We’re recapping the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones; look for these recaps first thing on Monday mornings. Spoilers, of course, abound.
We’re recapping the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones; look for these recaps first thing on Monday mornings. Spoilers, of course, abound.
Welcome back, everyone – it’s been two years since last we gathered around the flickering electronic hearth to feast our eyes on this world, and these characters, many of whom – I’m thinking here of the dragons and the ice-zombies mostly – would happily feast on our eyes. Because Winter is Here, and it’s shaping up to be a long, cruel one, and Sansa didn’t pack away enough provisions for everyone.
This first episode back is stuffed to the gills with great big thick chunks of plot – reunions, recriminations, spilled secrets – because the show’s sprinting toward the close and there’s no time to waste. I mean, sure, the Euron scenes drag on forever, but that’s because Euron is so one-note and dull that time slows as you approach him. He’s an event horizon of boring, is our leather-panted sea slug.
But everything else? Zipping along at a pace that surprised me, though I knew we’ve been nearing the exit for the fireworks factory for some time. Again and again, we get set-ups for the kind of conflicts that, in seasons past, would simmer over the course of four or five episodes – instead, they boil over in the very same scene they’re introduced. It’s not immersive, no – but it’s efficient.
Let’s begin.
Opening credits! With a considerable upgrade! First off, that spinning sun-mobile thingy that flies over the clockwork map of Westeros has traded its galloping Baratheon stag for a Targaryen dragon immolating the Wall. We zoom down over the map, through the gaping breach in the Wall (nice touch). There’s a neat effect of encroaching ice as we approach a location we’ve never visited before – Last Hearth. Then it’s off to Winterfell, which has gotten a serious makeover – and so has our point-of-view, which takes us through the castle and down into the crypts. We soar down to King’s Landing, also looking freshly spiffy, and into the catacombs complete with a few facsimiles of Qyburn’s ballista and some dragon skulls. We finish in the throne room, as the Iron Throne itself rises out of the floor and pokes out its pokey swords like it’s a frilled lizard in courtship display.
We’re in a small town just outside of Winterfell’s walls. A young kid is running frantically – we’re meant to think he’s in danger, running from White Walkers, perhaps – but it turns out he’s not running away from something, he’s running toward it. The something in question: He wants to get a glimpse of the endless line of Unsullied, marching through town on their way to Winterfell. Arya is among the townsfolk lining the street – she looks impassive, they look worried and resentful.
Also on the march: Daenerys and Jon Snow, The Hound (Arya’s face falls at the sight of him), Gendry (slight smile), Tyrion and Varys, bickering contentedly, as is their wont, Grey Worm and Missandei. So, most of the call sheet, basically. Also? Not for nothing? Two great big honkin’ dragons, which do a screeching flyby, buzzing the townsfolk, who scatter like startled antelope, if antelope wore ratty cloaks and looked like they smelled like feet.
Both Arya and Sansa, who stands atop the Winterfell battlements, get the chance to goggle at their first sight of a dragon. There’s an emotional reunion between Jon Snow and Bran Stark, though Bran being Bran, the emotion in question is Jon’s. At one point Sansa shoots Jon a look like, “No, yeah, Bran’s weird now, bro. And Arya’s got her own trippy death-cult vibe going on now, too, just you wait.”
Sansa welcomes Daenerys to Winterfell, albeit coolly — nay, icily; she’s still sore that Jon swore fealty to Daenerys, giving up his title of King in the North. Also peeved: young Lyanna Mormont, unless that hilariously intense scowl on her face means she needs to get more fiber. Daenerys opts for a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth opening salvo, but they are interrupted by Bran, who brings everyone up to speed: The Wall is down, the dragon that she lost fighting the Night King is now the kind of dead that’s un-, and the White Walkers are on the move.
(See what I mean? Eleven minutes in, and the characters have learned all the information that we know. Efficient.)
In Winterfell’s Great Hall, they decide to send word to the other Houses of the North to take refuge in Winterfell, and dispatch li’l Lord Umber off to his family’s castle, Last Hearth (from the credits!) to retrieve them.
