Tag: Game of Thrones Review

The 300s Breaks Down Game of Thrones S8E5: “The Bells”

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Obvious Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t caught up on Season 8 of Thrones yet come back later.

The Mad Queen has arrived. The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones final season kept the promise that so many seasons before it had; delivering the biggest blow right before the finale. An absolute spectacle for the ages as Khaleesi turns full heel and embraces the role of The Mad Queen as she literally burned Kings Landing to the ground. I was leaning forward in my chair in suspense for about 40 minutes straight. What started out as violent efficiency by Khaleesi turned into legitimate terrorism as the Dragon Queen became the very thing she vowed not to be; a tyrant. How did we get here?

“Alright then, let it be fear,” Daenerys says to Jon Snow after he rejects her affection on Dragonstone.

This is a central theme that the last Targaryen has struggled with for years, but most explicitly in Season 8. She has continuously walked the line of being the beloved savior, freeing slaves, being the voice for those without a voice, and taking what she wants simply because she can. With great power comes great responsibility and after seven seasons of Khaleesi balancing that responsibility while she became only more powerful, she ultimately decides to throw it all away in the name of rage and revenge.

“I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did. And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago,” showrunner DB Weiss said on the Inside the Episode. “It’s in that moment on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”

The sped up arrival of Daenerys unhinged has been a bit too convenient for my liking, but the show has been hinting at this for years.

“I’m not my father,” Dany says to Ser Barristan in S5E2 to which Barristan replies: “The Mad King gave his enemies the justice he thought they deserved and each time it made him feel powerful and right. Until the very end.”

All of Dany’s closest friends and most trusted confidants are all gone. She’s too strong for Jon Snow, as Varys puts it, and Tyrion has lost her trust after repeated lapses in judgment. Barristan, Jorah, and Missandei were the only three people who were ever really able to temper Dany’s worst impulses. And all three are dead.

“I am not here to be Queen of the ashes,” Dany says in S7E2 to her small council when discussing the best way to take Kings Landing.

Oh and lets not forget about these gems from Season 2.

To quote another pop culture behemoth in Avengers: Endgame: Khaleesi “did exactly what she said she was going to do.”

My only complaint with this storyline is the same critique I’ve had about this entire season; the pacing. In a matter of 5 episodes Daenerys has gone from the savior of Westeros, the liberator from tyrants, and the beloved Khaleesi to the Mad Queen? She has suffered some tragic losses in Jorah, Missandei, and her two dragons, but to use that as justification for destroying an entire city and burning thousands of innocent citizens alive is a pretty big leap.

With that being said, George RR Martin’s books have become absolute must reads just to see how the godfather handles the same storylines.

Whats even more shocking is how Khaleesi has turned into the type of person she hated the most (arrogant, entitled, and cruel) just like….her late brother Viserys Targaryen. She has been shattered by her inability to gain the love and support of Westeros, despite quite literally saving the country from death. To her dismay, it is Jon Snow whom the people still love and champion. It is a stunning parallel with Viserys as Khaleesi has become just like her brother (who was killed for those same qualities).

Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin. Well it seems like the coin landed on the wrong side.

One of the most incredible scenes in the episode and really the series was Khaleesi finally unleashing her dragon’s power to take out her enemies singlehandedly. It was glorious to see, if not a little inconsistent. Khaleesi *easily* takes out a hundred ships and just as many Scorpions after losing a dragon to just one of those pesky jumbo crossbows in the previous episode.

I understand she was taken by surprise somehow (she forgot about the Iron Fleet according to the showrunners…) in Episode 4, but thats just not great writing. Too often the end has dictated the circumstances required to get there, which has become a problem primarily since the show has passed the books. Without Martin’s elaborate game plan to lead the way, Benioff and Weiss have had to piece key events together with various plot devices. Just imagine the damage she could have done with 2 if not 3 dragons?

One of the deeper cuts were the various Wildfire explosions going off throughout the city as Khaleesi lit up Kings Landing. Aerys Targaryen’s old Wildfire stash was still buried underneath the city, going off like fireworks in the trunk of your car that you forgot about.

Again, we’ve been building to this for quite some time. Go back to Khaleesi’s vision she saw in Season 2 in Quarth at the House of the Undying because this is incredible foreshadowing, intentional or not.

Winter never came for King’s Landing, but Khaleesi did.

Sansa Was Right

Something I’ve been saying for a while now is what if Sansa wasn’t just being a distrustful or jealous sister? What I wrote last week:

“Sansa just does not trust Khaleesi and maybe she sees something that everyone else is blind to because they either love Khaleesi, they admire her, or they fear her. Sansa has none of those emotions towards the Dragon Queen so maybe its more than just being spiteful; maybe she really doesn’t believe she’ll be a good ruler…So maybe we need to start treating her disdain for Khaleesi as more than just unnecessary drama.”

What if she truly saw something in the Dragon Queen that unsettled her? Sansa is arguably the best politician in all of Westeros. Trained by Littlefinger, she survived Joffrey, Cersei, and Ramsay Bolton all while uniting the north and saving Jon at the Battle of the Bastards with the Knights of the Vale. She was often referred to as the key to the north to boot. Well after “The Bells” it sure seems like Sansa had Dany pegged from day one.

RIP to Varys

Varys, as always, was the only one that saw the big picture. He could see Khaleesi losing her grasp on reality/sanity/decency and tried to get ahead of it, but nobody wanted to listen. They all saw the same signs, but everyone was blinded for their own reasons. Tyrion is the Hand of the Queen, and Jon Snow loved her but more importantly he swore himself and the North to her (that damn Stark nobility). Varys cared only for the Realm aka the common people and Varys knew the people were screwed.

Ring the Bells

The aptly titled episode refers to the bells that ring in Kings Landing when the city has surrendered. It means the war has been won. Well when Tyrion repeatedly says they need to stop the attack if they hear the bells ringing I became suspicious. Would Khaleesi think that maybe the bells are a trap of sorts by Cersei? Not really. Actually she just didn’t care and merely used the bells as the soundtrack to her rampage.

The Golden Company Just Got Downgraded to Silver

Thrones offered zero character development for these guys and now we know why. They didn’t even make it out of the locker room before Khaleesi came out of the goddamn walls to blow them away.

The Cleganebowl

It would be hard to do justice to anything that fans have been clamoring for after 7+ seasons. While I don’t think this was the amazing sword battle we all expected, it was visually stunning. The shot of the two brothers fighting on a crumbling stair case in the Red Keep as Drogon flies behind them burning the city to the ground was incredible.

This battle royale also showed just how indestructible The Mountain really was, something thats been apparent since his resurrection, but never really deeply explored. Not to quote the Avengers too many times in this Thrones blog, but Sandor my man:

The Hound saving Arya’s life by talking her out of a suicide mission for vengeance was a rare emotional moment for this character. Arya’s the only one he’s ever really had any affection for and vice versa so he’s the only one that can snap her out of it and send her away.

Arya

Arya has repeatedly said “I’m going to kill the queen.” About halfway through that episode I realized she’s rarely said I’m going to kill Cersei; only “the queen” specifically. Well, once Arya got caught in that hell fire and saw more and more innocents getting scorched it became pretty clear to me that Arya was always going to kill the queen, maybe just not the one she thought.

Fine, you want more foreshadowing?

Khaleesi:

Don’t be surprised when Benioff and Weiss tell composer Ramin Djawadi to take a few plays off in order to let Arya do her work with Coldplay playing in the background.

Something that has been in my opinion shockingly underutilized is Arya’s game of faces. We literally spent multiple seasons learning about this and how deadly the faceless men are. Arya has become one of the most lethal killers in Westeros and did take out the entire Frey House, but since then we’ve seen zero use of this pretty rare talent. Will we finally see Arya break it out in the series finale? Could she kill someone like Grey Worm in order to take his face and get close enough to the Queen? We’ll see, but this is another thread that seems to have been forgotten if not.

Starks Run Deep

Also, I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but Jon and Arya have literally become the same person. It’s like that Progressive Insurance commercial about becoming your parents. The long hair with the top knot, the long leather outfit; they’ve all become Ned Stark.

Cersei and Jaime

I’ve seen a lot of hate on Twitter about the way they handled Cersei’s death, but it did a pretty good job of humanizing one of the most evil characters in the show in just a couple of scenes. Again, pacing of the character arc was poor, but what did people want? For Cersei to stand on the roof and give one last defiant speech before getting lit up by Drogon?

At the end, Cersei sounded a lot like Janos Slynt at the Battle of Castle Black. Someone who is in way over their head and trying to convince themselves that the inevitable is not actually coming as they mindlessly babble in the face of certain death

Another pacing issues though is how they handled Jaime’s last two episodes and his ultimate death. I think we all knew Jaime would either die trying to save Cersei or trying to stop her, but to introduce the entire Brienne love storyline, the immediate reversal, his capture and release by Tyrion, followed by his frantic effort to get to Cersei was the definition of rushed.

I take this with a grain of salt because he can’t finish shit, but George RR Martin recently said in order to do the Thrones books justice it would take FIVE more seasons. Now obviously thats excessive, but Benioff and Weiss recently revealed that HBO told them do whatever you want we’ll give you whatever resources you need. Benioff and Weiss themselves chose to say ‘nah, 6 episodes should do it.’ That coupled with the fact that these two are on deck to work on a Star Wars movie after GOT wraps and I can’t help but feel they broke out the Wrap It Up Box here.

Jon Snow

How does the King in the North handle Khaleesi now? Cersei blew up the sept and killed a couple hundred people and we were all shocked; Khaleesi just burned down the entire god damn city. He can’t openly challenge her because of the aforementioned dragon, the Unsullied and the Dothraki, who seem pretty jazzed up about destroying said city. It seems like marriage is probably off the table as well. So its going to take quite the coup to unseat Dany from the Iron Throne at this point. Even if Arya or someone is able to kill the Dragon Queen, this could devolve into a bloody and meaningless civil war real quick.

Bran

We are now down 80 minutes away from Bran becoming the No. 1 in Red’s Power Rankings of Most Useless Characters of All Time. He has said that he’s not really Bran anymore and that he doesn’t want anymore, but did we really build this guy up for 7 seasons just to have him be the know it all grandpa in the corner?

I can’t believe we are now just 6 days away from the last episode in Game of Thrones history. I am shook. I will be an emotional wreck next weekend so don’t take it personally when I ghost any and all forms of communication. How does this all end? Will Khaleesi rule unopposed with fire and blood? Will the North finally overthrow the rulers in Kings Landing? Could Jon Snow aka Aegon Targaryen possibly take Drogon for himself? Will Jon finally change the narrative about Stark men in the capital? So many questions so little time.

As we all know though, when you play the Game of Thrones, you either win or you die.

The 300s Breaks Down Game of Thrones S8E4: “The Last of the Starks”

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Obvious Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t caught up on Season 8 of Thrones yet come back later.

“The Last of the Starks” was an A+ episode for Game of Thrones as the show got back to doing what it does best. Despite the less than glowing reviews of Episode 3 (second lowest rated GOT ep on Rotten Tomatoes), I rewatched it yesterday and actually enjoyed it more the second time. Once you get over the fact that its dark and chaotic and not as many central characters die as expected its actually a pretty good episode. However it has become clear that Thrones (at least the TV show) never intended to have the battle with the White Walkers as the end all be all. In fact in the Ep 3 Inside the Episode, showrunner David Benioff actually describes the dead as “one of the main storylines” of Thrones. The key word there is “one.”

Is that reason enough for Thrones fans to be upset? Sure. Especially because if the White Walkers were never going to be the central storyline of the entire show (its literally the focus of the first scene of the first episode of the first season), then the showrunners were at best creating the longest slow play of all time with the Night King arc or at worst intentionally misleading viewers until they could quickly finish that story in order to move onto the last geopolitical conflict; the final game of thrones. Maybe I’m too big of a Thrones fan to be properly pissed off about that entire scenario, but I have repeatedly said I am going to wait until the season is finished so I can see the whole picture before deciding one way or the other. Thrones is getting alarmingly close to LOST territory though with a whole lot of questions that could remain completely unanswered. We’ll see.

So now that they’ve defeated the White Walkers, Thrones was able to turn its attention back to its biggest strength; the actual game of thrones. The character dialogues, the plotting, the lying, the simmering tensions. This was the best episode we’ve seen all season.

Lets talk about that emotional opening as the survivors mourn the dead from the Battle of Winterfell. It was always going to be a tearjerker when Dany said goodbye to Jorah and we see the dead bodies of characters like Lyanna Mormont, Lord Commander Edd, Theon and the rest, but when the camera pulls back and we see just how many pyres there are being lit, we get a much better understanding of just how many lives were lost. I think its one of the best shots in the show’s history because it conveys so much without a single word.

I thought this was an excellent episode, but I’ve tried to be fair in my assessment each week and this season has been bordering on a Wrap It Up Box situation. After years of slow playing situations and storylines we are now moving at a lightspeed pace, which has me questioning the decision to only shoot 6 episodes for the final season. Granted the showrunners were undoubtedly waiting for George RR Martin to finish the books (which led to extended stays for Dany in Essos and Bran on his way to the Three Eyed Raven) before ultimately deciding to push past the books and finish the show with just some guiding points from Martin.

But this season has been pegging characters into some roles quicker than I would think is realistic. I’m not one of these assholes that is stomping their feet because Dany can get to Kings Landing in a ship in 5 minutes. I’ve played video games since I was a kid; fast travel and respawn points are a good thing guys. However, Dany is turned from savior to nearly becoming the Mad Queen in a span of 4 episodes. Now don’t get me wrong, she has all the character development points necessary to get there with her army being decimated fighting the dead, her role as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne being questioned, and now her best friend Missandei being unnecessarily murdered BUT it all just seems a little quick for a show that has been thoughtful and methodical with its pacing for years.

Remind me not to tell Sansa a secret any time soon because she blew up Jon’s spot about his true lineage in a matter or minutes. For some reason Sansa just does not trust Khaleesi and maybe she sees something that everyone else is blind to because they either love Khaleesi, they admire her, or they fear her. Sansa has none of those emotions towards the Dragon Queen so maybe its more than just being spiteful; maybe she really doesn’t believe she’ll be a good ruler. We’ve all come to agree that Sansa has become one of the best political minds in GOT having been trained by one of the best in Littlefinger, living a hellish life with the likes of Joffrey and Ramsay, and yet has come out on the other side as one of the power players in Westeros. So maybe we need to start treating her disdain for Khaleesi as more than just unnecessary drama. Either way, she confides in her former husband Tyrion saying “What if there were someone better?” and officially rings the bell that cannot be unrung. What if Jon isn’t only the *rightful* heir to the Throne, but what if he’s the best one too? He probably would make a better ruler being a lot more measured, unemotional, and of course loved by the people of the North at least.

However Khaleesi put her ass on the line and decimated her army and her dragons to save the North and probably Westeros as a whole, so you can’t discount that just because she’s come off as increasingly bitter in each episode. Shit, I’d be bitter too. A classic Thrones power struggle continues to grow, made only more interesting with the fact that Jon wants no part of it. As the great Tywinn Lannister once said “Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king.” Maybe we’re seeing shades of that coming into play as Khaleesi tells anyone and everyone that she is their queen, whereas Jon never wanted to be King in the North, yet his role as king literally saved the realm.

Khaleesi actually begs Jon to bury that secret, which is something we’ve never seen her do. She’s been enslaved, beaten, nearly assassinated, raped and endured all kinds of terrible times, but she’s never begged anyone for anything. Is she unraveling or this just her political hail mary because she knows if Jon tells Sansa the truth she’ll never have an iron clad claim to the Iron Throne.

Also, Brandon Stark, Lord of Winterfell, the Three Eyed Raven, and last true born son of Eddard Stark has approximately 160 minutes left to not become the most useless character of all time. Up until now his most important contributions to the show include

  • Getting the Three Eyed Raven Killed
  • Getting Hodor, Jojen, and his direwolf Summer killed
  • Leading the Night King straight to Winterfell
  • Giving Arya the dagger that she needed to kill the Night King
  • Telling everyone about Jon’s true parents

Thats about it for the freshly minted Three Eyed Raven. I never really loved Bran’s storyline, but I figured the writers were building up to something bigger. Well that was a pretty big “nope” after the Battle of Winterfell. Sure I’ll give him partial credit for giving Arya the dagger, but thats considering I’m going out of my way to acknowledge that a dragon glass dagger probably wouldn’t have had the same affect. So here we are Bran. You have two episodes and 160 minutes to prove the dozens of hours devoted to watching you get dragged through the woods was worth it. Prove me wrong.

Bronn of the Blackwater is back! He basically makes a deal with the Lannister brothers that they need to pay the debts they so famously always pay or they’re both dead. It wasn’t exactly the bro reunion many had expected, but somewhere inside that cutthroat there is a heart of gold. It would have been shocking and unfitting for Bronn to just coldly murder his two best friends. Whether they have the pull to guarantee High Garden to Bronn as sufficient payment remains to be seem, but something tells me not all of these characters will be around to see that the debt has been paid.

Jon’s goodbye (or lack thereof) to Ghost was one of the sadder scenes of all time. This dog lost a goddamn ear fighting your war, Jon. Ghost was actually the first POP action figure I ever bought years ago so needless to say I feel like our canine friend deserved better. Now I fully admit I am one of those crazy dog dads, but come on Jon you’re not even going to give him a scratch behind his ear? That direwolf went beyond the wall with you and saved your ass on more than one occasion. Well, the internet was fully behind me and some are even completely off #TeamJon for the Iron Throne because of it.

At least he’ll be safe and in his element in the icy north, but boy was that sad. I guess if I’m going to wrap my own brain into a pretzel it was the right decision because we’ve seen how irresponsible Khaleesi is with her own animals.

Speaking of…holy hell we lost another dragon and I cannot emotionally handle it. Just one week after thinking another of Khaleesi’s dragons bit the big one because of her careless landing spot in a war zone, we were blindly led to its slaughter yet again. And I fucking called it. Probably because I am a Thrones psycho, but after seeing the dragon struggling to fly earlier in the ep and then seeing him back to full strength I knew something was off. Thrones never shows you something by mistake (except for that Starbucks cup). I literally said out loud “oh look the dragon is all better again” IMMEDIATELY followed by “oh no now he’s going to die–ARROW.” Euron Greyjoy ambushed Khaleesi and her fleet and gave us yet another heart wrenching dragon death. Jesus christ Khaleesi can you please keep these dragons a safe distance away from all possible dangers? Especially if the only thing that can kill them apparently are arrows and ice javelins, which have a pretty precise range of fire, and especially if you’re just cruising past the place you intend to destroy. Maybe be on the lookout for danger? Worst dragon owner of all time. She will probably get her last child killed next week too and I want no part of watching that.

I won’t spend too much time on the love circles, but Jaime gets with Brienne, which breaks Tormund’s heart in yet another scene stealing moment, but then Jaime leaves in the middle of the night to return to (kill?) Cersei. I don’t know if Jaime just can’t kick that toxic relationship or if he just feels responsible for her and thinks he needs to kill her himself. Either way I think Jaime will play a prominent role in the death of Cersei. Maybe he dies at the hand of Arya and has his face used to sneak up on Cersei or perhaps he is able to get past the Mountain (who nearly executed him last time he was in Kings Landing) and Euron (who thinks Cersei is carrying his child) to get to Cersei?

Now that the news of Jon’s lineage is spreading, people like Sansa and Tyrion and Varys are starting to wonder who might be the rightful (read: better) ruler of Westeros. Varys seems pretty keen on the idea of switching sides, openly discussing what Tyrion describes as treason. They raise a legitimate question about Khaleesi’s state of mind. She seems to be slipping further into mad king territory and is ready to destroy the very city she seeks to liberate. Is Varys ready to jump sides in the best interest of the realm or was he merely testing Tyrion’s resolve? I don’t know but I do know that Thrones is at its best when characters like Littlefinger (RIP), Tyrion, and Varys are plotting and scheming.

In another shocker, Missandei gets executed in one of the most unnecessary, ruthless and cold blooded moves in Thrones history. Cersei executed someone for the sole purpose of inciting Khaleesi’s fury. Its a move that Tywinn would have been proud of as we all know that emotional decisions are often the worst decisions. Khaleesi looks like she is about to do something reckless to avenge her beloved friend.

We do see that Jon and his army arrive for the next episode, but my god I did not realize just how undermanned the Unsullied army has become. While the show makes it a point to say Cersei and Khaleesi’s armies are now unsettlingly “even” in size it sure doesn’t look that way. Not to mention we have the whole Golden Company army waiting in the wings despite zero character development. I honestly don’t know how she’s going to take the city as her dragons have proven highly susceptible to the scorpion arrows, but Khaleesi is about to burn that bitch to the ground.

We’ve heard time and time again that the citizens of Kings Landing hate Cersei, that the common people don’t care which “high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace,” so its possible that if someone can take out Cersei the rest will welcome Khaleesi with open arms. Probably not if she starts raining fire on the city though.

My god am I jacked up for next week’s episode.

The 300s Breaks Down Game of Thrones S8E2

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Obvious Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t caught up on Season 8 of Thrones yet come back later.

With only four episodes remaining in Game of Thrones I’m already starting to feel a twinge of sadness. This is my favorite show of all time, which I’ve invested hundreds of hours of my life into and in a month it’ll all be over. After that I don’t think TV will ever be the same. So with that being said, enjoy the final month of Westeros because when it’s over you’ll miss it. Now I’ll get into full on fanboy mode in a minute, but just so I don’t get accused of being a blindly loyal fan I want to touch on a couple of negatives. The biggest complaint I’ve heard about Game of Thrones’ final season thus far is that the first two episodes have been dull set up and full of fan service that rely on scenes of characters learning info that viewers already knew in some cases for years.

I’ve enjoyed the first two episodes, but I am a bit uneasy with 1/3 of the final season being devoted to setting the table and catching up with friends. I’m sure we’ll all look back and miss these moments when the final 4 episodes are just pure carnage leaving me an emotional wreck.

The one complaint I’ve had since the showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss diverged from George R.R. Martin’s books (because he can’t finish the damn things) is that the writing has become a bit more predictable. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched the entire show through 7 or 8 times, but I feel like I am hyper aware of the foreshadowing the writers drop in dialogue. Rarely does a line slip by in conversation like it would have in earlier seasons. After the Red Wedding we were all shocked, but rewatching the episodes prior to that you see little bread crumbs that Martin was dropping the entire time and you can’t believe you missed it. In seasons 7 and 8 when anything major happens I find myself immediately thinking well yea that makes sense because so and so directly alluded to that a couple of episodes ago.

Khaleesi is bordering on annoying in season 8 and I feel like its been so blatant that the showrunners are doing it intentionally. Similar to what I just wrote in the paragraph above, it sticks out to me a bit more when a character is really leaning into a plot line heavier than usual because it usually means the writers are trying to throw you off the scent (redemption, betrayal, upcoming death). Khaleesi has acted like an uninformed power hungry ruler at best and a catty new girlfriend bickering with her boyfriend’s sister at worse. Its completely understandable for a normal  person to be irritated with how things have played out for Dany with the North giving her whole team the cold shoulder. But that would be for a normal person, Dany is not normal. She has been bought and sold, raped, imprisoned, abused and underestimated at every turn. She’s one of the most cunning, ruthless, yet caring characters in the entire show. So for the showrunners to have her fuming because Jon’s sister didn’t initially like her, the North didn’t initially thank her, and to blame Tyrion for trusting Cersei (as did she) comes off hollow. Khaleesi would have expected all of these things so to have her lashing out at Tyrion and Sansa and Jon just seems odd, which is why I expect a total 180 out of her in the next 4 episodes. Just smoking wights with her dragon, saving lives, and being the leader that she’s been built up as for the last 7 seasons.

Now lets break down some of the biggest plot lines from S8E2. LETS GO

  • Jaime returns to Winterfell
    • It’s the first time he’s been back since he kicked Bran out of a window in the pilot all those years ago starting this whole series of events. Another one liner from Bran reminds us that nobody in that room knows how Bran fell except for him and Jaime: “The things I do for love.” Thats what Jaime said right before he tossed Bran from the empty tower. Catlyn and  Robb Stark knew, or at least suspected, but nobody else in that room was there for those conversations. Theon might actually know as well from his time on King Robb’s war council in Season 2, but he doesn’t arrive until later.
    • Again Khaleesi acts out of character seeming like she cannot wait to behead the man that killed her father, despite knowing the horrible things her father had done and planned to do to the thousands of innocent lives at Kings Landing. She shuts down Tyrion’s defense because of a clear conflict of interest, so it takes some serious character witness testimony from Brienne of Tarth to convince Sansa and save Jaime’s life.  Moral of the story is we’ve all done some shit, but we need to band together if we’re to survive the night.
  • Jon reveals his true identity to Khaleesi
    • This probablyyyy could have been handled with a little more tact, but as the showrunners said in the Ep 1 Inside the Episode, Jon’s not the fastest on the uptake. Never one to really play politics Jon just basically blurts out the biggest secret in the history of Westeros and Khaleesi is understandably a little skeptical. The past couple of seasons have also given us a bit more humor as well, or maybe it’s just my dry sense of humor, but Khaleesi’s response to the bombshell news made me laugh out loud: “Oh your brother and your best friend told you that you’re the real king? Thats convenient.”
  • Bran finally provides some sort of motivation for the Night King
    • It’s  been 7+ seasons and we still hadn’t received any real motivation for the Night King or the White Walkers. We know how the White Walkers were created, we know why they were created, but aside from the war with the First Men and the Children of the Forest thousands of years ago we don’t really know why the Night King is coming back or what he wants. Faceless and motivation-less villains are fine to a certain extent, but when you’re this close to the end and we still don’t know what the big baddy wants? Not ideal. Well Bran finally provided a glimmer of info in between  his fragment sentences and hints of clues like he’s the goddamn Riddler. The Night King is coming for Bran because he is the Three Eye Raven. If he can kill Bran then he can erase all of mankind’s memories and history and create a Long Night. As Sam opines, without memories to look back on, mankind never really existed at all did they?
  • Bran also threw some cold water on the Dragons>Night King expectations
    • It may have just been a throwaway line, but Thrones so rarely wastes words that this stuck out to me. Someone says “well won’t a dragon kill the Night King?” Bran aka the Three Eyed Raven says “I don’t know. No one’s ever tried.”
  • Lyanna Mormont still takes no shit
    • Sneaky one of my favorite characters in the show as a girl who might be all of 12 just spitting venom in the faces of the most powerful and well respected leaders in all the world. Also when Jorah tells her to hang out in the crypt away from the upcoming battle, the little lady from House Mormont basically tells Jorah to go piss up a rope. As Lyanna once said, every man or woman on Bear Island is worth 10 men from the mainland when it comes to fighting. We’re about to see.
  • The drinking circle and the knighting of Brienne
    • A very emotional and potentially foreboding scene. We see some of our favorite characters all together for the first time. As the showrunners said on the Ep 1 Inside the Episode, it’s easy to forget how much these scenes really mean because we as fans have been with these characters all the time for years, but these characters haven’t seen each other since season 1 in some cases. A fair criticism has been that his is all pure fan service and does nothing to further the plot. While I understand the criticism, I thought it was a great episode and was probably a goodbye for a lot of characters.
  • Sansa and Theon reunion
    • Not gonna lie, this one got me. It was a bit dusty in The 300s HQ watching Theon ask to fight for Winterfell and Sansa running over to hug him. Theon has done some terrible shit and he has paid some horrific consequences so to see him climbing up the redemption ranks was pretty emotional.
  • The Arya-Gendry sex scene
    • Look, I know its on everyone’s minds so lets just get on with it. This was probably the one moment that set twitter on fire more than anything else that happened in Episode 2. I get it, it’s weird because we basically watched this girl grow up over the past 7+ seasons. But we’re going to be cool with incest and slavery and whore houses, but we draw the line at this? Grow up Count Chocula.
    • Also, Arya is going to WRECK some wights with that dragonglass spear.
  • Tormund remains the MVP of GoT
    • Last week he stole the episode when he ran into the Night’s Watch in Last Hearth and Edd shouts out “Look out he’s got blue eyes” to which Tormund hilariously replies “I’ve always had blue eyes!” Well he remained the MVP of the show with another A+ quip about the love of his life, Brienne.
      As I sit here writing this though I start to worry about Tormund’s longevity. Despite the lack of returned affection from Brienne I could see Tormund sacrificing himself to try and save the big woman’s life. I might cry next Sunday.
  • Episode 3 is going to wreck me I can just feel it.
    • We spend most of Episode 2 preparing for the Battle of Winterfell as everyone is training, setting up defenses and traps, drinking, and even singing. It is the calm before the storm in the most literal sense. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Brienne, Grey Worm, and Jorah all bite the bullet next week. Brienne has finally become a knight, the thing she has wanted more than anything, so it would not be unlike Thrones to now axe her. Grey Worm’s talk of a future life with Messandei all but guarantees that will never come to fruition. Before the episode Jorah was my pick to be the emotional first killing, but then Sam gives him a vaunted Valyrian Steel sword and I figured that may buy him some more time. However, looking back on that conversation with his cousin Lyana about the future of their house, I feel a heroic sacrifice coming from Jorah to save the fiery young lady’s life.
    • I can feel a real sense of dread in the air with Thrones fans. We’ve all been yelling for more action and more Dragon on Ice Dragon crime, but we’re going to lose some beloved characters next Sunday and I don’t know if I’m emotionally equipped to deal with that. We’re in the homestretch now as Episode 3 will be “the biggest battle in the history of TV and film.”

Got any ale?