situation and general jealousy at how people are receiving Jon as a war hero (god damn it Tormund), the actual lines and events that play out really end up making her come off as a bratty kid who stomps her foot down when she doesn't get her way, and while Daenerys was always a bit petulant, this episode she comes off as particularly bad -- and that's before her dragon and one of her most loyal companions get killed. While it's great to see Daenerys finally show emotion again after spending a good chunk of this season and the previous one just being an aloof, detached ruler... it's also frustrating to see her essentially revert back to angry child mode. 

And... I dunno. Would more episodes with more talking help out? I feel like it probably would. Let it really sink in that Daenerys is disturbed a lot by the grief of Jorah's death, and is feeling genuinely threatened by her reduced army and Jon Snow's popularity. Instead we genuinely just breeze through all of it, making all of the Daenerys moments later on in the episode feel like they come out of nowhere. 

This episode is also framed pretty oddly. It's meant to be a huge setup piece to what the show calls the "Last War", but ultimately doesn't really do a whole ton other than the couple of BWAAA SUDDEN PLOT TWIST at the end. The first twenty five minutes or so of the episode is just a bit of book-keeping, and I suppose most of the actors manage to portray their scenes relatively earnestly. The funeral's great, that drinking game was fantastic, Jaime and Brienne get to get on with each other, Sansa and the Hound share a touching scene (as problematic as that "rape made me stronger" sentiment is), Gendry gets made a lord and shares a nice little scene with Arya where she refuses to just be another lady. 

And... and all of those are nice, but it feels like we're just taking our time showing all of these nice-but-ultimately-unnecessary scenes, but the actual characters that the season seems intent on being the backbone of the conflict -- Jon and Daenerys -- feel woefully rushed. 

Ultimately, I suppose this episode is the most damning evidence that Daenerys isn't the ideal ruler for the Seven Kingdoms, and previous seasons has had some hints and inklings that, yeah, her tunnel vision towards ruling the Iron Throne and her unwillingness to compromise is her greatest weakness. Between ignoring her wounded dragon, her reduced fleet and just general desperation whether it be spontaneously naming Gendry Lord of Storm's End or her begging of Jon to keep his identity a secret, this episode basically knocks Daenerys down a couple of pegs while building up Jon as the ideal Messiah for this mess, something that Tyrion and a ready-to-defect Varys discuss in one of the admittedly more entertaining parts of this episode.

The thing is, though, the episode never really spends enough time with Daenerys and Varys to really let it sink in that Dany's desperation and refusal to listen to her advisers is caused by... emotion? Desperation? Stupidity? Bullheadedness? All of the above? The fact that none of her advisers really even suggest any alternate options than to "stall and hope we think up of a better plan" muddles things up a lot as well, and honestly, in a better-written episode this segment and whether we're supposed to see Daenerys as desperate but losing her weaselly allies; or just simply going full-on Mad Queen throwing a tantrum isn't particularly clear. And the episode's clearly not concerned, because by the end of the episode, any ambiguity on Daenerys's part, whether it's just her poor leadership or just desperation to prove that she is the rightful ruler instead of Jon gets replaced with good old-fashioned spiteful vengeance over dead-Missandei.

Also muddling this even further is that Varys and everyone else seems to think that Jon Snow, the man who clearly doesn't want to lead and has been proven to be so honour-bound that he's most definitely going to never listen to more pragmatic advisers like Tyrion and Varys, is somehow the better choice than Daenerys? I dunno, Jon's the hero and all, but I'm genuinely not sure that other than the whole "Aegon Targaryen" thing (and it's clear Varys is willing to bend things and doesn't really care about legitimacy) what makes Jon a better ruler than Daenerys. I dunno. Again, the discussion just felt rushed and so bare-bones that it's hard to me to grasp the reasoning behind these characters' actions. In theory, I am not opposed to the deconstruction of the promised saviour, and Daenerys losing her mind as her world falls apart around her would be a great story-line. The fact that it's handled with genuinely piss-poor pacing, while at the same time playing all those promised saviour tropes seemingly straight with Jon, feels very off. 

Throw in that problematic mid-episode action scene, too. Sure, Rhaegal gets shot straight in his chest where zombie-Viserion mauled him last episode. Fair enough -- I don't have a problem with the ballistae bolts taking down Rhaegal. The sheer randomness and general stupidity of everyone in Daenerys's fleet to both not realize that a gigantic Ironborn fleet led by Euron "Plot Armour" Greyjoy is just hanging out nearby is bizarre, and the fact that apparently somehow these ballistae somehow also double as essentially cannonballs? That felt genuinely out of nowhere, and even with Daenerys's short-sightedness in strategy, this feels like the fault of the writers more than anything. Like, how the hell did Daenerys miss an entire fleet from the air? The show itself just shows Euron simply parking that massive fleet behind like a couple of rocks. And also, how the hell did the Ironborn manage to hit three bolts onto one dragon (being accurate enough to hit both the throat and the recovering chest wound) and pointedly fail to hit ignore the other, when it's later shown they have at least a couple dozen anti-dragon ballistae? I dunno.

Throw in the general bizarreness of how these ballista are used, and... Like... I get that this is a fantasy setting with undead ice-men and collective hive-mind ravens and flaming swords and face-changing cults, but somehow these ballista bolts are essentially as powerful as gunpowder-driven cannonballs and shit? I dunno. Killing Rhaegal... yeah, sure, he's wounded. I can buy it. Completely decimating ships like explosive buckshots? That's another thing entirely.

Anyway, Rhaegal's gone, Daenerys's fleet is gone, and, perhaps in the most contrived coincidence, Missandei ends up being captured by Euron's fleet. Because of course, Dany's BFF and Grey Worm's love-of-his-life gets captured, and not killed while the ship's shattering all around them. Oh, and then she gets chained up and just straight-up executed. And while it's just a matter of time before Grey Worm or Missandei (or both) get killed because obvious death-flag is obvious... I dunno. It felt like a particularly nasty case of a character being killed just to drive another character into angst, in a particularly poorly-executed example of the Women in Refrigerators trope. It's not that Missandei should be 'safe' just because she's a woman or whatever, but the fact that she has nearly no agency in this entire episode, and quite literally just exists to die and give Grey Worm and Daenerys angst feels like such a disservice. It was bad when the show did it to Rickon, but Missandei's a character we've followed around since season three, and it's very unfortunate. 

Speaking about that scene for a bit, was there a reason for "fuck the rules I am queen" Cersei to not just shoot Daenerys in the head right then and there? Or Tyrion? I dunno. Again, like many of the main characters, Cersei's reduced to a bit of an enigma in this season that she could do whatever and I genuinely couldn't tell you if it's still in-character, considering how much we jump around and how oblique everyone's motivations seem to be.

Speaking of Cersei... man, we went a long way from the carefully-crafted "villain you love to hate" types like Joffrey, Ramsay and Littlefinger to just a poorly-written twit like Euron, huh? 

Jumping around a bit... I also find Jaime's character arc confusing, and him sleeping with Brienne felt like a relatively natural progression of their close relationship over this season, even if the writers had to throw in a random sequence of Tyrion being uncharacteristically mean-spirited in going "HAHA VIRGIN"... and then he finds out that Cersei's gotten an advantage, and leaves Brienne in bed while he rides a horse and goes back to Cersei? And... I dunno. If this was really the show playing Jaime's betrayal straight and having him revert to a slave-of-love to Cersei, it honestly destroys multiple seasons' worth of character development for no sensible in-story reason at all, and if Jaime is actually faking it... it's an example of the shitty audience-misleading lines that plagued the horrid Sansa/Arya/Littlefinger storyline, lines that wouldn't make sense once the "revelation" is done and the fact that all of these arguments are just there to mislead the audience and no one else.

Also, the fact that Brienne, the most badass knight ever, is reduced to a sobbing wreck because her paramour decides to gallop off and betray them, instead of at least trying to stop Jaime... I dunno. It also felt particularly uncharacteristic of her of all people. I dunno. I guess she's just narcissistic and spiteful and that's all her character's boiled down to?

Speaking of Jaime... I enjoy the acting and the amazing delivery of the word "cocksucker", but I am honestly completely not invested in the Bronn confrontation with Jaime and Tyrion. Really, Bronn's like a great mercenary and all, but just basically making Tyrion essentially pinkie-swear to totally give him Highgarden when they kill Cersei feels like such a anticlimactic and bizarrely unrealistic way to end this particular confrontation. I don't know what I expected, but definitely something that's not as banal as this.

What else went on? Tormund is just... written out of the show, I guess? He fails to get it on with Brienne because, of course, his crush is one-sided, and then he ends up buggering off with the Wildlings back to the Wall... and Jon lets Ghost go off with Tormund. And while all of the "Jon should have given Ghost a pat" memes are a bit tiresome, I do agree that the farewell between Jon and Ghost is done with so little fanfare and so little emotion that it's genuinely jarring. Honestly, even an implied, offscreen nuzzle or a more personal "kneel down and talk to the CGI dog" scene would've done wonders here. Jon and Sam also have a farewell, and I get it, Jon making farewells to actual people should be more emotional than the farewell to his dog, but it's just a disservice that they bother to acknowledge Ghost but not actually give that scene the emotion that they should. The Direwolves have been ignored enough in this series, and budget be damned, cut out half of the extraneous action scenes in the previous episode to make room for Jon ruffling Ghost's head. Or, for that matter, Daenerys mourning her dead dragons, her supposed children.

It's honestly the sort of poor budgetary decisions that focus so much more on grossly-overblown scenes of giant shambling undead scenes marching on Winterfell several times more than it should be, but actual scenes that matter, that would resound with the audience ended up being completely half-assed. And honestly, the eighth season has been nothing but disappointing from a writing standpoint, and only the strength of the actors' performances has kept the season as entertaining as it is. 

Also, speaking of relatively wasted characters... is Bran's story just done? I'll reserve judgment since we still have two episodes to go, but, man, throw Bran onto the pile of "yeah this character was kinda handled poorly". 

I will praise some of the more exciting parts of this episode, though. I loved the Tyrion/Varys scene, as I mentioned earlier, and the drinking game early on in the episode is fantastic. Arya and Sansa confronting Jon under the Weirwood Tree is great, and I love that while Sansa is adamant at opposing everything Daenerys does, Arya actually acknowledges the needs of allying with Dany. In an episode where the rest of the cast flounder about as they struggle to maintain their character arcs, Arya and the Hound continue to be a surprisingly consistent pair, with Arya refusing to be a lady and be Gendry's lady wife, and the two of them riding off to put a knife in Cersei and the Mountain's necks is something that, hey, I genuinely felt like something these characters would do. 

Also great in this episode is the little detail of Qyburn's completely blase reaction to Tyrion's attempts to prevent the slaughter of the citizens Cersei's funneled into the Red Keep, noting dryly about the screams of children. Oh, Qyburn. 

Overall, this episode just feels like it's spending all of its screentime in the wrong places, and not properly developing these characters. I honestly am not sure just why the producers are so insistent on keeping the final season at six episodes considering how honestly poorly-paced these character developments are. Sure, this episode certainly has some good parts about it and it's not all bad, but I can't help but feel like the show's really dropped the ball on this episode, squandering the otherwise fantastic cast, expensive sets and massive fandom for a genuinely disappointing ride this week.

For a show that has just pulled a subversion with the previous episode, tossing out the big lore-heavy-main-supernatural-undead-scourge-plot for the supposedly character-driven politics... and then completely drop the ball on developing the characters to drive said political plot. This show essentially threw that whole event-heavy, action-scene-heavy spectacle-driven plot down the drain with the promise of engaging politics and treachery, but then ruins their own character-driven plotline, so... I dunno. Perhaps I'm being slightly harsh on this episode, but I honesty do feel nothing but faint disappointment throughout this entire episode. 

Game of Thrones S08E03 Review: Wrath of the Night King

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 3: The Long Night

(Warning, this episode features heavy spoilers from the very plot-twist-y episode, and I'm not going to include any particularly spoiler-y images. Scroll down if you haven't watched this episode!)

So, to open up by acknowledging the episode's greatest strength... this is an amazing episode visually. As a visual spectacle, as someone who's interested in the logistics of filming and creating such an amazingly immersive episode where you truly feel the terror, dread and hopelessness as our heroes fight against the endless armies of the dead, and someone who admittedly loves visual spectacles... "The Long Night" is an amazing episode in that aspect. From the opening scene of slowly building up dread as we just slowly pan over some 15-20 characters as they await the incoming onrush of literal death, to fight for their lives and most likely die, to the opening salvo with Melisandre and the Dothraki, to the dreadful confusion in the darkness-enshrouded large wasteland, to around halfway through the episode where our main characters are trapped in the claustrophobic corridors of Winterfell... this episode is exceptionally well done, selling the horror of the episode, and raising the stakes compared to other "big battle" episodes in Game of Thrones.

Shame it's... it's a pretty difficult episode to visually watch. I genuinely get what they were going for, but if you haven't watched this episode, do yourself a favour and crank up any brightness and contrast setting to the absolute highest that you can on your television or computer. Because while the episode itself isn't as horrible as some people put it, you really do need to adjust some brightness settings to actually appreciate the episode. 

Yet, narratively... narratively, it's a bit of an odd meal that I'm never quite sure how to process. Throughout the 80-minute runtime of the episode I was constantly on the edge of my shit, going "HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" every couple of seconds whenever something horrifying happens to one of our beloved characters, as we pan away from this character to that character to yet another character, and when the final and surprising climax of the episode happens, it was a huge "holy fuck. HOLY FUUUUUCK!!!!" moment. It was an amazing experience to live through.

The music in this episode is also spectacularly used, with some segments (the Arya one in the middle of the episode) using little to no background music, while the "darkest hour" segment near the end makes amazing use of a crescendo of nothing but piano. It's just amazing and sucks you in. 

Yet when the dust settles, and the spectacle is over, and I sit down to write the review of this behemoth of an episode... I'm genuinely baffled at the events that happened, and I'm genuinely not sure how much I like this narratively. And to reiterate what I said above -- the episode was certainly nothing short of a cinematic episode, and I was completely immersed in the horror and dread and awesome tension, and for an episode that's 90% "oh holy hell zombies", it never really got tiresome, something that genuinely surprised me. 

But also something that genuinely surprised me is... how little I actually like the ending now that I've had time to breathe and take stock of the events that happened. The subversion of an audience's expectation is a dangerous trick if it is done for just subversion's sake -- look at The Last Jedi for how utterly poorly-received the subversion of Snoke's importance ended up being. And Game of Thrones has made its mark by having its first season (and book) subverting some of the most prevalent tropes in fantasy setting, including killing off two of the main leads in not particularly honourable ways... yet still shaping the narrative and the fantasy of the world to revolve around them. 

And... and, well, the Night King and the oncoming army of the dead has been a plotline that has been foreshadowed literally from the very first scene of the TV series and the first chapter (or was it the second?) of the first book. It was the mythological plot, it was the Bigger Threat over this silly fight over who gets to rule what, and while the Night King is more of a force of nature than an actual character, and part of me is happy that a character I genuinely care about, Cersei, ends up essentially being the final boss, the ultimate, final big bad of the series... it's also kind of a cop-out that they solved complaints about how the Night King is a flat villain that only has vague motivations that was ever-so-slightly hinted at if you look really hard through Bran's Raven-visions back in season 6, as well as Bran's short analysis on his motivation last episode.

And while I certainly didn't expect the Night King to be anywhere as complex a character as many of the other characters in this sprawling show... it's sort of an anticlimax, y'know? I honestly don't mind the plot twist that he dies in this episode. I don't even mind the subversion that it isn't Jon or Daenerys that ended up dealing the killing blow and that it was Arya. I minded the fact that for all the oomph and the eight seasons' worth of buildup and all the awesome episodes like Hardhome, Eastwatch and the whole Three-Eyed Raven sequence... the Night King does scant little in his final episode, leaving the bulk of the fighting to the endless horde of wight-zombies, mostly just spending the episode riding around Viserion, raising the dead some more, and sort of stand around and look cool. None of the other White Walkers even do anything, despite the huge assembly of around a dozen or so at the end of the previous episode, and how they cluster around the Night King like the cover of an 80's metal band cover. Like, at least let some of our characters fight the nameless white walkers or some shit. 

And while I was scared about all of the characters throughout the episode -- there were moments where characters I thought were safe like Tyrion and Arya seemed like they were straight-up going to die in one last blaze of glory -- the death tally for the episode ended up being surprisingly low. Sure, a lot of random nameless dudes, particularly the Dothraki and Unsullied, ended up dying, but as far as named characters go, it's a shockingly low amount of Edd, Beric, Melisandre, Jorah, Theon, Lyanna and that Dothraki leader dude. And maybe Ghost the dog and Rhaegal the dragon. Considering how much the previous episode scared the fandom and audiences in general by waving death-flags and tying up loose ends, it set up a notion that anyone except for maybe a couple of 'safe' characters are dead, but at the end of the day it's mostly just a bunch of genuine cannon fodder (albeit likable ones in terms of Edd and Lyanna) and a couple of characters who were pretty obviously going to do a redemption-by-death anyway, it's just a matter of which villain they die to. And, sure, maybe we're saving some of them to die in the series finale against Cersei's forces, but still. 

And while I adore the subversion that characters with very obvious death flag -- Gray Worm and Missandei -- actually did survive, as do all of the named characters in the crypt, it is honestly sort of ridiculous that we didn't have a higher body count after just how we keep cutting back and forth to show the people in the courtyard (Brienne, Jaime, Tormund, Grey Worm, Podrick and I think Gendry and Davos maybe?) just continually getting swarmed by zombies, getting back up, getting swarmed, getting back up again and so on. And I honestly do think that the courtyard battle where basically almost everyone somehow managed to survive felt frankly a wee bit ridiculous. 

And, again, don't get me wrong. The episode is a pretty badass action sequence all throughout with a lot of amazing set pieces. The opening of the episode is pretty amazing, from the slow buildup of our characters just sort of awaiting the dread, to Melisandre showing up with a horse and giving the pretty awesome visual spectacle of lighting the Dothraki's arakhs on flame, and the long viewpoint of having the entire Dothraki army with swords lit on fire in the dark charging towards the unknown darkness... only to be quite literally snuffed out within seconds. That was chilling, and while there are a lot of complaints about just how dark the episode was, particularly with the fog and blizzard that swirled around the battlefield, I felt like it added to the scariness of fighting an unknown horde of zombies in an icy land. 

The triumphant charge of everyone outside of Winterfell, ready to defend it and devolving into a chaotic melee, is also pretty well done, with the episode really focusing on either chaotic close shots or spectacular wide shots of the scale of the show, while we cut back and forth around a half-dozen characters we care about. And then Dolorous Edd gets impaled while rescuing Sam, and we get our first casualty. Oh no, a recurring and likable (if not particularly important) character gets killed! And then everyone retreats, with ambiguity if less important characters like Pod, Gray Worm and Beric will make it or not.

They all do, thanks in combination to the arrival of Daenerys and her dragon carpet-bombing the wights. And then a blizzard shows up, which is pretty badass as well, and we also have the spectacular showcase of Melisandre chanting and praying to the Lord of Light to light up the trenches and create, again, another visual spectacle of a wall of flames protecting Winterfell. Visually, it's striking, and it's a fun showcase of having a bit of a back-and-forth as our heroes start launching the big guns at the endless army of wights, with things like Melisandre lighting the Dothraki swords on fire, Drogon's arrival and the flaming trench tactic all seeming like legitimate ways for them to swing the tide of battle. 

And then, of course, the Night King arrives riding a dragon. And honestly, while it all boils down to "oh fuck our heroes are trying to survive against an endless tide of undead", the cinematography of the scene is pretty well done. The sensory-fuckery of never being quite sure which dragon is swooping around until it's too late, how Jon and Dany's senses are clouded by the blizzard, to the eventual 2-v-1 battle when Viserion the undead dragon starts to genuinely fight against Rhaegal and Drogon... it was definitely a far more extended fight than I thought we'd get, because I genuinely didn't expect CGI dragons fighting more than like five seconds, and it's amazing, including a particularly gorgeous shot of the dragons bursting out of the chaotic blizzard-filled clouds and into the calm night sky above. That is beautiful. 

The fact that zombie Viserion loses half his jaw and spends the rest of the episode bleeding blue flame from the side of his face and neck is also a pretty neat visual effect.

Meanwhile, after a sequence of Arya pulling off all the stops of her Faceless Man training and just slays her way through a fuck-ton of the dead, she, too gets overwhelmed, in no small part thanks to actually taking a hit and falling down the ramparts. We start getting things falling apart -- we get to see some of our heroes swarmed over by wights (although they mostly survive), we get to see the Hound in full PTSD mode, we get to see Sansa and Tyrion and the rest of the crypt cast in fear and huddling, we get to see the desperate last ring of defense that Theon has around Bran... and we get another death. It's Lyanna Mormont, the badass little child, surviving a first seemingly-fatal thrown-aside by an undead giant, before being grabbed and squeezed in a very painful-sounding crumple... but she manages to stab the undead giant in the eye and dust it just as she dies. 

It's just such a shame that not all of the action scenes are as visually striking and focus-driven as the dragon fight or the Lyanna scene -- so much of the fight against the zombies includes intentionally foggy or blurry shaky-cam camera. It does help to show just how horrifying things are from the point of view of the battlers, and while I get that, yes, a battle in Winterfell would be foggy and the Night King did seem to summon a blizzard early on, it doesn't make the episode feel as smoothly and as well choreographed as, say, The Watchers on the Wall. 

Again, case in point... the group in the courtyard -- Brienne, Jamie, Tormund, Pod, Gray Worm, Sam and maybe Gendry and Davos (the two are sort of missing) -- honestly don't do jack shit other than get overwhelmed, break free, get overwhelmed again, and break free again, and honestly it's sort of straining credibility that Sam and Davos, who aren't physical badasses, are somehow still alive after all that. 

But then we take a break from the huge dragon melee and the huge zombie swarm to follow Arya, and we get a pretty badass scene. It's certainly long, and probably an obvious "cheat" by the filmmakers to shoot a tense horror scene that didn't require as many extras as the elaborate exterior ones, but the horror of being trapped in a shadowy library as she tiptoes around, sneaks around bookshelves and Assassin's Creeds her way throughout the castle is, again, nothing short of breathtaking. The sequence highlighted in equal parts Arya's badassery (slashing that one wight in the chin mid-stride is awesome) while also making it clear that, shit, Arya's terrified out of her mind. 

And in a scene where we have so little dialogue, it's so amazing how Maisie Williams manages to convey both badassery and vulnerability at the same time. Of course, she ends up teaming up eventually with the Hound and Beric Dondarrion as more and more of the undead show up, and they end up basically taking turns rescuing each other until Beric manages to hold the line against a couple of wights, and survive just long enough to pass away in front of Arya. We then have Melisandre give some cryptic foreshadowing to a particular prophecy she said so long ago ("blue eyes"), as well as note Beric's prophesied role (both of which more casual audiences might be forgiven for forgetting) as being the herald of the Prince Who Was Promised... after a pretty awesome recalling of Arya's iconic exchange with Syrio way back in season one -- "what do we say to the god of death" -- and Arya basically disappears for the rest of the episode. Intentionally, and it's a pretty well-done misdirection, I must say. 

A good man.

And we do get the creepy scene at the crypt, where everyone and their mother called out that putting the refugees in a place where it's full of dead people is a bad idea. With Jon knocked off of Rhaegal (who literally disappears for the rest of the episode, and I'm not sure if Dracowight Viserion's mauling is lethal) and charging towards the Night King, he resurrects all of the dead in the now-memetic "come at me" pose, and that includes the dead in the crypt. Yet while we do get a pretty scary moment of Sansa and Tyrion about to do something potentially fatal with that dagger... none of the people in the crypt really ended up dying or even in a position where they're close to dying. Not Sansa, not Tyrion, not Varys, not Missandei, not Gilly. 

And, of course, while all of this is going on, we get a couple of pretty desperate scenes. It's kinda dumb for Dany and Drogon to stay rooted on the ground for too long, but this had the effect of Drogon being absolutely overwhelmed by the wights that swarm him like ticks, leaving Daenerys unprotected on the ground as Drogon flies off and tries to shake off the wights that are trying to kill him (a very awesome visual), leaving Daenerys at the mercy of the army of the dead... if not for Jorah Mormont's arrival.

Likewise, the Godswood is breached by the army of the dead, and Theon Greyjoy and his Ironborn end up being the last line of defense against Bran and held their ground way longer than I gave them credit for, being genuinely impressive. Jon Snow, meanwhile, while managing to at least last against the wights, ends up being trapped in a courtyard with a rampaging zombie Viserion, and unable to really stand up against him. The Dovahkiin he ain't, and there was a particularly hilarious scene where he tries to charge Viserion, only for the undead dragon to turn his head and he runs an immediate 180 and takes cover behind some conveniently blue-dragonfire-proof rubble. 

And, of course... Theon and Jorah both have their respective redemption-equals-death moments. Jorah's was a bit less spectacular, even if dying while fighting back-to-back with her queen is pretty badass and that's basically the ideal death for Jorah, dying as a shield for her queen. Theon, meanwhile, ends up actually standing his ground and fighting against all of the wights until the Night King and his walking-metal-album-cover entourage shows up, and we get one last line from Bran-Raven thanking Theon and saying he's a good man, before Theon charges in. No longer is he the man who betrays the Starks, no longer is he the meek Reek who can't stand up to Ramsay Bolton, no longer is he the dumbass who jumped off a ship and abandons his sister. He charges the Night King and gets the manliest death in this episode. It's impressive, genuinely, how the show has gotten me to go from "fuck Theon!" to "fuck, Theon." to "FUCK YEA THEON". 

And as Theon dies, as Jorah dies, as Brienne and Jaime and the rest of the courtyard squad gets overwhelmed by wights for the umpteenth time, as Jon Snow tries a suicidal screaming competition against the undead dragon... we get a crescendo of music as the Night King and Bran stare face to face... only for motherfucking Arya Stark to jump out of the fog and try and stab the Night King in the face, leading to a very awesome and smooth sequence of the Night King catching Arya, her dropping the blade and then stabbing it straight in the Night King's heart... dusting the ENTIRE ARMY. Including the undead dragon, cockblocking Jon Snow of the badassery of potentially killing an undead dragon. 

With everyone victorious, Melisandre's job is done and she drops her magic necklace and walks into the snow to die in her true self, the final casualty of this episode. Which is more cathartic than shocking or dramatic, admittedly. 

And... and I don't necessarily have a problem with it being Arya Stark that killed the Night King. It's foreshadowed in the series proper, even if it's not particularly memorable foreshadowing and I only remember it thanks to Melisandre reminding us. And I do like the subversion that Jon isn't the one to deal the killing blow. But... y'know what? It's still ultimately an unsatisfying narrative ending for the undead army plot even if in the moment it's a great holy-shit-oh-no-HOLYSHIT segment. I mean, sure, again, I'm not expecting a whole ton from the Night King as a character at this point, but I genuinely felt like we could've found out more about him. And even as a visual spectacle, the Night King is genuinely off-screen or on a dragon for the most part of the episode, with his contributions basically surviving Drogon's dracarys attack, lobbing a javelin (which missed), raising the dead (again) and killing Theon.

And considering the fact that this was the last hurrah for the white walkers and wights anyway... the white walkers really did jack-shit and even less than the night king, huh? We couldn't have the last boss that Jorah fight be a white walker? We couldn't have one of those bearded dudes lobbing lances at the defenders? Or have the Courtyard Squad fight one of them? Or have Arya, Hound and Beric team up against a white walker? I dunno. Sure, the huge zombie hordes and the huge zombie dragon was impressive, but I genuinely expected... more than just "ZOMBIES MORE ZOMBIES EVEN MORE ZOMBIES". Hell, we didn't even get a single scene of a character having to put down the zombie of one of his friends or something. Sam and Edd? Jon and Benjen? Tormund and one of those Wildlings from Hardhome? The headless zombie of Ned Stark? Grey Worm against a battalion of zombie Unsullied? Come on, if you're going to do zombies for most of the cast, at least make some of it interesting. 

Overall... I still immensely enjoyed this episode (and I genuinely feel bad that I ended up being so critical of an episode I was genuinely glued to the screen while watching), and it's undeniably impressive visually, and an amazing and tense watching experience. The individual death scenes that we focus on (Theon, Jorah and Lyanna in particular) are all done pretty well, too. And I will hold judgement on how much I like it based on how the remaining three episodes pan out. And it could definitely stand to be visually more distinct and clearer. But narratively and as an overall piece of the story... it's definitely leaves a bit of a mixed taste in your mouth, particularly how the white walkers are handled and ultimately concluded. I've seen someone comparing this to a nightmare -- very scary and will freeze you and make you feel very into it while trapped in the nightmare, but once you wake up and think about it, the scariness of the nightmare you had isn't that impressive. 

Game of Thrones S08E02 Review: The Night Before Shit Goes Down

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 2: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Holy shit I forgot to post this episode review, somehow I listed it for April 2020. Whoops. This episode review was written without any knowledge of what happens in the third episode, by the way, which aired last night! Expect my review of episode 3 tomorrow or the day after. 

The second episode of the final season of Game of Thrones is... it's a bottle episode, which ends up basically being treated as a payoff of many of our characters both main and secondary. In an ideal world maybe these storylines could've used another episode or two to breathe, but it would also ruin the fact that our heroes are simply just running out of time before the spooky White Walkers come and fuck up Winterfell. Narrative-wise, it's also pretty interesting just how the fandom as a whole have been shrugging off characters as "safe" because it wouldn't have been complete if, say, Gendry died before he met Arya, or if Jaime died before one last meeting with Tyrion or Brienne. And in this episode, so much shit happens as far as characters go, with every single character that was left in the background of the previous episode getting a lot of screentime, and a lot of storylines gets resolved... fear for the lives of your favourite characters, dear watchers, because characters with resolved storylines are probably the first on the chopping block. 

The main political storyline of this episode is... it's still the bizarre web of muddling uncertainty on what Daenerys plans to do with the North after taking back the Iron Throne. She's been so dead-set in just doing the two "big things" of reclaiming the Throne and helping Jon beat back the Night King's army of the dead that she really haven't considered the real logistics of what's going on. And with the Northerners very much willing to call her out (Lyanna Mormont, we love you), we do get a pretty awesome scene with her and Sansa bonding together for being lady-rulers... yet she really has no answer as to just what she's planning to do with the North even as she admits that she's doing a foolish mission in no small part because she's smitten with Jon. Honestly, the conversation between the two is done so well, and makes me forgive the somewhat contrived drama from the previous episode. Sure, we don't get any resolution just yet since it's Game of Thrones, but the conversation between Sansa and Dany is genuinely well done, from the discussions of trusting men, or about how sometimes men do stupid things for women, to the burden of ruling. Shame that the whole "shit, what to do with the North" remains something that will always keep the two women, unwilling to compromise, pretty distant. 

Meanwhile, Jon has apparently did a bit of an offscreen research, and has been avoiding Daenerys throughout the episode in a series of pretty unintentionally hilarious "no sex today bye c'ya" sequences. In the final scene of the episode before the cliffhanger of OH SHIT THE UNDEAD SCOURGE IS HERE, Jon ends up telling Daenerys before the tomb of his biological mother that, hey, by the way, they are related. It is pretty hilarious that Daenerys is completely unshaken by the incest thing (she wouldn't, really) and more about the fact that if what Jon claims is true, he's the last male heir of the Targaryen throne. As everyone speculated, the fact that it's Jon's brother and best friend that is providing Jon this information is definitely more than a mite suspicious-sounding to Daenerys. 

And while I'm genuinely not super-invested in this relationship, it is pretty interesting to see just how the writers will take this, whether Jon will even care that he's the rightful heir at all. Jon as a character has always been reluctant even in the times where he ends up in a leadership position, and it's interesting... but we do have to get through a zombie army first. 

Speaking of the zombie army (and I am jumping around the episode), this episode shows a lot of preparations for fighting them. We've got dragonglass weapons being forged, dragonglass ramparts being set up, scenes of people like Dothraki screamers and whatnot, a huge table scene of them setting up strategy... and the revelation by Bran that the Night King's main goal at this point is to kill him, the Three-Eyed Raven, because he's the full culmination of mankind's memory, and to kill memory -- to make it so that no one remembers mankind -- would be true death. It's a pretty poignant theme (delivered well by both Bran and Sam via flowery speeches), that even if we die, we are survived by written accounts, by the songs of bards, by talk of mouth. It's perhaps not been a theme that has been front-and-center in Game of Thrones, but definitely one that's pretty true of most fantasy settings. 

Bran himself ends up noting that he will be the bait, hiding in the Godswood, for them to lure out the Night King and making it so that the forces of Winterfell will have a proper target to murder. That's one aspect of the final battle that's interesting, and while it does sort of reduce the story into having two keystone members of the army as living plot devices (Bran and the Night King) it also marks the stakes of the plot in a more clear way -- something that these large-scale fantasy battles are always better for including. 

Love the fact that Jon, Sansa and Arya are basically unanimous in trying to protect their brother and trying to dissuade this. 

Still, while we do have the political undertones of the Stark/Targaryen drama, as well as the logistics to set up the final battle in Winterfell, we do have a whole lot of payoffs as this episode is basically just the calm before the storm of death and destruction that's about to besiege Winterfell. We start off with Jaime's arrival on the court, with every single Northerner and Daenerys being in agreement for once -- none of them like the Kingslayer, and they don't have the audience's benefit of being privy to Jaime being humbled and developing as a character. It's not until Tyrion's testimony and Brienne's defense of Jaime's character -- and Sansa's unwavering trust in Brienne -- that Jaime is spared from becoming dragon snack. It's a pretty great scene, and Bran even gets a good dig on Jaime by quoting "the things we do for love". The subsequent scene between Jaime and Bran is also pretty neat, with Bran's creepy detachment from emotion and everything being pretty unsettling. 

Meanwhile, Jaime's revelation that Tyrion mis-read Cersei and she has no intention of cooperating at all obviously rubs Daenerys the wrong way, ranting about just how Tyrion has sort of utterly sucked ever since he went to Essos and became her Hand, prompting Jorah Mormont to deliver this impassioned speech that, sure, he was once jealous of what Tyrion has ascended into, but also recognize that Tyrion is a smart man and despite his mistakes, he deserves a second chance. It's a neat moment for both Jorah and Daenerys... although poor, poor Tyrion has admittedly been pretty "off" as a strategist for the past couple of seasons.

And then we get a fun mix of scenes as characters interact with each other. Arya and Gendry flirt around in the Forge, with Arya showing off to Gendry that she's so much more than just a spunky girl that can defend herself, and ends up having sex with him near the end of the episode, noting that she wants to know what it's like. It's a pretty interesting to see her basically starting to indulge in healthy, non-faceless-man interests once more. 

Arya also gets a pretty neat scene talking to the Hound, and it's not particularly big, but it's a neat little follow-up from their not-quite-friendly encounter in the previous episode, with the Hound admitting that he's genuinely fought for Arya in the past. They're buddies now, aww. Just like many other characters in this episode, mainly Theon and Jaime, the Hound has gone through a fair bit of character development over his appearances in the previous seasons, and has well and truly earned redemption, and Arya's parting remarks to the Hound clearly says far more that, no, she doesn't consider the Hound on her "list" anymore. (Beric's also there, but... he's sort of a flat character, huh?)

Oh yeah, Beric, Tormund and Edd arrive with their unit to inform the Winterfell defenders that the zombies are coming. We get a pretty awesome, hilarious scene of the remainders of the Night's Watch -- Jon, Sam and Edd, and also fucking GHOST --  hanging out on the ramparts and making jokes about just how far Sam's gone into being a certified badass. Speaking of characters returning, Theon also shows up, catches up the Winterfell folks on that's been going on with the Ironborn, and we get an awesome, tearful hug between Sansa and Theon. That's neat. 

After a fun bit of brotherly reunion between Jaime and Tyrion -- pretty well done, if unspectacular -- Jaime meets up with Brienne to thank her and ask to serve in her unit, an act that baffles and unnerves Brienne since Jaime hasn't insulted her once throughout their conversation, which is pretty hilarious and also heartwarming. Also freaking Podrick Payne's actually a certified badass in the battlefield and the bed. 

This ends up leading to the increasingly large gathering of characters around the fireplace. First just Tyrion and Jaime reminiscing about the past, then Brienne and Podrick join in (leading to a hilarious "half cup" joke), then Davos show up, and finally Tormund. Tormund's hilarious speech as he tries to build himself up and talk about how he got the name "Giantsbane" in his hilariously doomed attempt to woo Brienne is HILARIOUS as shit. And these characters that, as Tyrion pointed out, has been on different sides of the battlefield fighting each other, gathering together for one last night around a fire and just... just talking, you know? It's pretty awesome, and it could only get so interesting in a show with a history and lore that's as well-crafted as Game of Thrones. It's not perfect -- particularly the TV adaptation with its wonky pacing -- but it definitely made me care for many of these characters, even less important ones like Tormund and Podrick, and seeing them just interact and exchange random lines and stories is just amazingly well done. 

It, of course, leads to the wildling Tormund questioning Tyrion why Brienne is considered a "Lady" and not a "Ser", leading to Jaime basically calling bullshit on the whole "women can't be knights" thing, and notes that any knight can knight another person, leading to the very dramatic and genuinely tear-jerking scene as Jaime knights Brienne without a sign of mockery and all seriousness. You get the feeling that Jaime has always respected Brienne for being the true, perfect knight that he has never been able to be, and the composition of the scene, from Brienne's clearly-hurt "never wanted to be a knight anyway" to the dramatic delivery, the music, and the applause from everyone else in the room... it's amazing. Brienne of Tarth has grown very organically into one of my favourite characters in the entire series, and from what's a "yeah, she's a badass fighting against the system that oppresses her, of course we'll root for her" character into one that I genuinely cheer for when Jaime knighted her, giving her the one thing she genuinely wants. 

Another fun scene is Lyanna telling Jorah off for daring to suggest that she hide in the crypt with everyone. She's a badass little bear, go you tiny child, stab those wights in the face! Jorah is then gifted Heartsbane by Sam, because Sam served under Jorah's deceased father, and he's clearly not practiced well with such a long blade. It's actually pretty neat. 

Of course, not all the scenes in this episode are super amazing. Davos and Gilly running the soup kitchen earlier in the episode and talking to a little girl with face scarring about how she has to "protect everyone in the crypt" felt a bit off, other than to set up the fact that the refugees are hiding in the crypt. And... and I kind of suspect that the refugees might not be in the safest place at all. Can the Night King raise the corpses of the dead people that wights didn't kill? I don't remember. I do like just how Davos totally sees little dead princess Shireen in this scar-faced little girl.

We also get the non-sequitur of a scene between Gray Worm and Missandei, where they straight up swing fifteen death flags above their heads. Because, holy shit, they were just straight-up talking about retirement plans and going back to a beach. Moreso than any other character in this episode,  one or both of this pair will die. 

And while Game of Thrones has -- to my slight disappointment -- moved more from politics to action scenes and huge setpieces in its final seasons, I absolutely adore that before the eve of the big zombie battle, we're having this amazing sequence of people just talking and sharing in their humanity, simultaneously forging bonds and wrapping up storylines (Jaime, Brienne, Jorah, Arya, Gendry, Hound, Sam, Bran, Gray Worm, Missandei and Theon all arguably have 'wrapped up' most of their story, and characters like Gilly, Edd, Davos, Tormund and Pod were always likable but never safe) and making a lot of these characters fair game for the scary scary shit that's about to come down when the Night King and his army of more-than-four horsemen advance upon Winterfell. I really like this -- it's been a fair amount of time in Game of Thrones where I feel like no one is safe, and it's this uncertain tension that defined the first couple of seasons of the show where we have people that were built up to be main characters like Ned Stark or Khal Drogo dying like flies. 

Overall, this Sunday's yesterday's episode is going to prove to be a huge, huge clash, and for once, we're not hindered with "unresolved storyline plot armour" that has been around a significant amount of our characters for a while. Sure, at least Daenerys and Jon are probably safe, but I am genuinely worried for a good chunk of the cast, since a lot of them did wrap up their storylines as best as they could over this episode, and a final confrontation with the threat of the personification of death itself, I genuinely doubt that we're going to finish the next episode without at least a good chunk of the cast in Winterfell dead.