Everybody’s a winner in this episode — but everybody’s a loser, too.
“Eastwatch” is a curious episode of television, because it mostly functions as a brand new season premiere. Call it the first episode of Game of Thrones, season 7A.
With most of the conflicts that have defined the season so far largely thrown into relief by last week’s cataclysmic battle, the show now has to come up with some new ones. That means “Eastwatch” is yet another table-setting episode of Game of Thrones (though one with quite a few fun moments and scenes) , but also one where the storytelling keeps setting up quests and goals that should be easily resolved but can’ t be because the season has a few more episodes in it.
Don’ t get me wrong. Jon capturing a wight in order to convince Cersei that the army of the dead is a real thing isn’ t going to be easy. But in terms of the show’s storytelling, there aren’ t a lot of stops along the way from “Jon heads North” and “Jon captures a wight.” So this episode is mostly taken up with setting this plan — and a handful of others — in motion, while also mopping up the last few bits of last week’s battle.
That leaves behind a slightly more ruminative episode than the others we’ ve seen this season, one that returns to some of the “cost of warfare” moments from the season premiere (that the show has mostly dropped) . It takes its time, instead of galloping forward, full tilt, and that’s the right call at this point in the season. Everybody could use a breather.
That in mind, here are six winners and six losers who made “Eastwatch” a mild comedown from “The Spoils of War.”
Things are starting to look mighty sparse on the other side of the lines in the war for the Seven Kingdoms.
Daenerys doesn’ t just have Tyrion and Varys on her side. No, now she has Jorah back, with Jon and Davos as fairly strong allies. Add in Gendry (Gendry!) and some of the folks Jon hooks up with in Eastwatch (who will presumably join this side when the time comes) , and you have a bounty of riches.
Back in King’s Landing, there’s who? Jaime and Cersei? Bronn’s taken his leave, and Qyburn is mostly muttering to himself these days. Gregor’s not much of a conversationalist. The Cersei story has gotten so empty of non-Lannister characters that I was honestly surprised to see that Fleabottom apparently still has people living in it. I half suspected the entire city had been abandoned.
Now, granted, Dany has gained all of these allies because she’s shifted her focus (somewhat suddenly, I might add) to the Army of the Dead, which placates Jon and ropes in some of the hangers-on who head North with him.
But I have to admit that I thought the series was doing something with the idea that she’ d gotten a little power hungry, before the second half of the episode abruptly shifted to Daenerys Targaryen: Team Mom. Maybe we’ ll get an earnest accounting of her weak points in the weeks to come. Game of Thrones keeps tiptoeing up to examining her, then backing off. Some week, it will have to plunge over the cliff. A boy can dream!
Don’ t get me wrong. Seeing Gendry again was a lot of fun.
But seeing him again only highlighted how it felt 100 percent arbitrary that he’s the guy who’s apparently going to help Jon capture the wight he needs to make a difference. The show tried to play up some of the parallels between these two guys and their fathers (or, rather, the man Jon thinks is his father) , but it felt a little unearned because we were suddenly seeing Gendry again.
The last time we saw him, he was rowing away (something Davos notes, in a cheeky nod to fan memes involving the character) , headed off into mystery, and now we find out he’s just been in King’s Landing all this time, training to become a great hero? I mean, I guess. But it feels like a cheat when you consider just how closely we’ ve followed all of the other characters over these years. At least he has a giant hammer.
I spent most of the first five seasons of Game of Thrones rolling my eyes at Kit Harington, who took an already bland character and seemed to flatten him out even further. Yes, Jon Snow — the honorable bastard and secret king — was the closest thing this series had to a fantasy cliché. But it often felt like the primary weapon in Harington’s arsenal was “looking handsome.”
Credit where it’s due, then: He’s been really, really good in the sixth and seventh seasons. His return from the dead has given him a singular focus on wiping out the army of the dead, and he’s gotten several big speeches and moments that he’s mostly delivered upon.
In “Eastwatch, ” his biggest moment is entirely wordless. He reaches up to stroke Dany’s dragon, something only a person with Targaryen blood should be able to do. Harington’s hand trembles, ever so slightly. He seems like he’s about to throw up. But then, he reaches out. He touches the great beast. You can see in his eyes, deep down, the knowledge that something larger than himself is happening. It’s nicely acted.
Sam, giving up on being a Maester after being mistreated by the Arch-Maester and feeling full of guff about having to work his way up the ladder, abandons the Citadel in this episode, in favor of going off to become a great man. It’s really too bad he didn’ t hear the whole thing Gilly said about Rhaegar’s marriage being annulled so he could marry some other woman. I can’ t think of why that might be important.
By all rights, Cersei should be approaching the end. She has money, sure, but that money can’ t buy mercenaries who can take on three dragons and an army of Dothraki. She’s lost all of her allies. She doesn’ t have food. Even Jaime seems like he’s growing more and more skeptical of her, to the degree where he’s meeting with Tyrion right under her nose. (She knows about it, of course.)
On the other hand, Cersei always finds a new ace in the hole. This time, it’s the revelation that she’s pregnant (or, at least, that she says she is) . And while Cersei is fated to lose all of her children (and knows this) , the pregnancy is all she needs to get Jaime right back in line with her vision of a Seven Kingdoms ruled by Cersei.
What’s more, she clearly realizes that the request for help in fighting the Army of the Dead is just a way for her to buy some time and figure out a better way to get rid of Dany, perhaps even in a way that keeps her own hands clean. Cersei is pretty clearly cornered at this point in the series, and I find it hard to believe she won’ t prove her own undoing. But every single shot of the queen in this episode shows her brain whirring, Lena Headey’s eyes darting about as she considers just which of the ropes dangled in front of her might lead to survival and which lead to disaster. At this point, Cersei wins every time she makes it to a new episode, so good for her.
Literally every single Lannister sibling had some great stuff to play in this episode, so let’s hit the other two in quick succession.
First we have Jaime, who handily survives last week’s near-drowning thanks to his good buddy Bronn, then promptly gets tricked by Bronn into meeting with Tyrion. And even though he’s not exactly inclined to listen to what Tyrion has to say, he pretty quickly changes his mind once he talks to his brother — at which point Cersei runs roughshod over whatever personal constitution he has with her little pregnancy reveal.
One of the things that’s always been beautiful about Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s performance is how he plays Jaime’s knowledge that he’s just not as smart as either of his siblings. Sure, he’s not an idiot, but he knows that he’s powerless to withstand either Tyrion or Cersei when they really want him to do something. And yet he keeps falling for their schemes, over and over again. Jaime seems completely lost at this point in the series. He’s the one character who could take decisive action to end the war — probably by killing his sister — but also the one character who would never do that.
The episode’s early sections feature Tyrion’s slow stroll around the battlefield, looking over the charred remains of the Lannister army. You can almost see the part of his brain that’s shouting, over and over, “These people used to be on your side. They didn’ t deserve this.”
And it’s true. If there’s one theme season seven has best introduced (albeit fitfully so) , it’s the idea that this gigantic war has mostly caused horrible pain and suffering for too many people. Tyrion, who really did seem to hope Dany could take Westeros while lifting as few fingers as possible, now sees that there was never any way to achieve that goal without burning a lot of his former comrades alive, and that most of those former comrades were just normal, everyday men who probably didn’ t deserve to be roasted.
