#gotrecaps

Airdate: 5/12/19  Season 8, Episode 5

I know it’s not good form to start off a post with “What in the actual hell just happened?!” but that’s all I have at this moment. How do I phrase this, exactly, without giving away everything right at the beginning of my recap?  All I can say is that this past episode of Game of Thrones was an epic and visually stunning piece of work and it also left me livid and disappointed in the turn that the creators have taken for the show.  We knew big things were coming, and come they did.  So without further ado, let’s dive in to the recap of “The Bells”:

Lord Varys sits at his desk at Dragonstone penning some letters – we get a glimpse of the scroll he is working on and it appears that Varys is spreading the word about Jon Snow’s true lineage as Rhaegar Targaryen’s legitimate son.  Wowzers, the master of whisperers is wasting no time with his agenda to rally the kingdom behind Jon’s claim to the Iron Throne!

There’s a knock on the door, and Varys quickly stows away his stationary.   A little girl of about 9 years enters to inform him that Queen Daenerys still isn’t eating and Varys says they’ll try again at suppertime. Apparently it’s been two days now and Daenerys Targaryen has holed herself up in her room, refusing to see anybody and turning away all meals.  The girl expresses worry that the guards keep watching her and Varys says “What did we discuss?” – “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.”  He sends his little bird off to the kitchen where she works.  Hmmmm, the nuanced conversation makes it unclear, but I’m wondering if Varys is trying to poison Queen Dany.  After last episode, it wouldn’t surprise me.  Yikes, Varys the spider is weaving a dangerous little web here.  His days are numbered for sure.

Later in the day, Jon Snow arrives via boat at Dragonstone and Varys greets him at the shore – Tyrion Lannister watches from a distance with a mix of concern and trepidation on his face. As they walk together, Jon lets Varys know the Northerners are two days away from King’s Landing.  Varys hints that he thinks Dany may be going crazy, and that Jon would be a much better Targaryen ruler.  As usual, Jon rejects the notion of ruling the realm – the dude doesn’t want it, ok? -  and he professes his loyalty to his queen before he trots off, leaving Varys behind.

Tyrion manages to pay a visit to Daenerys in her room.  She looks out her window as she speaks in a disconcertingly detached and monotone voice. “Somebody has betrayed me.”  -“Yup.” Without turning around she says, “Jon Snow.”  When Tyrion corrects her that it’s actually Varys, Dany does some creative deductive reasoning:  Varys knows about Jon’s parents because Tyrion told him – and Tyrion in turn found out from Sansa Stark whom Jon told.  Boom! Jon’s the traitor.  Case closed. Only wait, it’s not closed, because guess what? Queenie ain’t happy that Tyrion spoke with Varys without consulting her first.  She also points out that Sansa was playing Tyrion because she knew she could count on him to blab the info to Varys, which may as well translate to leaking the news to the Westeros Enquirer.  Tyrion attempts to defend his actions – he asserts that, as Hand of the Queen, he needs to know about information that is a threat to his boss, and yes, he made an error in judgment by not consulting her first. When he points out that Dany’s advisors are all trying to do what’s best for the world – Varys more than anyone- he realizes it doesn’t really matter. Daenerys agrees, it doesn’t.  Ruh roh, Varys!  I think we all were pretty certain he was gonna bite it soon – especially after Melisandre told him last season that he’d die in Westeros.   Looks like his time has officially run out.

It’s evening and Varys sits in his chambers, once again composing rebellion letters to his Westerosi – and maybe even Essosi – pen pals.  He hears footsteps marching down the hall and hastily burns his letter, then calmly removes his rings.  Dude knows what’s coming.  Unsullied guards enter his room and Grey Worm holds manacles in his hands.

At the shore, Varys is escorted by armed guards to face Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion.  Tyrion gives him the decency of letting him know it was he who snitched on Varys – in response Varys just nods.  “Yeah, that tracks.  I just hope it turns out I was wrong about Dany and that I deserved this.” I’ve gotta say, Varys who used to be so good at stealth and sneaking around has done a horrendous job at keeping his intentions a secret, so none of this is terribly surprising, even to him.  He bids Tyrion farewell with a warm squeeze to his arm.  Man, it’s so bittersweet.  Varys and Tyrion’s friendship and banter was something that was always super enjoyable in earlier seasons.  It’s sad to see it end like this, but he did have it coming.  Daenerys steps forward, and in that same detached voice from earlier, she informs Varys that he’s been sentenced to death.  She drones, “Dracarys” and out of the pitch dark behind her appears Drogon’s giant face.  Her dragon steps forward, stretches himself up and takes a deep breath, baring his teeth.  Then, POOF! Varys is engulfed in flames.  Yowzers, that was tense.  Jon just looks at Dany like “Khaleesi, you’re scary.”

Later that night, Dany sits sullen in a chair by the fireplace in her room, as Grey Worm stands nearby.  Daenerys hands Grey Worm a slave collar and tells him it was the only possession that Missandei brought with her when they crossed the Narrow Sea to come to Grey Worm. With a stoic frown, Grey Worm takes the collar and tosses it in the fire.

Jon approaches and Daenerys dismisses Grey Worm so they can speak in private.  He waits for Dany to speak first, and the monotone words that pop out of her mouth are “What did I tell you would happen if you told your fam? Ya know, Sansa is just as much to blame for Varys’ death as I am, because she couldn’t keep her big mouth shut. She betrayed you.” She goes on to lament that she was beloved back in Essos and here nobody loves her – all she has is fear. Feebly, Jon hits his soundboard button that bleats out “I love you. You’re my queen.” But it’s not the kind of love Dany wants.  And somewhere in heaven Ser Jorah is probably saying “See what it’s like, Khaleesi???!!!  It ain’t fun, is it?”  She leans in to kiss him, but when Jon pulls back she scowls and mutters “Ok, fear it is.” What the heck?  May I ask why Jon even bothered to come back if he isn’t going to at least try to talk Dany down from the bad place she is in?    

Also, I’m thinking if Daenerys made more of an effort at Winterfell, she probably could have won some people over.  Really, she just needed to do a few shots with Tormund during the feast, dance with Jon in a Scottish reel and then balance on her tippy toes and I’m sure the entire North would’ve gotten behind her.  Maybe not everybody will get my Titanic reference, but for the 4 people who do, it was worth it.

The next day in the throne room at Dragonstone, Daenerys talks battle strategy with her only two remaining advisors:  Grey Worm and Tyrion.  After Cersei killed her bestie, and Grey Worm’s girlfriend, they both are ready to torch King’s Landing.  Daenerys even goes as far as to blame the people of King’s Landing for not turning on their queen, as a justification for wanting to burn the city.  In a last ditch effort to reason with her, Tyrion tells Daenerys that the people of King’s Landing are scared to fight Cersei, because she’ll kill them and their families.  “Lame excuse! Well, guess what, Cersei thinks she can exploit my mercy as a weakness, but she doesn’t realize that my mercy extends to mercy killing future generations so they don’t have to live under a tyrant.” “Ummmm, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, Crazy. Would you please consider a route that doesn’t involve killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children?  If they ring the bells,  that means they surrender.  Listen out for the bells, ok? Please???” Dany gives a grudging nod to Grey Worm and then tells them to wait outside the gates of King’s Landing until she gives them the signal to attack - they’ll know it when they see it.

Before Tyrion leaves the throne room, Dany goes “Oh, and by the way, my guards stopped your bro Jaime – he was on his way to King’s Landing.  So guess what, you were wrong AGAIN.  He hasn’t abandoned Cersei.  If you fail me one more time you’re toast. ” –“Ok, I got it.” –“No dude, like, literally. I will toast you with my dragon.” –“Yeeeeah…I got that part.” –“But really.  You’re gonna die.  With dragon fire.  M’kay, byyeee, see ya at happy hour!”

That evening, Jon and Tyrion arrive by boat to join Dany’s and Jon’s forces camped outside King’s Landing. The rear guard for the North won’t get there till morning and Tyrion says that Dany wants to fight asap, but Jon confirms, nothing’s gonna happen till daybreak.  Tyrion pulls Davos aside and asks “Davos, my man…I need you to do me a solid. You’re the world’s best smuggler, right?”  Davos knows he’s going to regret whatever comes next.

The Hound and Arya arrive outside King’s Landing that night and they make their way through the Northern camp.  When a soldier stops them, the Hound tells him it’s Arya Stark, the hero of Winterfell and she’s gonna kill Cersei. The confused soldier goes to talk to his manager - and the Hound and Arya just traipse past.

Meanwhile, Tyrion approaches a tent guarded by Unsullied soldiers – he pulls rank and dismisses them, then walks inside the tent to find Jaime Lannister tied up.  Tyrion tells his brother he’ll only free him if Jaime agrees to get Cersei out of the Red Keep.  He informs Jaime of a secret passageway that runs from the basement of the Red Keep outside to the shore, and he’s arranged for a boat for them to escape.  Tyrion makes a big deal about telling Jaime to be sure to ring the city’s truce bells before he and Cersei make a run for it.  When Jaime asks him why he’s risking his life, Tyrion tells him he’s repaying the favor, if his death means saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, it’s a fair trade.  Then Tyrion gives us all the feels when he tells Jaime that he was the only person that was ever kind to him when they were kids.  They hug and Tyrion sobs.  Awww, this is a really touching moment! I may have shed a tear or two.

The next morning, Euron and his Iron Fleet, lay in wait in the bay and ready their dragon-killing spear launchers – fun fact: that weapon is called a Scorpion.  You learn something new every day, folks! Team Cersei’s army prepares for the battle and it’s an overall tense scene with people clearing the streets – lots of shots of small children and babies being whisked indoors.  Among the frenzied crowd, Arya and the Hound walk into town.  They join a mob of commoners frantically running to the gates of the Red Keep to seek safety inside its walls.  The Golden Army marches outside the city gates and stands in formation.

Across from the Golden Army are the Northerners and Dany’s army, ready for battle.  Tyrion reminds everybody again to listen for the bells, as that is the sign that King’s Landing has surrendered.

From her tower balcony in the Red Keep, Cersei smiles smugly as her courtyard fills with innocent citizens – aka dragonfire fodder.  The guards start to close the gates – Arya and the Hound manage to squeeze in before the gates are shut.  Jaime is among the crowd of people who didn’t make it in.  He waves his golden hand around like a backstage pass, hoping the Lannister guards will see it, but they don’t.  Finally, he ducks down an alley, presumably to find another way into the castle.

The suspense builds as we get multiple shots of people on both sides waiting silently for the fight to start.  All’s still as the Iron Fleet looks out to the horizon for a glimpse of Daenerys and her dragon.  Euron suddenly turns to look up into the sun and sees a dragon coming down in a divebomb. The Iron Islanders scramble to aim their Scorpions at Drogon, but they’re too slow and a stream of dragon fire obliterates a line of ships.  It’s incredibly satisfying to see Dany and her dragon lay waste to the entire Iron Fleet in a matter of seconds.  

Daenerys then switches course for the walls of King’s Landing.  It’s really nice to see her actually using some type of strategy here – she keeps her dragon low along the water, then pulls up suddenly, expertly avoiding any incoming spears and again, she takes out a ton of Scorpions.  

On the other side of town, the Golden Army stands at attention outside the city gates – Captain Strickland stares off at Grey Worm and the rest of the Unsullied, Dothraki, and Northerners across the way.  Everybody waits in anticipation.  The Golden Army hear distant explosions from behind them when suddenly: BLAST!!! Dragonfire obliterates the wall and engulfs the Golden Army.  Dany’s and Jon’s forces charge into the city.  

The action plays out like a horror movie as we see glimpses of a dragon’s tail followed by more dragon fire and scorpions being torched.  It’s chaos in the streets as civilians run in a panic.  Cersei’s soldiers fight the advancing Dothraki, Northerners and Unsullied.  

Cersei watches it all from her balcony and her smug confidence wavers just a smidge.  Things aren’t going quite as expected.  

Tyrion makes his way through the burning carnage outside the city walls. 

 Meanwhile, Qyburn fills Queen Cersei in on the state of the city and it ain’t pretty:  All the Scorpions have been destroyed.  The Iron Fleet can’t defend them because…they don’t exist anymore.  And that fancy Golden Army?  They’re dunzo. Qyburn suggests they move on to Plan B and get the hell out of Dodge, but Cersei refuses and states that the Red Keep has never fallen before, and it won’t today.

Grey Worm, Jon Snow, and Ser Davos Seaworth lead the charge of men through the city until they come upon Cersei’s army barring the way.  Both sides stand in tense silence – neither one makes the first move.

Tyrion’s desperate gaze is fixed upon the bell towers in the distance.  They stand still and silent.  Jaime Lannister, in the meantime, has found a back way around the castle walls.

Daenerys and her dragon swoop over King’s Landing as the civilians below gasp in fear.  Drogon lands on a wall and lets out a ferocious roar. The crowd below is terrified. Dany waits.  After a long moment, Cersei’s army drop their swords.  A voice calls out “Ring the bells!”  Then another voice.  Over and over, people call out “Ring the bells!”  Cersei looks out at the city, she doesn’t give word.

From Dany’s perch on her dragon, she looks down across King’s Landing and then up at the Red Keep where she just knows Cersei is looking back.  It’s a 5-mile stare-off y’all and it’s super intense.

After what feels like an eternity, the truce bells finally chime.  Jon heaves a huge sigh of relief, as does Tyrion.  Dany glares at the Red Keep.  She sobs and there’s a brief internal struggle.  Hatred burns in her eyes and her dragon takes to the sky and flies toward the Red Keep.  Cersei watches as the dragon swoops overhead a crowd of civilians scrambling  in a panic.  And then…Drogon unloads a stream of fire, torching men, women, and children. Are you effin’ KIDDING ME?!  How is this happening???

What ensues is a senseless massacre as Dany and her dragon continue to burn street upon street of innocent citizens.  Back where Grey Worm and Jon Snow stand, the Lannister army hears a commotion behind them. The captain looks at them like, “Hey, what load of crap are you guys pulling?”  As the Lannister soldiers look behind them to see what’s going on, their captain turns back to face his enemies and Grey Worm launches his spear into the unarmed man’s chest.  Whoa, this is some serious foul play.

The Unsullied and Northerners charge into the unarmed soldiers.  Slow mo Jon Snow is NOT down with what’s happening.  I feel ya, Jon.  I feel ya.  He stops his guys from advancing and Grey Worm shoots him major stinkeye “You’re gonna betray your Khaleesi like that?” and continues onward with the Unsullied army.

The rest is a 40 minute long sequence of unspeakably horrific and brutal genocide as Dany and her dragon lay fiery waste to King’s Landing.  The streets have been turned into rivers of fire.  Cersei is STILL in her tower and looks on with the nervous realization that things are looking pretty bad for her.  Ya think?

On the ground, Ser Davos helps to steer the panicked crowd in a safe direction.  Women are raped and murdered in front of their children as Northerners, Dothraki and the Unsullied ravage the city.  Jon is still watching everything around him on the slow mo channel. What is even going on here?!

Dany’s dragon reaches the Red Keep and takes out a tower.  Meanwhile, Jaime has made his way to the secret entrance into the Red Keep, but guess who’s also there for absolutely no reason whatsoever?  Euron Greyjoy.  Yeah.  All Euron wants to do is be a d-bag and fight Jaime.  The two go at it, and eventually Euron critically wounds Jaime with a stab to the gut.  Spurred on by love, adrenaline, and lame writing, Jaime manages to fight back with a fatal blow to Euron and then Jaime continues on his way to save Cersei.  As Euron bleeds out on the ground he cackles like a madman  that he got Jaime good.  Really? We can’t spare any screen time for Daenerys’ descent into total madness but we can show this pointless scene?  Ok.

Even though the Red Keep is under fire, Cersei is holds on to the notion that things aren’t totally over for her – ahhh, denial!  Qyburn finally gets her to go with him to try their chance at escaping into exile.  As they head down the winding stairwell, we see the burning city and intermittent green explosions go off.  Wildfire reserves?  Were these remnants from the Mad King’s rule or did Cersei plant them as booby traps throughout the city?  I guess we’ll never know!!

While Drogon makes his rounds over the Red Keep, the Hound and Arya have snuck inside the castle and are in the map room where the walls are crumbling down. The Hound gives Arya a quick chat about revenge and what it does to people – he’s been after it his whole life. “Do you want to turn out like me?  If you go with me, you’re going to die here.” His words strike a chord and Arya realizes she chooses life.  She thanks him and hightails it out of the Red Keep.  Wait, what?  I was promised some Arya-Cersei revenge killing, with the possibility of face swaps, are you telling me that’s not going to happen?

Cersei and Qyburn scramble down the staircase with the Frankenmountain while the roof falls in around them.   As large boulders crash down, Cersei presses up against the wall and she is miraculously unscathed.  As the rubble and dust clear, they notice the Hound blocking the way.  It’s Cleganebowl time, y’all!  The Mountain is suddenly in Hound fighting mode – he doesn’t even listen to his queen’s commands and he smacks Qyburn out of the way, instantly killing him.  As both men stare each other down, Cersei nervously walks past them. “So…I can see you two have some unfinished business, Imma just squeeze by here and leave you to it. K, bye!”

When she gets to the map room, Cersei looks around with no direction.  She’s on her own.  But wait…no she’s not because…ta daaaaa, there’s Jaime!  Cersei falls into his arms, a sobbing mess.  Ugh!!

The Hound and the Mountain go at it while Arya navigates her way through the chaos of King’s Landing. She encounters crumbling buildings, hysterical mobs and burn victims at every turn.  At one point, Arya loses her footing and is trampled by the panicked crowd as dragon fire continues to sweep across the city.  We get a lot of cutaways between Arya and the Hound – both seemingly going through the same pain.  Everytime the Hound gets in a blow to the Mountain, it has no effect whatsoever. He manages to knock off Frankenmountain’s helmet in the fight and it’s like Darth Vader unmasked. As the Hound is brutally beaten by his big brother and pushed down to the ground,  Arya is squashed by the running mob.  She fights in vain to get back on her feet.  Maybe the cutaway technique is supposed to be poetic storytelling, but at this point I just feel so manipulated by the showrunners that I can’t even appreciate it. A woman helps Arya get back up again.

The Mountain simply will not die, despite numerous wounds that would have killed anybody else.  And then we are treated to his signature move:  boring his fingers into his adversaries’ eyes.  It’s so grotesque and I’m praying he doesn’t squish the Hound’s skull like a watermelon a la Oberin Martell.  The Hound fights Frankenmountain off with a dagger to his skull – it barely phases the bigger, badder Clegane.  In a last ditch effort, the Hound lunges at his big brother and they both tumble over the wall into the burning wreckage below.  RIP Hound, we loved you!  Sorry your bro is a weird undead zombie that can’t be killed!  Sorry you didn’t actually stand any chance whatsoever of winning that fight!  And sorry the writers suck!

On the ground, Jon Snow takes in the devastation around him.  Explosions of wildfire go off here and there and he commands his men to fall back.

Elsewhere in the burning city, Arya has passed out from falling debris.  She comes to, very likely concussed, and gasps for air. White ash is everywhere. More buildings crumble to pieces as she continues her escape out of the city. 

There’s a short-lived attempt to rescue some cowering women and children – the only one who follows her is the same woman  who helped her up earlier when she was being trampled.  Hold on, hold on…might this woman be…Jaqen H’Gar in disguise??? They’ve been giving her a lot of screen time.  But no, she’s just a random person we’re suddenly supposed to care for.   She and her daughter get charred to smithereens in the next scene when Dany’s dragon unleashes another blast of fire – Arya ducks out of the way in the nick of time.  Of course.

As the Red Keep continues to cave in and crumble around them, Jaime and Cersei head down to the basement only to find all exits blocked by rubble. There’s no way out.  Cersei finally realizes this is the end.  She blubbers that she wants to live and wants her baby to live and begs Jaime “Don’t let me die! Don’t let me dieee!” Ugh. Too little, too late, Cersei. Jaime holds her in his arms and comforts her.  He tells her nothing else matters besides the two of them.  The tune of The Rains of Castamere plays over the action and the ceiling crashes in on them. Ugh!  That’s how they die?  Lovingly in each other’s arms? No prophecy where her younger bro strangles her? Maybe I’m a spiteful jerk, but Cersei deserved much worse of a death.  And also, it seems pretty inconsistent that Cersei of all people has been reduced to a sobbing damsel in distress looking for a man to rescue her.  I’m so over this episode and the abominable writing that is going on throughout.   Arya should have killed Cersei, wearing Jaime’s face.  That’ something I think we all could have gotten behind.  Not this lame death where we’re supposed to feel sorry for queen biatch Cersei.

Hey guess what?  It’s time to watch Arya once again attempt to make it out of King’s Landing alive.  She sees the burnt remains of the mom and daughter she was helping, and a tear falls down her cheek.  As she looks around her, there stands a white horse just feet away.  She carefully approaches it and takes the reigns. Maybe this is supposed to be some heavy-handed symbolism, but I’m not feeling it.  Arya gallops off – presumably to safety.  Roll credits.

Wow.  What a heaping pile of you know what.  The aren’t enough question marks or expletives in the world to capture the incredulity and disappointment I feel about this episode.  Really, I was hoping this was just an elaborate Snickers commercial and at the end, Crazy Dany bites into a candy bar and turns normal again while a voiceover goes “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”  

But seriously, what the eff? Screw you, Weiss & Benioff!  What a betrayal of the viewers – the creators took years of complex character development and threw it all in the toilet with a cheap, lazy plot twist to turn Daenerys into a super villain with ZERO explanation of how she got there.

And making the audience watch 40 minutes of brutal slaughter and suffering was completely unnecessary. I’m so mad.  In the past, with these sprawling epic battle scenes, the viewer always had an investment and a side they were rooting for.  Just watching the genocide of an entire city with no chance of victory did not need to go on for as long as it did.  Clearly the creators wanted to drive home the point that there is no coming back from this for Daenerys.  We all have to hate her now and there is nothing redeemable about her.

Mostly I’m pissed because there was no transition from the Dany we saw to this monster who – after the city surrenders – torches all these people who are now her own subjects.  It doesn’t compute.  Sure, there were hints in the past that Dany could take brutal measures at times, but they at least had some kind of logic or rationalization behind them.  Killing a bunch of innocent people after you have been handed over the city and the throne that you so badly wanted…I don’t get it.  And it’s not my job as a viewer to fill in the huge gap of additional character development that needed to happen in order to get Dany from an angry, mourning queen, out for vengeance against Cersei into a psychopathic Hitler, killing everybody.  This is the same woman who locked her dragons up for who knows how long because they killed a little child when they were hunting for sheep.  Give me at least some way to understand how she could have changed other than just saying “She’s crazy everybody!!” Also, it ticked me off that they didn’t show Dany’s face even once after she went crazy. Hey, maybe Bran is actually evil after all and he warned into Drogon and did this all just to make Dany look bad!

All right, I’ll quit my whining.  This episode has kinda ruined the show for me and I don’t have high hopes for the ending. My guess is that Daenerys has to be killed now.  I don’t care if or how they do it.  Maybe Bran will warg into Drogon and kill her?  Maybe she’ll try to torch Tyrion and we’ll find out he’s a secret Targaryen and she’ll go even more crazy wondering just how many damned Targaryen sleeper cells are out in the world.

If Varys ever got any of his letters delivered, my assumption is those people will now back Mr. Jon “I hate responsibility” Snow.  He’ll probably also bite it or run off to the North to become a Wildling.  Then everybody will decide to put Sansa and Tyrion in charge, or better yet, they’ll break up into separate countries and Sansa can rule the North.  It’s not like there is actually a capital left in Westeros to rule from.  

Airdate: 4/21/19 ;  Season 8, Episode 2

Meep, things are really heating up on Game of Thrones!  Or rather, cooling down…oh heck, I don’t know what to do with all the Fire and Ice metaphors. Let’s just say, stuff is getting real and the latest installment of GOT  gave us one last moment to enjoy the fuzzy warm feels before next week’s huge battle against the Night King’s army begins.  This last episode was all about wish fulfillment and tying up loose ends for viewers – and I’m still a bit conflicted about how I feel about it all. But fear not, we’ll get into my two cents about it very soon.  Now, find a warm body to snuggle up to and get a toasty fire going, because the night is dark and full of manipulative story ploys.  Here’s my recap of:  “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

I Know What You Did Last Long Summer

We start things off with Jaime Lannister standing before a tribunal in the Great Hall at Winterfell, with Sansa Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, and Jon Snow seated at the VIP table. Dany shares that she and her brother grew up talking about what they would do to the man who murdered their father, once they captured him and reclaimed the Seven Kingdoms.  She points out that Cersei promised her an army, and instead has only sent one man with one hand.  Ouch, that smarts.  Jaime fills everybody in on Cersei’s plan: She isn’t sending any help. Rather, Queen Cersei has procured a hired army and is sending them to Winterfell to finish off whatever survivors are left after the impending war against the Dead.  She lied to them all – Jaime included – and he left her to come and join Jon and Dany’s battle for the living.  Daenerys casts a pointed gaze at Tyrion Lannister, who looks miserable. Ya done messed up, Ty!

Dany wonders how they can possibly trust Jaime. Tyrion sticks up for his brother, but is shot down by Daenerys who counters that perhaps this is an elaborate scheme for Jaime to assassinate her.  Sansa chimes in that Jamie can’t be trusted, and lists the crappy things he did to House Stark, including attacking Ned Stark back in Season 1.  When Jaime defends his actions saying it was during a time of war, and that he was protecting his family, Bran dryly states “The things we do for love.” Fear flickers in Jaime’s eyes.  Bran knows!  

Brienne of Tarth steps up and defends Jaime.  She tells Dany how she and Jaime were captured a few years back and he defended her when she was this close to getting raped – and lost his hand in the process. To Sansa, she says that it’s only due to Jaime’s honor in keeping his word to Catelyn Stark that Brienne was able to find and save Sansa from the sadistic Ramsay Bolton.  This is enough to change Sansa’s mind.  Dany seems peeved by Sansa’s about-face and asks Jon what he thinks.  Visibly still grappling with the bombshell about his parents, Jon doesn’t even look at Dany and simply states they need all the extra help they can get.  Dany allows Jaime to stay and fight with them, and they all rise.  Sansa huffs off and when Dany turns to Jon, he’s all “K gotta run, byeeee.” Ugh, you let a guy ride your dragon one time and then he gets all weird on you.  Brienne shoots Jaime a look that clearly states “Don’t make me regret sticking my neck out for you,” and Bran just stares at him.  Again.  Creepily.

Rebuffed by her lover, and fuming about Cersei’s deceipt, Dany is ripe to start throwing cell phones at her assistants.  She chews out Tyrion for being either in cahoots with Cersei, or a damn fool. When Tyrion tells her it’s the latter, she retorts “It’s not the first time,” and indicates his time may be up serving as Hand of the Queen.  Varys and Ser Jorah are all “Awwwwkward.”

Number 1 Crush

At the Winterfell forge, we see Gendry’s handiwork:  Tons and tons of spearheads and other weapons made of dragonglass are ready to be wielded. As Gendry works, Arya approaches and takes in all his hunky, sweaty manliness, then asks him about the weapon she requested.  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that after I make a few thousand more of these. Shouldn’t you be hanging out in the crypts anyway when the fighting begins?  It’s the safest place to be.” Arya questions why he thinks he’s qualified to fight – he’s just a blacksmith.  When he tells her he killed a few of the Dead and she wants to know what they’re like, his reply is “Really bad”. “How bad are we talking, dude?  What do they look like? How do they smell? When they change a toilet paper roll, do they do it the wrong way or the right way – and don’t you DARE say there isn’t a right way, Gendry!!” “Ok, fine, they’re like death, ok?” “Oh, cool, I know all about death!” Arya gives Gendry an impressive demo of her razor sharp knife throwing skills – it’s instant bonerville for Gendry.  “So…how about that weapon?” – “Yes, ma’am, coming right up!!” Ok, these two flirting is just too much. Arya is such a badass, I love it! And she deserves a little joy in her life.

Meanwhile, a very remorseful Jaime seeks out Bran by the Weirwood tree and apologizes for pushing him out the tower window all those years ago, rendering him a paraplegic. Jaime questions why Bran didn’t tell the others about this, and Bran tells him he can’t be much use in their fight if Bran lets his family murder Jaime.  “But aren’t you mad at me?” Let’s just break this down for you, dude: Bran ain’t mad at anybody.  He is so beyond all those petty human emotions, because OMG you guys are all about to be annihilated by ruthless ice zombies and Bran is trying to figure out how to stop it.  “Ok, so what happens after?” asks Jaime. Bran counters, “What makes you think there is an after?”

Oooh sidebar! Y’all I have been knee deep in GOT theories the past few weeks, and one of the theories I’m really into says that Jaime might be Azor Ahai (the Prince who was Promised) and plays a huge role in defeating the Night King.  There’s this whole prophecy about it in the books, and the High Valyerian words for “Gold” and “Hand” are very similar to the words “Lord” and “Light”. After this chat with Bran, I’m convinced Jaime is a key player in ending the Night King’s reign.

Later, Tyrion and Jaime walk around the courtyard, discussing the two queens.  Tyrion says how he truly believes Daenerys will be a great queen for the realm, and the two commiserate over how Cersei fooled them – the part about being pregnant is true, though.   Tyrion notes that Jaime has never been fooled by Cersei, he’s always loved her in spite of her miserable character.  When Tyrion remarks that they are likely going to die at Winterfell, he muses that at least Cersei won’t have the satisfaction of killing him.  Hey, maybe his dead corpse will go down to King’s Landing and tear her apart - but Jaime isn’t listening.  He is distracted by something else – or rather someone:  

Brienne of Tarth, is on the practice field, watching Podrick as he spars with another fighter.  Jaime shows up and chats with her about the impending battle. Brienne is weirded out by how nice Jaime is acting, because he’s always shown  his snarky side around her in the past.  He tells her he returned to Winterfell because we wants to serve under her command. She excuses herself.  Oh man! Brienne has been holding a torch for Jaime for so many seasons and he is finally sorta living up to the person she has seen in him all along: a good and honorable guy.  And he came to Winterfell to fight alongside her? Hubba hubba.  And yet…I don’t see anything romantic ever happening between these two, even though there is something there.  It just feels like he’s the super popular dude who’s had a lot of personal growth and really likes her and cares for her, but will never actually date her because she isn’t a supermodel.  Ya know what I mean?  Brienne is in the friend zone 4eva. Also, I think this whole exchange means Brienne ain’t long for this world – she’s probably going to sacrifice herself to save Jaime during the battle. Sorry, Bri Bri!  We love you, though!

A Matter of Trust

In Daenerys’s quarters, Ser Jorah takes a moment to tell her to take it easy on Tyrion.  He knows his Khaleesi is super pissed, but he advises her to see past Tyrion’s flub and keep him on as Hand of the Queen because he has a super big brain.  Coming from Jorah, this means a lot.  Then he offers another suggestion:  Make more of an effort with Sansa Stark.

In the great hall, Dany requests a heart to heart with Sansa Stark who also puts in a good word for Tyrion when Daenerys makes a snarky remark about not having faith in her advisors. Geez Louise, everybody is sticking up for Tyrion in this episode!  The conversation turns to Dany drawing comparisons between herself and Sansa as female leaders in a man’s world and then she’s all “Girls rule, yay!!!  So...why don’t you like me?” - “Honestly?  Because guys can do pretty dumb stuff for women and they’re easily manipulated. And you basically convinced Jon to give up his crown for you”  Dany’s all: “Ok, so, real talk? I was all about taking the Iron Throne, and then Jon pops up and tells me about these weird Snow Zombies coming to destroy us all, and I dropped everything to help him fight his war, so…who is being manipulated?”  [Personally, I think that’s a lame argument, because obviously the survival of mankind is still totally in your interest, Daenerys, because if they are all dead you don’t have anybody to rule, m’kay?]  Sansa  warms a bit to Dany, and tells her she should have thanked her when she arrived.  But just as Daenerys is cozying up to Sansa and holding her hands, Sansa takes things right back to business – God, I love her for it:   “So, Dany, riddle me this:  Let’s say we defeat the Night King and Cersei.  What happens next?” Dany’s face is a little perplexed “Um, I rule on the Iron Throne.  Obviously.” –“Yeah, but what about the North?  We took back our land and we swore we’d never give it back, so…what about the North?” This does not make Dany happy, and she looks about ready to lose it.  

Thankfully, however, their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of:  Theon Greyjoy and his men.  He fills them in on the successful rescue of Yara, and informs Queen Daenerys that Yara is reclaiming the Iron Isles for Dany.  He returned to fight for Winterfell – if they’ll have him.  Sansa’s eyes fill with tears and she rushes to embrace Theon.  It’s a very sweet moment but also, I’m immediately worried that the writers are going to try and make something romantic happen here.  Ew, not Theon. I’m just going to chalk this up to him and Sansa sharing a strong mutual survivor bond.  Also, my death prediction: Theon is sooo gonna die.  And they've been making Daenerys super unlikeable these past two episodes that it has me a little nervous they might off her, too.

In the courtyard, Davos is running a soup kitchen and gives a short pep talk to some of the men who have arrived.  Gilly is telling some girls how safe the crypts are – the safest place at Winterfell, actually.  You guys, make sure you write this down:  The crypts - where they keep all the dead bodies which have not been burned - are the safest place in Winterfell.   So if you have zero fighting skills, you really totally without a doubt need to head to the crypts where no dead bodies will suddenly come to life and attack you because the crypts are S-A-F-E, you got it?  

A little girl asks where she should go when the battle starts because she wants to fight, too. Gilly advises her to go to…you got it. The crypts. Le sigh.

A horn blows and Jon turns the corner to see who it is:  The Night’s Watch from Castle Black have arrived and as he goes to bro hug Dolorous Edd, he’s tackled by Thormund Giantsbane like an overjoyed Saint Bernard pup. Beric Dondarrion is there, too.  Yay, Jon’s happy to see them all and probably is even happier that he has more legit reasons to avoid Daenerys.  His friends inform him they met up at the Last Hearth - everybody was dead and gone.  It’s safe to assume anybody who hasn’t made it to Winterfell by now has been claimed by the Night King’s army.  Jon asks how long until the Dead will arrive and Thormund replies:  Just before sunrise. Also, Thormund would really like to know where Brienne is.  Oh me, oh my – will my Brienne, Jaime, Thormund troika dreams come true? Unlikely, but I do love Thormund’s interest in Brienne, if only for the comic relief it provides.

In the war room, all the important peeps have gathered to talk strategy.  The Night King’s army is too big, and they never tire, so Jon & Co. won’t be able to beat them in a straight fight.  Their best chance at survival is to kill the Night King – if they kill him, they kill his army.  But how? If he’s that important, the Night King won’t risk exposing himself – when they say this, I just imagine the Night King in a long trench coat.  Yeah, I’m mature.  Bran volunteers to be human bait, because the Night King is after him.  But why, Bran, why? We discover that the Night King’s ultimate goal is an endless night and he wants to wipe out all trace of men and their memories.  Bran is basically a human hard drive with the entire history of their world and the Night King wants to erase it all.  I don’t know…it’s kind of a weird reason to me.  I mean, if the Night King is gonna kill everybody anyway, why is it so important that he kill Bran first?  Sam waxes poetic about death and how when we die our memories are forgotten and we are forgotten, blah, blah, blah, but I still don’t get it.  What is the difference between wiping out all of mankind’s history and killing everybody vs. just wiping out mankind?  Wouldn’t wiping out mankind just, like...wipe out mankind and its history?  I don’t know folks.  Clue me in if you understand. Or is it just a matter of getting rid of any evidence on how to stop the Night King? In that case, just say so, Bran.

Anyhoo, Bran will wait for the Night King in the Godswood – he has a GPS tracking device on him, so the Night King always knows where he is.  His siblings are vehemently against it, but Theon volunteers to be there with his guys to help protect Bran.  Why do we think this is a better idea than Bran’s own family protecting him?  I mean, other than simply using this as a plot device for Theon to die while defending Bran and thus somehow redeem himself for all the shitty stuff he did to the Stark kids when they were younger? Obviously, I’m not a big fan of this scene.

Dany tells Tyrion he’ll have to wait in the crypts during the battle because: a) they are super safe and b) Dany needs his mind because her faith in him has been restored. Yeah, after hearing what everybody told her so far, she also polled 28 whores about his character and realized she shouldn’t fire him after all because he’s a good dude and actually really smart.  Except for when it comes to trusting his evil sister, whose superpower is stabbing people in the back, who has always hated him, and has never done anything in her life to prove herself trustworthy in his eyes.

Oh, and one more thing: They’ll need to have the dragons close by to save Bran if things go bad.  Not too close to give anything away.  Just close enough to probably be completely useless and get one more dragon killed.  M’kay? Sounds like a plan, team!  

As they wrap things up, Thormund points out the silver lining: They are all going to die, but at least they’ll die together.  He flashes a winning look at Brienne.  Jon hastily leaves, expertly avoiding Dany once again, and everybody except Bran and Tyrion exits the room.  Tyrion tells Bran he wants to hear all about his stories and they both settle in next to the fire.

One Last Waltz

And now…get ready for the showrunners to check off all your hopes and dreams for all your favorite characters so you can have one final lovely memory of them all alive before everything goes to hell:

In the courtyard, Grew Worm and Missandei share a special moment where they make plans for the future. Once Grey Worm has finished securing the throne for Daenerys, he’s gonna retire with Missandei and she can visit her home again.  And he’ll keep her and her peeps safe with his Unsullied pals as they live happily ever after. So…he’s gonna die, right?

On the ramparts, Jon and Sam hang together with Ghost nearby.  Yay, finally we see a direwolf again!  Sam asks Jon when he is going to fill Daenerys in on the revelation of Jon’s true parents.  Edd arrives and declares “And now our watch begins.” Gilly and little Sam will be in the crypts (wanna know why?) and Jon tells Sam he can go, too – to protect them – but Sam scoffs and asks his buds to give him some credit.  He was, after all the first of them to kill a white walker and discover other ways to defeat the Dead.  They take a moment to remember their fallen friends from the Night’s Watch and Edd grimly states “Last man left, burn the rest of us.”

In the Great Hall, Tyrion and Jaime sit by the fire and enjoy a cup of wine as they ponder how much they’ve changed since their last visit to Winterfell and Tyrion bemoans the perils of self betterment – gone are his days of excessive drinking and whoreing.

Brienne and Podrick arrive in the great hall – oh hai, guys!  They were looking for a place to warm up, and Jaime insists that they join him and his bro. Brienne agrees – obviously. Is she going to pass up the chance to be with her hunky unrequited love? Never.  Oh, and would you look at that!  Davos and Thormund pop in as well to join some theater in the round. Thormund regales them with a hilarious story of how he got the “Giantsbane” moniker. Truly, he is the shining star in this episode and certainly in this scene. I’m feeling extra manipulated by the show – now that we’re more emotionally invested in him, I’m 100% sure that he’ll be killed off next week.

Up on the ramparts, Arya sees the Hound and sits next to him.  They have a nice moment when she questions why he’s even here fighting with everybody.  “When is the last time you fought for anybody?”, she asks.  He replies gruffly, “I fought for you, didn’t I?” And that is the line that wins the night.  Awwwww, I love the Hound.  Then Beric Dondarrion shows up and ruins the moment.  He apologizes to Arya for the way they parted the last time they saw each other – ya know, when he sold out Gendry to Melisandre to do her voodoo magic.  When he starts talking about the Lord of Light, the Hound tells him to shut his trap and Arya is all “Peace out, I’m gonna find something better to do than spend my final hours with you old farts.”

Next, Arya whiles away the time with some archery practice when Gendry arrives with the weapon he’s fashioned for her.  It’s a spear and she gives it a whirl – not bad at all.  As she shows off her fancy spear twirling skills, Arya asks Gendry what Melisandre did to him after she took him, and he tells her about the blood magic.   She assumes (correctly) that Melisandre had sex with Gendry and suddenly Arya is grilling Gendry about all his past partners, presumably calculating her risk of contracting syphilis.  Apparently, Gendry’s number of former lovers is satisfactory and Arya reveals that if she’s going to die in the battle against the dead, she wants to at least know what sex feels like and they get. It. On.  Oh my stars!! I’m equal parts stoked that Arya and Gendry hooked up, and also intensely worried now that one of them will die – maybe even both of them. Gah!  I wish I wasn’t so traumatized by GOT to assume that any time a good moment happens, it will be yanked away, but such is the life of the Game of Thrones fan:  We can’t have nice things.

Call Me By Your Name

Back in the Great Hall, Tyrion remarks how all of the people in the room had at one point fought the Starks in one way or another, and now they are united in fighting together at Winterfell.  As Tyrion gives them all a verbal pat on the back for surviving so many battles, he accidentally calls Brienne “Ser” and corrects himself.  Thormund is confused that Brienne isn’t a knight, and she tells him women can’t be knights because sexist traditions are alive and well in Westeros. When Thormund tells her he’d make her a knight if he were king, Jaime points out that you don’t need a king to be knighted – another knight can do it. And so, with a little coaxing everybody encourages Brienne to get knighted.  She’s always wanted to be a knight and she accepts the honor with all the grace and reverence it warrants.  Ser Jaime Lannister taps her shoulders with his sword, reciting the words and at last proclaims her a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.  As the men in the room start a slow clap and cheer for her, Ser Brienne of Tarth rises with tears in her eyes and a luminous smile.  Oh God, she’s toast now!!!!

In the courtyard, Ser Jorah Mormont and his little cuz Lyanna Mormont argue.  He thinks she should go to the crypts –I really don’t want to say this, but I must…because they are the safest place to be—and Lyanna insists that she vowed to fight, and that’s precisely what she’ll do.  She wishes him well just as Samwell Tarly shows up. He presents his family’s sword to Ser Jorah.  It’s called Heartsbane and it’s made of Valyrian steel.  The sword is too heavy for Sam to wield himself.  He shares that Lord Commander Mormont – Jorah’s father – was a wonderful mentor who taught Sam to always do what’s right, and Sam would be honored for Jorah to have it.  Ser Jorah accepts the weapon, and then Sam has to go and say something like: “I’ll see you when the battle’s through.” F#$K!!!! So now Jorah’s gonna die?! I can’t take it, you guys!

Aaaand we’re back at the Great Hall, where the wine has run out and the karaoke portion of the night has begun.  Podrick, it turns out, has the voice of an angel and treats the group to a lovely and haunting melody.  It’s a perfect tune for a montage scene and we get one last glimpse of all the characters we’ve come to love as they have one last tender and bittersweet moment of togetherness.

In the ever-so-safe crypts, Jon stands at Lyanna’s coffin and statue, and Daenerys approaches. She asks who the statue is of, and Jon simply says “Lyanna Stark.” Dany knows the story of Lyanna’s abduction – she tells Jon that she grew up hearing such good things about her brother Rhaegar, who was known to be kind and decent, and yet, he raped Lyanna.  Jon corrects her “Oh, but he didn’t,” and all the details spill out.  Dany is shook by the revelation that Jon is actually Rhaegar’s legitimate son and asks how he knows this – she is not impressed by Jon’s sources and points out how convenient it is that his brother and best friend are the only people who can corroborate the story.  Her thoughts immediately go to the Iron Throne and the fact that Jon would have a better claim to it, if what he says is true. Before they can go into things further, a horn sounds: The Dead are here.  Jon and Dany give each other a look of agreement and both storm off – presumably to ride some dragons.

In the dark, a horse’s hoof stops in the snow and as the camera pans up, it reveals the Night King’s lieutenants all lined up in formation, ready for the attack, their gaze fixed upon Winterfell in the near distance.   Roll credits.

Holy moly so many people are gonna die next week, and I am losing my mind over here!  This episode was a lot of things, and while I feel like I got all the moments I technically wanted, I also feel weirdly placated by the writers for actually giving those moments to us viewers.   I’m not sure how true some of the actions were to the characters, and it seemed more like the last 20 minutes were purely catering to the audience’s wishes before the showrunners kill off all the people they shone a spotlight on in this episode. It’s hard to truly enjoy something when you feel like you’re being set up for a fall, ya know?  But overall, it was a fine episode to set up the epic battle next week.

The takeaways for me were: Jaime has an important role to play in ending the long night.  Dany’s whole worldview is going to have to be reconsidered unless of course she (or Jon) dies, making the whole “Who deserves the crown more?” a moot point.  Maybe she’ll even screw Jon over?  Tyrion will likely survive and I’m wondering if Bran shared something important with him during their chat.  That way, if Bran should perish, Tyrion will have some trump card of knowledge to share with the others.  Arya is probably toast – if not, then Gendry is. Brienne will die – for SURE!  Oh, and the crypts are the least safe place to be and some freaky deaky stuff is gonna happen down there next episode.

I would like to point out that we didn’t actually see the Night King standing outside Winterfell with his homies.  Like I mentioned earlier, I am reading so many different theories and one is that the Night King is splitting up his army, and he is heading straight to King’s Landing with his ice dragon to torch the city and turn its 1 million inhabitants into an army that nobody can match.  

Airdate: 4/28/19 ; Season 8, Episode 3

The great battle we’ve so been anticipating is upon us and peeps are gonna die! I’m scurred!  The night is indeed dark and full of terrors – and in this particular case, it was so dark that many viewers (including yours truly) had a tough time actually seeing the action on screen.  So adjust your brightness settings, turn off all the lights, grab your stress ball and set a timer to remind yourself to breathe every 5 minutes, ‘cause this was one very intense episode and it’s time for a supersized recap of “The Long Night”. To get the full authentic feel of the show, I highly recommend you wrap some mesh around your eyes to make sure that you have to really squint to read all the words – ya know, so you can feel like you’re there with the characters.  Now, let’s get to it!

Is there any better way to start than a close-up of Samwell Tarly’s shaking hands as some dragonglass weapons are thrust into them?  I think not. Things are tense from the get go, y’all, and we follow Sam as he walks past all the various characters and groups as they take their places for the battle ahead.  

Lyanna Mormont shouts to her men in the courtyard.  Bran, accompanied by Theon Greyjoy and his men, shoots Sam a look as he is pushed in his wheelchair toward the Godswood.  Tyrion grabs a giant flask of wine as he makes his way to the crypts. A giant formation of Unsullied stand at the ready.  Ahead of them are the Dothraki on their horses – Ser Jorah Mormont is among them on his steed looking out into the endless black night.  Ghost is there, too! The Northerners and Free Folk are primed for the fight and we get a nice view of the lineup of all our favorites:  Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Podrick Payne, Tormund Giantsbane, Gendry,  The Hound, Beric Dondarrion and Dolorous Edd – whom Sam joins in the formation.  

On the ramparts are sisters Sansa and Arya Stark as well as Ser Davos Seaworth – they peer into the dark, unable to see anything at all.  Overhead a sharp dragon shriek rings out – Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow soar past them on the two dragons, Drogon and Rhaegal.  The tension is palpable as the collective group stares off into the cold nothingness. The only sound to be heard is the wind.  They wait.  Out of the darkness, a cloaked rider slowly approaches the front line of Dothraki. It’s Melisandre, here to (hopefully) save the day! Or night!  She asks Jorah to instruct the horde to raise their swords.  As they do, Melisandre walks to one of the riders, clasps his blade in her hand and starts to chant some witchy voodoo words. The blade catches on fire and it sets off a domino effect:  A sea of Dothraki swords is set ablaze and it’s awesome to behold.  Damn straight, Night King, we comin’ for ya!!  Jorah gives a nod of appreciation, and as Melisandre’s horse makes its way toward the Winterfell gates, she passes Grey Worm and says “Valar Morghulis” (All men must die). He replies “Valar Dohaeris” (All men must servce). Ugh, all men must die?!  Noooo, it’s been nice knowing you, Grey Worm!

As the fire priestess approaches, Ser Davos instructs the guards to open the gates and he storms down to confront her.  They meet and she tells him to cool his jets.  “No need to kill me, dude, I’ll be dead before dawn.” Melisandre glances to the ramparts where she sees Arya looking at her.  Hey, now they’re like…what’s the female term for “Tunnel Brothers”…maybe ”Sausage Sisters”? They both stare at each other for a moment, stone faced.  

We get an awesome view from the ramparts of all the Dothraki with their fiery swords, and on the battle field, Jorah calls out to the riders to charge.  All the Dorthraki surge ahead, shrieking out their battle cries as they gallop along with Jorah and our favoritest  direwolf of them all.  Oh man, I really hope Ghost doesn’t bite it in this battle!   Jon and Dany watch from a hillside as the Dothraki advance in one huge fiery mass.  

We still can’t see any White Walkers or Army of Dead in the dark.  The Unsullied release their trebuchets and blazing boulders launch over the advancing Dothraki into the void.  Everybody at Winterfell watches on in suspense. As the boulders land, and the Dothraki meet their enemy, however, the fires are snuffed out one by one.  A few shouts are heard in the distance as the darkness swallows up every last flame. Oh crap!  

As the fighters outside Winterfell stand in shock, we hear horses whinnying and retreating in the dark. Dothraki run toward Winterfell on foot. Suddenly, Jorah gallops past – a vague look of shock on his cut face.  He rides past all the men standing ready to fight and looks Tormund straight in the eye.  Holy moly, y’all.  What the heck is out there and how are they going to fight whatever is coming if fire can’t even hurt the Dead?  The men on the ground steel themselves as creepy non-human sounds come at them from the distance.  Omigod, omigod, omigod, I can’t handle it.

From the hill, Dany starts for her dragon.  Jon stops her and says, “The Night King is coming.” Um, don’t you remember the plan to protect, Bran? Dany shoots back defiantly, “The Dead are already here.” She mounts Drogon.

Back on the ground, our protagonists brace themselves for what’s coming.  Grey Worm dons his helmet.  It’s go time!  As the creepy sounds get closer, the Unsullied hold their spears at the ready and suddenly a massive sea of dead soldiers steamroll them.  If you’ve ever seen World War Z, this is it.  It’s like a gazillion ants overrunning everything. Only instead of ants, it’s a bunch of nasty resurrected dead people coming so fast and in numbers so immense that it’s an ocean of wights washing over the soldiers outside Winterfell.  I can’t even keep track of who’s fighting who – it’s a huge terrible massacre.  We see a few shots of all our fan faves and at one point Jaime helps save Brienne from a few snow zombies.  

All of a sudden a jet of fire rains down – it’s Daenerys on Drogon, torching a bunch of the undead.  Huzzah! And a second later we see another fire stream – Jon and Rhaegal for the assist!  Gee, I hope nothing is happening to Bran in the Godswood right now. Truly, though, it’s the right call, and with the fire power of the two dragons, our people on the ground at least stand a better chance at survival.  Jon sees the Army of Dead and White Walkers further off in the distance and steers his dragon toward them.  But as Rhaegal approaches, a giant snow blizzard engulfs them. He can barely see anything, but manages to shoot off another fire stream onto the Dead below.

On the ramparts, Arya turns to Sansa and orders her to the crypts.  When Sansa scoffs that she doesn’t want to abandon her people, Arya insists she leave and hands her a dragonglass dagger. When Sansa protests that she doesn’t know how to use it, Arya states “Stick ‘em with the pointy end.” Yaaaaaassss, love the callback!

Back on the battlefield, the blizzard has hit the fighters.  It’s terribly disorienting, but our fan faves duke it out with the snow zombies. Sam falls to the ground during an attack and Edd helps him up, only to get stabbed through the back of the head. Noooo!  RIP, Edd!  Sam turns and runs.

Meanwhile, Sansa descends into the crypts.  “Ok, girl, just remember to be super chill when you see everybody and don’t let them know we are all completely effed.” As she approaches the women and children, she keeps a calm, cool demeanor.  Ya know what, Sansa’s chill factor is crazy impressive.  Remember the battle at Blackwater?  This gal knows how to lock it down and keep everybody else from panicking. She shoots Tyrion a lowkey “We are screwed” look and he chugs some wine from his flask.  Hey, I’ll take whatever comedic relief I can get at this point. There isn’t a lot of dialogue in this episode, and I gotta say the silent moments are on point!  Well done, thespians!

In the skies, Jon attempts to navigate his way through the blizzard on Rhaegal but suddenly another dragon bodychecks them – it’s Daenerys on Drogon.  Whoopsies!  They can barely see anything in this storm.   Both of them regain their hold and they see hordes of Dead continuing to advance on Winterfell.

On the ground, Tormund and Brienne instruct the fighters to fall back and Grey Worm commands the Unsullied to protect the retreating Northerners. Lyanna Mormont has her men open the gates to them and they file in.  Hey, would you look at that!  Other than Edd, all our peeps are still alive! Knock on wood!

Jon steers Rhaegal toward the Godswood, while Bran and the Greyjoy gang wait in the eerily quiet enclosure.  The dragon perches on one of the nearby walls.  

During the retreat, Arya shoots a lit arrow from the ramparts just past the Hound’s head, saving him from a zombie.  Nice shot! Some of the Unsullied pile into Winterfell, while another group holds off the Army of Dead.  Grey Worm stands outside the gates and calls out to Davos to give the signal to set the trenches on fire.  Davos raises two torches in the air – this is the clear sign for Daenerys to swoop down with her dragon, only…she doesn’t see it on account of that pesky blizzard.  Ugh, no! The Army of Dead are almost at the gates.  The archers attempt to light the trenches but their arrows flame out almost immediately. 

Grey Worm notices Melisandre nearby and gets a team of Unsullied to protect her so she can help out.  She lays her hands on the trenches and, again, does some incantations.  Nothing happens.  She continues.  The Army of Dead get closer and closer.  Nothing. She keeps on keeping on and just as a snow zombie comes careening at her, the trenches go up in flames, keeping the Dead at bay while the rest of the living retreat inside the walls of Winterfell. 

 From above, Daenerys sees the trenches and realizes she missed the signal. Drogon glides past the snow zombies and blasts another stream of fire on the Dead. Ok, timeout here:  Why doesn’t Dany just go full Zamboni here and  torch them all in one nice continuous line back and forth instead of just a solitary stream here and there?  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand the complexities of dragon-keeping, or their diets, and the rock-solid science that goes into their ability to breathe fire, but I’m really feeling that both Jon and Dany’s dragons could be doing a much more efficient job at wiping out way more snow zombies than they currently are.

In the super safe crypts below, Tyrion argues that he should be above ground as there may be some important thing, which nobody else might have noticed, that might make a difference. Sansa dismisses his remarks, stating that he would die.   Being realistic about that fact is the bravest thing any of them can do right now. There’s a brief lighthearted moment as Tyrion muses that he and Sansa should have stayed married. She agrees he was the best of them all, but things would never work out between them because of their conflicting loyalties – he supports Daenerys, and she supports the free North.  I’ve been thinking for a while now that these two will end up together on the Iron Throne at the very end.  Might this moment be paving the way for that possibility? 

Theon and his men stand alert in the Godswood with Bran sitting under his beloved Weirwood tree.  With the trenches lit, Theon knows their time is running out.  He attempts to apologize to Bran for all the crappy things he did back when he tried to take Winterfell for his own, but Bran stops him and explains that everything Theon has done has lead him to where he is now – home.  Awwww, Bran, even though you’re completely devoid of emotion, you still know all the right words to say!  I’m thinking there’s a Hallmark greeting card career in this one’s future.  Or, also…death. Maybe.   Then Bran is all “M’kay, things are getting pretty real now, so, I’m gonna go.” His eyes turn white and he’s off in Wargyland.  We see some ravens perched in a tree and their eyes go white.   They fly over Winterfell and the battle between the living and the dead.  As they soar up, up, up, they see:  The Night King flying on Viserion. He stretches his arm down to the ground and…

The snow zombies  all stand motionless outside the burning trenches, but suddenly one solitary zombie walks straight into the fire.  Then another.  And another.  Until they have made a little pathway for all the other zombies to walk over them and descend upon the Winterfell walls.  Why is this happening?!  Davos rallies the troops to man the walls.  Once again in World War Z fashion, the Army of Dead start to pile up onto each other to scale the wall.  Nooooo, this is looking really bad for all the good guys inside the castle. Please tell me there is an army of Fire Priestesses coming to save the day.  Or Nymeria and her ginormous wolf pack.  Or anything, really, because this is absolutely freaking me out.  Jon is watches everything from his dragon perch, and as he looks up, he sees the Night King and decides to fly after him. Great, I’m sure this will go off without a hitch.

On the walls, we see all our beloved warriors – they are still alive, you guys!  I’m happy but I’m real scared for them.  Jaime, Brienne, Gendry, Tormund, Beric, the Hound, Sam and Jorah all give the snow zombies  a good fight, but the sheer volume of Dead is insane, and of course, more and more make it over the wall.

The whole scene inside Winterfell is pure chaos.  There’s fire and death everywhere and the Hound is huddled against a wall suffering a panic attack.  We finally see Arya in action and it’s bee-you-tee-ful!  She fights off wights like it’s an art form, while Davos looks on with awe and respect.

Beric tries to rally the Hound, who has lost all hope and exclaims “You can’t fight death!” Just then, Arya bounds over a wall, slaying snow zombies like a boss and darts off inside Winterfell castle.  “Tell that to her,” says Beric.  This manages to get the Hound back into the game – they run after her.

With a terrifying crash, a snow zombie giant bursts through the Winterfell gate, swinging his club everywhere.  He hits Lyanna Mormont who flies through the air like a rag doll.  As the giant continues to pummel anybody in a 20 foot radius, Lyanna musters the strength to get back up on her feet and runs at him with a primal scream – battle axe in hand.  The giant wight picks her up with one hand and crushes her bones.  Ew, so gross…poor Lyanna! He lifts her to his face and she gets a look at his nasty mouth and rotting teeth just before she plunges her dragonglass axe straight into his glowing blue eye, killing him.  Oh, man, RIP Lyanna Mormont, you badass, you!  A hero to the end – I love her!

In the skies above the Godswood, Jon and Dany hover on their dragons, when the Night King appears out of nowhere on his zombie dragon.  Viserion blasts a stream of blue dragon fire at Dany and Drogon.  In the attack, Rhaegal falls in a tailspin with Jon holding on for dear life. Meanwhile, Drogon darts upward, trying to avoid the dragon fire and Dany clutches on to him – lucky for her, dragon fire don’t hurt!  Or does it? Just as quickly as he appeared, the Night King vanishes and Dany and Jon regain control of their dragons.

Arya makes her way into the Winterfell library – wait, Winterfell has a library?!  A few wights are wandering around aimlessly.  It’s an excruciatingly suspenseful scene as Arya froggers her way from one stack to the next, expertly avoiding the snow zombies at every turn, until she finally makes it to the other side of the room and out the door.  Gotta say, I’m not really sure why she’s inside and where she is heading, but it’s still a cool scene.  When she closes the library door behind her, however, she hears more wights and a few burst through a different door nearby.  She fights them off and races through a bunch of corridors.

We get a quick view into the crypts – the women and children can hear terrified screams and bumps up the stairs, but they are still safe.  For now.

Elsewhere inside the castle, Beric and the Hound cautiously make their way through the maze of passageways. A door bursts open and Arya thuds to the ground on her back, trying to kill the snow zombie on top of her.  Beric saves her life and fights off the next round of wights, while the Hound ushers Arya down another hallway.  Even more of the Dead come and Beric valiantly holds them off, sacrificing himself as a human barrier in the hallway.  Arya and the Hound duck into a room, and a critically injured Beric follows them and collapses to the floor as they bar the door.  Arya crouches next to Beric as his last breath escapes his chest and his eyes go dead.  

Oh hey, looks who’s also here in the room!  It’s Melisandre.  She tells Arya the Lord of Light brought Beric back for a purpose, and that purpose has been served. Arya turns to the Red Woman and goes “Hey, I know you.  You made lots of freaky predictions for me, and you were right about them.  Like how we’d meet again and how I’d kill a bunch of people.” -“And here we are. I also told you that you’d close a lot of eyes forever:  brown eyes, green eyes…and blue eyes.”  The wights claw and pound at the door.  Melisandre leans into Arya and says “What do we say to the god of death?” Arya stares at the door and replies “Not today.” She takes a moment and then runs off.

In the Godswood, Theon and his crew defend Bran from tons of snow zombies and they are doing a pretty good job.  And what’s Bran doing?  Still warging, but we don’t know what he’s seeing, so one can only presume that he is watching all the series finales of Lost, The Sopranos, Dexter and Seinfeld and taking notes on what not to do.  

The Night King is in full destruction mode and has his dragon blast a huge hole in one of the Winterfell turrets.  Jon is right on his tail and we have a mid-air dragon fight between Rhaegal and Viserion.  Dany is close by and sees the Night King fall off his dragon.  Jon’s dragon, meanwhile sustains some injuries in the fight and ends up crash landing – Jon is thrown off into the snow during the crash.   Jorah, who is fighting in the courtyard, looks up when he hears a dragon’s distressed cry. Is his Khaleesi in trouble?

Daenerys spies the Night King on the ground.  It’s time to dracarys the crap out of this mofo!  Drogon blasts out a long stream of fire and the Night King is engulfed in flames.  

Jon is nearby and stumbles toward the inferno.  But as the fire subsides and the flames die down we see:  the Night King stands there unharmed.  He glares at Daenerys, and then he gives her a winning smirk and pulls back his spear arm.  Daenerys acts fast and gets her dragon airborne just in time for the spear to miss them.  Question…might the Night King be a Targaryen and this is why he doesn’t burn?

The Night King walks toward Winterfell and Jon runs after him.  Night King stops, turns to look at Jon and goes “Hey, bro, wanna see my fun parlor trick again?”  He raises his arms and we all know what’s coming.  The dead are all being resurrected!  Noooo!  Fallen bodies rise everywhere: the battle field, the Winterfell courtyard, and of course also…the crypts, and we see the Night King’s lieutenants walk through the Winterfell gates.  Meep! The Night King gives Jon a “That’ll keep ya busy for a while” look and turns to leave.  I’m officially losing all hope here.

Back in the Godswood, Theon and his guys still fight off the baddies while Bran is…still warging!!! Omg, Bran, seriously?  He better be seeing something really great and have figured out some fantastic way to kill the Night King.  But ya know what?  We just don’t know, because we don’t get to see any of it.

Surrounded by a fresh Army of Dead, Jon looks about done for, but Dany swoops in to save him and torches a bunch of snow zombies.  Well, that’s a good sign, considering the tense moment they shared before the fighting began.  Jon yells to Dany “Bran!” and she tells him to go save him while she handles the wights on the ground.  In a matter of seconds, a bunch of snow zombies have jumped atop of Drogon and the dragon takes to the sky to shake them off – and Daenerys falls off. Great.  She is surrounded by wights and just as an undead zombie is about to strike, its head is chopped off by:  Ser Jorah Mormont for the win!!! Wooooot! He fights off more wights and Dany picks up a sword – they back up to each other, ready to take on more of the dead.

Jon battles his way through the gates and in the courtyard he sees his friends fighting for their lives – overpowered by the mass of undead that are attacking them.  Sam is on the ground and Jon just keeps running.  Brienne is also struggling.  It’s all completely hopeless.

In the Godswood, Theon is out of arrows.  He and his men continue to put up a brave fight, while Bran is still off on his warging vacation.  DUDE!!! Can you please for the love of the Old Gods and the New figure out a way to help everybody?

The crypts aren’t looking any better, what with all the dead Stark skeletons attacking everybody. Sansa and Tyrion hide behind a grave and have a long wordless exchange as they look at each other, accepting that these may be their last few moments alive.  

A haunting melancholy song starts to play over all the following scenes:

Sansa pulls out the dagger Arya gave her, and Tyrion kisses her hand before they both leave their hiding place and run to…I don’t know…commit suicide in once last heroic act to kill as many wights as they can before they go down?

The music continues and we get snippets of all our heroes in great peril.  Jon makes his way through the courtyard on his mission to get to Bran, but the ice dragon, Viserion, is in his path, spewing his fiery blue stream everywhere, and Jon keeps having to retreat for cover.  

Jorah and Dany continue to fight off snow zombies.

The crypts are a mess, but Sansa and Tyrion have managed to find a safe alcove with Varys and a few others.

Jon keeps attempting to advance toward the Godswood but the dragon stops him at every turn.  

Theon shows some mad fighting skills, and it’s really a nice redeeming moment to see him working so hard to protect Bran.  He battles the last of his attackers, when looky here…in slow motion to the haunting melody, we see the Night King and his White Walker entourage saunter into the Godswood.

There’s one last shot of all our brave men and women in the courtyard – Jaime, Podrick, Grey Worm, Brienne, Tormund, Sam – they are all completely screwed, fighting off zombies with a snowball’s chance of survival.  I do not like this one bit.  

In the Godswood, Theon puts up a final fight and kicks snow zombie butt like a boss till none are standing.  Finally Bran’s white eyes flicker back to consciousness.  “Oh hai, y’all! Did I miss anything?” Great timing, Bran.  I hope you have an ace up your sleeve.  Bran looks at Theon and in a far off voice tells him “Theon, you’re a good man. Thank you.”

Theon casts one last glance at Bran, then grabs a spear and runs headlong at the Night King who stands there cool as a cucumber.  Seeing how it’s all in slow mo, it takes a good while and all I can think is “Oh, dude, there’s just no way.” Sure enough, at the moment he is within reach, Night King grabs his spear, and impales Theon Greyjoy.  Ya know what, I gave Theon a lot of flack throughout the series, but this episode he really came through as a brave warrior and got the absolution from Bran that he has so craved. I am just a teary mess at this point.

Again, we get lots of cutaways to all the other peeps who are pretty much about to bite it – including Jorah who takes some gnarly hits as he continues to protect Daenerys.  Jon rises from his place of cover, looks at Viserion and screams at him while the dragon hocks up a nice big fireball loogie to spew at him.  Really, Jon?  That’s how you’re gonna go out?

The Night King walks slowly to Bran who looks up at him like “You wouldn’t hurt a guy in a wheelchair, would you?”  Ok, actually, Bran looks as vacant as ever, ready to accept whatever fate has in store for him.  He glances at the snow sword the Night King has on his back like “Soooo…you gonna use that on me bro?” Night King looks back like “Oh, you like this?  Let me introduce the two of you.” This music is killing me, people.  It’s the saddest tune ever.  Night King reaches back behind his shoulder and BOOM, out of nowhere Arya flies through the sky behind him, her catspaw dagger clutched in her hand.  But the Night King spins around and grabs her mid-air by the throat.  She drops the dagger and it falls in slow motion…and then...Arya catches it with her other hand and with one fell thrust, sticks him with the pointy end right in his icy belly.  OH. MY. STARS.  The Night King immediately shatters.  In a chain reaction, all his White Walker lieutenants, the snow zombies, and his ice dragon, crumble to the ground.  Arya lands like the boss queen that she is and instantly achieves GOAT status in all of Westeros.

We get a view of our faves again – Ser Jorah collapses.  Jon is alive. All the important people from the crypts are alive, and Arya and Bran stand alone in the quiet Godswood, corpses littering the snow.

Danerys holds Jorah, sobbing, and he dies in her arms. Nooooo!  RIP Ser Jorah!  This awesome friendzone 4eva warrior died protecting his Khaleesi, and that’s pretty much the only way he would want to go out, but it breaks my heart nonetheless. As Dany cries and cradles him, Drogon swoops down beside his dragon mama and protectively covers her with his wing.  Awww, Drogon, that is sweet, but also: Where the hell were you like 10 minutes ago, hmmm?!  It does NOT take that long to shake off a few undead snow zombies.

The Hound and Melisandre emerge into the outdoors.  Melisandre keeps walking, past the dead, through the gates of Winterfell.  Davos watches as she walks into the sunrise. She lets her cloak fall to the ground.  As she walks through the battlefield, she removes her ruby necklace and drops it in the snow. We only see the back of her as she continues on.  Her hair turns white and her walk becomes stilted.  Finally she collapses with an air of release and exhaustion and the wind carries away a wisp of dust where she lays.  Gurl, I feel ya.  Aaaand roll credits.

Whuuuuuut just happened??? This was such an incredibly tense episode and it had me tied in knots, but honestly, that ending had me feeling major disappointment in terms of the end of the Night King and the Long Night and everything – it’s all over, just like that, and now we’re just back to the petty business of getting Cersei off the throne?  Yes, it was a good and very suspenseful episode, but I had a lot of expectations that were not met.   

Part of that may be because I was reading so many theories that had to do with the prophecies around Azor Ahai and Lightbringer that are mentioned in the books, so maybe that’s my bad.   And I thought Jaime would play a much bigger role than just fighting next to Brienne.  Especially after Jaime’s chat with Bran the previous episode.  

Mostly, I’m bummed that the Dead storyline is dunzo, because I felt there was a lot of mythology around the Night King and the White Walkers and the Children of the Forest, and the Three Eyed Raven that we didn’t get much information on.  Why did the Night King decide to take over the world now? Who was he as a human? If White Walkers were defeated 1,000 years ago, how did they come back? What about Night King’s ability to transform babies into White Walkers, and yet we don’t see any White Walker nursemaids anywhere?  Who is raising the White Walker toddlers, people???   Well, it’s all moot now, but I’d still like to have known.  

What about all the fire priestesses who have been rallying for Dany in Essos?  And what did Melisandre do while she was away - I assumed she’d be gathering her squad and coming up with a much better game plan than “I’m gonna light a few useless things on fire”. Ok, she did give Arya that last pep talk to send her on her way, but really, that was her big contribution and it seemed lacking overall.  Why didn’t we get to see what Bran was doing while he was warging the whole time?  I wanted flashbacks!  I wanted him to accidentally pull a Hodor on the Mad King and be the reason the king went mad - all while Bran was digging in the past, trying to figure out a way to kill the White Walkers AND then go even further back in time and build the Wall...and all the other crazy theories I’ve read.  I wanted Tyrion to surprise everybody and be like “Guess what, I still have a Wildfire contact and I got us some secret sauce to kill the White Walkers”. 

And then there is Nymeria and her giant wolf pack - I thought they’d show up and kill some wights. Also: Are the Reeds (Meera and her dad, Howlan) just totally MIA, even though all the Northern bannermen were called to help Winterfell?   I feel like they would have shown up to help.  Also, the show  was making a really big deal out of the crypts in the GOT Season 8 trailers - they have gone to the trouble to include them in the credits. There has to be more to the crypts than just everybody hiding there in this episode, and having the dead come back to life, right?  I hope so.

I will give credit to the good parts that I really loved – like Arya’s badassery and her saving the day by the Weirwood tree where Bran gave her the catspaw dagger to begin with. That same dagger, which was used in the assassination attempt of little  Bran.  In a way – just as Littlefinger mentioned - that dagger did start a chain of events that led all the Starks to where they were today, with the skills they’ve acquired to help rid their world of this one huge threat to humanity.  It’s poetic and I appreciate that.  And I really enjoyed the Sansa and Tyrion moments.  Those two are totes gonna get together, and I really do think the way things will shake out, we’ll see them on the throne at the very end. But, I guess I’m just sad that in the end the huge threat of the White Walkers seems like it was simply a red herring side plot and now we’re back to business as usual.  

It seems really unfair that this huge epic event took place and the only people who know about it are the Northerners. It didn’t affect anybody else in Westeros, and yet it is the most important thing that happened, because if the good guys had failed, it would have rendered everybody else in Westeros dead – and I feel like they will get no love or appreciation from anybody for that.   I just felt like the war against the White Walkers was such a big thing and instead it’s just all “Meh, they’re gone. Next chapter!”  I mean…what purpose will Bran serve now?  

And while it is, of course, sad to see Dolorous Edd, Beric Dondarrion, Lyanna Mormont and Theon Greyjoy die, it’s kind of small potatoes.  The only death that was super impactful was that of Ser Jorah Mormont, because the other characters were likable yet minor when you look at emotional stakes for the viewer.  It just doesn’t seem very Game of Thrones-y to not lose some huge players. Can the whole remaining Stark family really survive the rest of the series?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy all our fan faves are still doing well, but I expected to feel much more gutted by this episode.  Maybe they are just saving their deaths for the next few episodes. Double meep! Omigoodness, I just realized that I’m sad that the writers didn’t emotionally flay me.  What the heck have you done to me, GOT?!

Airdate: 8/14/17 ; Season 7, Episode 5 

 Watching tonight’s Game of Thrones was like watching an elaborate set of dominoes being lined up - so many pieces of pertinent information, so many players coming together, so much anticipation for the final two episodes of the season! Not my fave episode and at times it felt like some mighty convenient revelations were coming to light, but the season is coming to a close, so I guess they are trying to pack as much stuff into one episode as possible. That said, let’s do this! Grab your warmest furs and snuggle on in for the recap of “Eastwatch”: 

When Queenie Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy

We pick things up shortly after where they ended last week. Bronn and Jaime Lannister emerge from a river and we see a smoke-filled sky in the distance - the aftermath of Dany’s dragon attack. I vaguely wonder how they managed to get this far from Dany, when it looks like they just took their first big gasp for air after plunging into the water to narrowly escape death by dragonfire. Bronn gives Jaime some flack of the “What the hell were you thinking with a stunt like that? The only one who gets to kill you is me!” variety. Jaime lays out that they are pretty much screwed, considering they just encountered what Dany can do with only one dragon - and she still has two more. Bronn tells him dragons are where his loyalty to the Lannisters ends and gives Jaime a “Good luck breaking the battle news to Cersei” quip. 

 Meanwhile Tyrion is gravely surveying the devastation of the battle his Queen just won - charred bodies and ashes are everywhere. All the surviving Lannister soldiers have been rounded up for a brief speech by Daenerys Targaryen. “I know Cersei has been trashing me as this sadistic, horrifying invader, who goes around burning people to a crisp when I don’t get my way, but I want you to know, I’m not like the other dragon moms. I’m a cool dragon mom. Seriously though, right now I need you to support me or be burnt to a crisp. So…who’s with me?” A handful of soldiers kneel before her. Randyll Tarly and his permafrown, however, are not game. He and son, Dickon, stand defiantly. Tyrion attempts to sway them, and whey they refuse, he tries to get Dany to lessen the punishment by taking them as prisoners instead. Denied. “Tyrion, my catchphrase is ‘Dracarys’, not ‘Hey, let’s handle everything reasonably on a case-by-case basis, filling up my entire week as I dole out fair and just verdicts against my enemies’. It just doesn’t roll off the tongue, damnit!” And so, Randyll and Dickon are flambéed in front of all their fellow soldiers, who quickly bend the knee to their new queen. 

 At the Red Keep, Jaime is once again conveying terrible news to Cersei, which seems to be the only other thing he does when he’s not banging his sister. He lays out Daenerys’ awesome and terrifying strength, what with her dragons and insane Dothraki posse. He concludes they are totally screwed and should just give up the Iron Throne. Oh and btw, Lady Olenna was responsible for killing Joffrey. Cersei’s all “I knew you should have let me make her suffer!!!!” You half-expect her to ask Qyburn to resurrect the old lady just so Cersei can kill her the right way. 

As for Queen Dany, Cersei counters they have the money to hire new soldiers and they can either fight and die, or submit and die…and we all know Cersei subscribes to the “Take down as many enemies as you can on your way out” school of thought. She throws in a little barb at Jaime for good measure: “I know which decision a REAL soldier would make.” Zing! What’s it gonna be, Jaime? 

Say Hello To My Little Friend

At Dragonstone, Jon Snow is taking a walk outside and looks like he’s about to break out into glorious song (“The hiiiiiiills are alive, with a stash of Dragonglass, la-la-la-LAAAA!”) when Drogon and Dany fly up and the dragon gracefully lands right in front of Jon. Warily, Dany watches as Drogon roars and bares his teeth at Jon…and lets him pet his snout. “Yup, yup, just a little to the right - ahhhh, that’s the sweet spot!” It seems clear that Drogon recognizes a Targaryen is standing before him. 

 While Dany engages Jon in some dragon appreciation chit chat, one of her Dothraki guards arrives and presents a man who claims he’s a friend of hers: It’s Ser Jorah! Daenerys’ face lights up and I expect her to run over to him and give him a huge hug, but no. She just gleefully introduces him to Jon Snow - who served his father, Lord Commander Mormont, at the Wall. When Dany asks Jorah if he found a cure to his greyscale, he’s all “Gurl, I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.” At this point I totally want him to drop Samwell Tarly’s name - he doesn’t. Daenerys finally gives him a warm hug…now that she knows he doesn’t have cooties anymore - that’s right, we all noticed, Dany! 

 We cut to a great sequence of a flock of ravens as they fly near Eastwatch and cross North of the wall. Their eyes intermittently go white for the briefest of seconds as they continue to fly - Bran Stark is using his warging abilities to do a little Night King reconnaissance. As the birds continue to fly north, they suddenly come upon an enormous mass of snow zombies which are slowly advancing southward. The birds circle overhead and we catch a glimpse of some Whitewalkers below. The Night King is among them and he looks sharply at the flock as though he knows Bran is spying on him. The birds disperse and a very startled Bran is jerked back to consciousness. He tells the maester they need to send out some ravens, stat. 

 In Oldtown at the Citadel, upon receiving the news from Winterfell, a group of archmaesters are gathered to discuss the scroll they received about the Army of Dead. Samwell Tarly is in the room performing whatever menial duties he’s been assigned that day, but he listens in. The majority of the maesters scoff at the idea of Whitewalkers, while archmaester Marwyn concedes it could be true…or it could be a trick by Daenerys to get Queen Cersei to move resources to the Wall, leaving the realm defenseless against the foreign invader. Sam can’t bite his tongue and admonishes them for their cavalier attitude.  He tells them he’s seen Whitewalkers in the (rotting) flesh and they are, in fact, a real and horrifying threat. He implores them to spread the word to the realm. Since everybody trusts the Citadel, it’s in their power to sound the alarms and get all of Westeros on board. But the men laugh him out of the room. One maester asks Marwyn if that’s the Tarly whose father and brother were killed by Daenerys Targaryen and Marwyn confirms it, but says he hasn’t had the heart to tell Sam of their deaths just yet. I mean, is there ever really a good time? RIP, Tarleys!

Back at Dragonstone, Tyrion and Varys are chatting. Tyrion is like, “Dude, it was really gnarly when Dany nonchalantly torched the Tarlys because of their loyalty to Cersei, but I couldn’t talk her out of it. She kinda freaked me out with that move.” Varys cautions him that he really needs to find a way to get through to Dany, because there’s a thin line between commanding respect and turning into a merciless ruler. Varys recalls, regretfully, the many times he simply wrung his hands and did nothing while serving the Mad King during his brutal regime. Tyrion changes the subject and points to the scroll Varys is holding - it’s the news from Winterfell, and of course Varys took a sneak peek.  He tells Tyrion it’s not good. 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 

In the war room, Jon and Dany have gathered with their respective advisors and Jon tells them he has to head home since Whitewalkers are practically knocking on their door up North. Collectively everybody wonders what can be done to stop the Whitewalkers while they’re in the middle of a war with Cersei. They all agree that Cersei won’t simply believe the news - she’ll need living (dead) proof that the threat of the Army of Dead is real. So they decide they need to get her a soil sample, if you will - that is, they gotta bring a snow zombie to Cersei, no big deal. 

But once they have the zombie, they still have to actually get it in front of Queen Cersei. Tyrion points out that the only person Cersei trusts or listens to is Jaime, and maybe Jaime will hear what Tyrion has to say. Ty will just need Ser Davos to smuggle him into King’s Landing for a meet-up. 

 Jorah steps up to go snow zombie poaching - probably because he knows that the only way to keep impressing Dany is by constantly putting his life in danger. Plus, distance makes the heart grow fonder…maybe. 

Not to be outdone in the hero department, Jon says he’ll head to Eastwatch, too. He’s the only one familiar with Whitewalkers and their army, after all, and he can convince his Wildling pals to help in the snow zombie retrieval efforts. It all seems like a weird Ocean’s Eleven plot. Frankly, I’m baffled that nobody suggests they simply send a dragon out to airlift a snow zombie and drop it at the Red Keep during Cersei’s daily outdoor yoga sessions. But what do I know? 

 At Winterfell, the Northern Lords are getting cranky about their absentee King, hinting they should have chosen Sansa to lead them. Sansa gives a measured reply, “Jon’s our king and he’s doing what he thinks is best” while Arya watches on, glowering. Later, the two sisters are walking the hallways. Sansa vents that she knew the Lords would start to turn on Jon for abandoning them all. Arya is ticked that Sansa didn’t say more to defend their brother. Sansa counters she needs to make sure they keep their alliances strong by listening to what the other Northern houses have to say, but Arya thinks what’s really in play is that Sansa is preparing for a scenario where Jon doesn’t return. Her big sis denies it, but Arya creepily says “You’re thinking it right now, you don’t want to, but the thought just won’t go away.” You can tell Sansa is kinda wondering, “Did Arya pick up novice psychic skills now, too?” At this point, nothing about her siblings would surprise Sansa. 

 At the shores of Kings Landing, Ser Davos and Tyrion arrive to attend to their respective business - they sync their watches and agree to meet back at the boat in a few hours. 

 Bronn and Jaime are walking through the dragon skull basement of the Red Keep, where Bronn plans to train with Jaime - but guess what? Psych! It’s really a set-up for Tyrion to covertly chat with Jaime. Seems a bit unlikely, considering the last time Tyrion saw Bronn, the latter had unceremoniously betrayed him. Jaime meanwhile is kinda pissed, ya know, because Tyrion killed their pops. But Tywin was an a-hole trying to have his own son killed when he knew he was innocent…so really Tyrion can be forgiven, right? Considering Jaime always liked his little bro, and he’s stuck with the only other living Lannister who is kinda psycho, Jaime grants Tyrion a moment of his time. Tyrion tells him Dany will win the war, but there may be a way to put all the bloodshed on hold. 

 While Tyrion is busy convincing his bro of the existence of snow zombies, Ser Davos walks the alleys of Flea Bottom and he comes upon a blacksmith’s shop where lo and behold, Gendry is working! Davos is all “Yo, so I figured you’d come back here, because nobody would expect it. How do you feel about joining me on –” and “Gendry grabs his bugout bag and a big ol’ hammer staff and goes “Yup, let’s go!” I’m torn. I mean, I really like Gendry and all, but I don’t totally see where he fits in here or why Davos felt the need to recruit him for Team Jon, but I guess we just go with this? Yay, more Gendry!

 Back at the boat, Davos and Gendry wait for Tyrion and there’s a little trouble with some King’s Landing guards, which just turns out to be an excuse to see Gendry in action with his hammer staff thing - turns out, it’s really great for bashing brains. Who knew? The three men hurry away into their boat to head back to Queen Dany. 

 Jaime, post-chat with Tyrion, visits Cersei’s chambers to tell her of his meeting: Dany wants a ceasefire on account of dead people heading towards Westeros. Cersei is amused at the suggestion of zombies, but is surprisingly open to a truce with Dany, because they need to regroup, rebuild their army and come up with a better winning strategy - oh, and also: she’s pregnant. And this time around, she DGAF about hiding the fact that Jaime is the dad. Ahhh, it’s so liberating to be Queen and do whatever you want without fear of judgment or consequences! Nobody even stops to consider what this might mean for the Lannister/Greyjoy alliance. I can’t imagine it’ll go over well with Euron.

The Short Goodbye

Moving right along, the next few scenes are all quite brief - man, a LOT is happening in this episode! Davos, Tyrion and Gendry have returned to Dragonstone, where Jon and team are on the beach, prepping to sail to Eastwatch. 

Davos wants to keep Gendry’s identity under wraps when he introduces him to Jon Snow, and intends to send Gendry to Winterfell. But the first words from Gendry’s mouth are “Hey, I’m Robert Baratheon’s bastard. You’re Ned Starks bastard. Our dads were buddies. Let’s jam!” The two exchange some short “I met your dad this one time!” niceties and it appears Gendry is now coming along to catch a zombie with Team Jon. 

 Tyrion and Jorah have a pleasant farewell and Tyrion gives Jorah a talisman - the coin he was going to use to buy his and Jorah’s freedom, back when they were captured in Slaver’s Bay two seasons ago. He offers the words “Don’t die, Dude. I want that back.” Next Dany approaches to say goodbye to Jorah. They grasp each other’s hands and share a soulful look, but before Jorah can utter any unforgettable words of farewell, Jon pops up to say goodbye. Poor Jorah walks away, likely stewing in the boat screaming silently “Khaleesi, I love you soooo bad, please just LOVE ME BACK!!!!!“ 

 In Oldtown, Samwell Tarly and Gilly are sitting at the table, and Sam is busy with clerical gruntwork, making copies of old books. Gilly is throwing out various trivia facts that from one of the tomes she's reading - it’s by a High Septon who meticulously documented every single thing in his life. Sam is still wound up from his earlier chat with the maesters that he barely even notices when Gilly drops some key info from the book she is reading: Apparently some Prince Rhaegar dude got an annulment from his wife and married another chick in a secret ceremony. Yah. Let that sink in. Pretty sure the other chick is Lyanna Stark, which makes Jon Snow the legit heir to the Targaryen throne. Ooh, move over, Auntie Daenerys! 

Sam is fed up with the uppity maesters. His talents seem wasted at the Citadel, and the scholars, whom he admired so much, neither believe in nor care about the imminent Whitewalker threat. He breaks into the super secret Citadel library once again to swipe some scrolls (presumably containing pertinent info for defeating Whitewalkers). Next, he packs up Gilly and Little Sam and they peace out. He tells Gilly he’s tired of reading about the achievements of better men. I assume they are on their way to Winterfell, but who knows, really. 

My Shadow and Me 

Speaking of Winterfell, Arya has decided to pass the time by secretly following Littlefinger. I mean, what else are you gonna do as a highly skilled assassin at your childhood home? As she clandestinely stalks him around the grounds, snooping on all his interactions, I get the sense that Littlefinger must know he is being watched. At one point, the maester of Winterfell knocks on Littlefinger’s chamber door and Arya overhears him say he’s found a scroll from the archives - the only copy of its kind. Arya waits for Littlefinger to leave his room and then she goes a'snooping and finds the scroll. We don’t see the full text but "steal his throne” and “swear fealty to King Joffrey” stand out, and it’s signed “Your faithful sister Sansa.” As Arya leaves Littlefinger’s room, we see him lurking around the corner, watching her re-lock his door. Hmm, what’s he up to? 

Snow Zombie Safari! 

Jon and his team have arrived at Eastwatch. They sit down with Tormund Giantsbane and fill him in on their mission. Tormund thinks it’s crazy, and Jon tells him they need some help from Tormund and his men. Davos says he’ll stay behind so as not to be a liability. #survivalstrategies. Tormund informs them a few others have arrived at Eastwatch and want to go north of the wall as well. 

He leads Team Snow to the prison cells at Eastwatch. Inside are Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr and the Hound. It’s like the Dream Team only where various members have a beef with one another: Gendry doesn’t trust the men of the Brotherhood, seeing how they sold him to Melisandre for some good old fashioned blood magic fun. Tormund hates Mormonts on account of the late Lord Commander who had the Night’s Watch hunt and kill Wildlings. And the Hound just likes to call everybody the C-word. But for better or worse, Jon points out they are all on the same side, because, ya know…they’re not snow zombies. Well, I mean…technically Dondarrion and Jon both sort of are zombies, but we probably don’t have time to get into that. The North-facing gates of Eastwatch open and the men head out into a blinding snowstorm. Roll credits.

 For an episode called Eastwatch, there was surpisingly little Eastwatch action, I’m just sayin’. This episode sure was jam-packed with info and lots of set-ups, though. I feel like people were just teleporting back and forth between locations. I suppose this is what the showrunners meant when they said things move fast this season. 

Time for my post-Game two cents:

 Not entirely sure what is going on at Winterfell and what tricks Littlefinger is up to. Is he looking to pit the Stark sisters against each other? 

 The Cersei pregnancy seems all too convenient, which bugs me just a little. Suddenly she has a new Lannister baby to look forward to and a reason to work so hard for the Lannister dynasty? Ugh, please. But if we do have a preggers Cersei, I hope the next two episodes just show her taking naps and enduring all-day morning sickness. 

 I still don’t totally get why Gendry is back in the picture. I think he’s great and all, but it seems like a contrived “let’s please the fans” plot more than something that makes sense. Like, why did Davos want to initially send him to Winterfell in the first place? Just to be nice? 

 And I feel like nobody knows what to do with Jorah so they just keep sending him away. Poor Jorah. 

Sam doesn’t know it yet, but with his dad and bro gone, I’m pretty sure this makes him the rightful heir to his family home.  Unless his dad really screwed him in the will.  So, nice to know that he and Gilly potentially have a nice manor to go to once/if all the Whitewalker madness dies down.

 There have been so many “Jon is a Targaryen” references in this season, which after the big revelation of Season 6 kinda makes it a bit meh every time they allude to it. Please, let Bran finally get word to Jon to clue him in already! Seriously, Bran couldn’t have included that tidbit in his scroll about the Army of Dead? But it’s an interesting reveal that Jon’s not just Rhaegar’s bastard. Again, though, that info works out pretty nicely for Jon. 

 The disconnect between Jaime sinking into the abyss during last week’s cliffhanger only to see him and Bronn pop up a few miles from where they entered the water at the top of the show was disappointing. It totally cheapens the ending from the previous episode, imo. It would’ve been interesting for Jaime to go missing for a bit after the battle, and to see how Cersei would react to her twin possibly being dead. But hey, now he gets to focus on being a new dad again and practicing one-handed diaper changes.

 I do enjoy the coming together of so many characters. Especially the group heading north of the wall. Oh, the adventures they’ve all had! I feel like everybody needs to sit down over a round of drinks so they can share their stories and see how many mutual acquaintances they have - everybody besides Tormund seems to know Arya! 

Airdate:  5/19/19  Season 8, Episode 6 (Finale)

Well, here we are, everybody!  The Game of Thrones Finale has dropped and I for one was completely loving it.  It was so riveting and they were totally able to justify Dany’s mad queen arc,  plus, the way they tied up all the loose ends was truly spectacu ---oh for the love of god, I can’t do this anymore!  Here’s the truth:  The finale was GARBAGE!  It was disappointing and boring and, honestly, we all deserved better.  I know people say “You can’t please everybody.”  I get that.  But, dude, when the majority of people ain’t happy, you’ve done messed up.

That said, it’s dunzo and now we all can walk around dazed, like the survivors of King’s Landing, trying to make sense out of the madness.  I suppose, in a way, I’m grateful that the previous episode was so god awful, because it really helped me prepare for a let down.  So in that sense, expecations were met.  Let’s remind ourselves how this series, as a whole, was truly a special thing…most of the time.  It’s just too bad it had to end this way.   This is by far my least fave episode to recap, but I can’t just let the final notes of the Song of Ice and Fire go unplayed, so here ya have it:  My final GOT recap of “Iron Throne”:

Yo.  The massacre of King’s Landing is over – or is it? Tyrion Lannister -clearly not considering his own life or survival- has decided to stick around and take a long walk through the charred human remains and toppled buildings.  Jon Snow and Ser Davos follow him, equally stunned by the devastation.  White ash covers everything. We see a handful of shell shocked survivors as Tyrion passes through the streets to make his way to the Red Keep.  Jon tells him not to go in without backup, but Tyrion insits on going it alone. He gets into the castle and makes his way through the ruined map room and down the stairs to check on the secret passageway that he told his bro about.  It’s all moody and sad…but also confusing, because we saw the ceiling collapse last episode and it didn’t seem like there would even be a basement left to go to.  But maybe I’m just being a stickler for things that make actual sense.  Tyrion finds a giant pile of rubble blocking a passageway. A hint of light peeks from the top and he manages to climb and pick his way past the blockage.  Seems totally safe to me to disturb the unstable structure and debris.  

On the other side, there is another huge pile of rubble and Tyrion spies Jaime Lannister’s golden hand peeking out of the rocks.  Yeah, that’s right, the ceiling - and presumably entire structure - came crashing down on Jaime and Cersei Lannister last episode and yet here we are with body pieces barely covered.  Tyrion clears away a few bricks and voila! He has excavated Jaime and Cersei – nestled close together.  That whole thing is so…whatever.  I mean, Tyrion seems pretty upset, but when you look at the surrounding scene you’re just like “So…if Jaime and Cersei had simply stepped a few feet to the right, they would’ve been fine?”  It’s all kinda dumb, if I’m being honest.  But Tyrion’s feelings are real, and he’s devastated to see his siblings dead in each other’s arms.

As Jon and Davos make their way through the city to the Red Keep, they come across Grey Worm with a handful of Lannister soldiers on their knees, about to be executed.  Jon’s all “Whoa, man.  The fight’s over, these dudes should be prisoners!”  And Grey Worm is all “I’m following my queen’s orders to kill her enemies.” Jon wants to talk to his superior – aka Daenerys – and Grey Worm’s all “Cool, let me know how that works out.” He proceeds to cut the throats of each of the kneeling men.  Yowzers, that is cold!  

Meanwhile, Arya Stark walks up to the crowd of Dothraki who are hooting and celebrating outside the Red Keep.  It’s nice to know that the symbolic white horse at the end of last episode was able to carry her a full two blocks and then disappear for his next Lyft fare in King’s Landing – it’s surge pricing right now, people.

The Unsullied stand at attention, lining the long stairway up to the Red Keep and Jon slowly walks up. Grey Worm is already there – dude, the Unsullied are FAST! Tyrion stands to the side.   Drogon swoops overhead and lands in the courtyard and a few seconds later, Queen Daenerys Targaryen walks out to the top of the stairs to address her loyal Dothraki and Unsullied troops.  

She speaks to the crowd in Dothraki and then High Valyrian and gives a super creepy Hitler-esque speech “Thanks for helping me liberate the city, y’all!  You guys have been so supportive and we are not going to rest until we have liberated the entire WORLD from the shackles of life!!!”  All of Dany’s supporters cheer. “Also, we are going to have a big potluck tomorrow to get to know our 27 surviving King’s Landing citizens! This is a reminder that I’m making my famous ambrosia salad flambée  and I really don’t want anybody one-upping me, so please steer clear from any and all other pineapple dishes with cool whip, m’kay?  It might just push me over the edge.  You guys are the best! See you tomorrow at 3pm near the charred moms and toddlers where the garden used to be!” Jon and Tyrion don’t understand a word she said, but they’re pretty sure it ain’t good.  Of course it’s not – ambrosia salad is not meant to be flambéed, it’s gonna be a disaster. But at this point, nothing Dany does would surprise me anymore.

Tyrion steps forward and stands next to Dany, who goes “You freed your brother, traitor.” And Tyrion goes “Yeah, but you just massacred a city, psycho, so there! Oh and btw, I don’t want to be your hand anymore.”  He removes his pin and tosses it down the stairs – y’all that is a bigger burn than what Dany just did to all of King’s Landing!    Daenerys’s guards escort him away.  Frankly, I thought she would just barbecue him right then and there, so things are going better than expected.

Jon stares warily at Dany who coolly gazes back at him and marches into the interior of the Red Keep. I don’t get how anybody can believe this is a sound structure, but then again all the building code enforcers are likely buried under a pile of rubble.  

Suddenly, Arya pops up next to Jon who is surprised to see her in King’s Landing.  She tells him of her plan to kill Cersei, “but your queen got there first.”  Jon is quick to remind her that Daenerys is everybody’s queen.  Arya retorts “Tell that to Sansa.” She also warns Jon that now that Daenerys knows his secret lineage, she’ll probably kill him one of these days.

Shortly after, Jon pays a visit to Tyrion, whose makeshift prison cell is a room filled with off-season Pier 1 decorative vases.  Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.  Tyrion attempts to turn Jon against Dany and gives him a whole spiel about how people with access to weapons of mass destruction and a penchant for mental instability somehow shouldn’t be allowed to be in power.  Jon’s all “Meh, it’s not really my decision to make. I’m gonna focus on the things I can control – like the tightness of my man bun and the number of steps I’m clocking on my fitbit.  Dude, this whole King’s Landing trip has got me up to 50K steps and it’s not even lunchtime!” “O-kay…but Dany really needs to be stopped.”  There’s a bunch of bumbling convo about how Tyrion really did love and believe in Dany and how love clouds reason. Jon tells Tyrion “Love is the Death of Duty” and Tyrion is blown away by the poetic insight, then realizes it’s Jon saying it and goes “Did you just come up with that on your own?” “Nah, man.  Maester Aemon said it to me once.”  “Yeah, that makes more sense.  Well, let me just take that gem, flip it and reverse it:  Maybe sometimes Duty can be the Death of Love…just sayin’.”  This wordplay is way too much for Jon to handle and he has to take a seat.  Probably as a defense for the writers to take Dany down the path of crazyville, Tyrion points out all the cruel things Daenerys has done in her pursuit of the crown and he says she was cheered on and thus validated in feeling that she is right and good.  When Jon tells him none of it matters now that the war is over, Tyrion goes “Is it though? She won’t stop till she’s the queen to everybody in this world – how is your family going to react to that?  And do you really think that she won’t kill you, too, one day – the person with a better claim to the throne?” Finally, Tyrion tells Jon that he has to make a choice – and has to make it now. Visiting hours are over and Jon leaves, making no commitments either way. Just Jon being Jon, folks.

Jon approaches the entrance to the throne room – Drogon is guarding it.  The dragon stirs from a pile of ashes, gives Jon a once-over and deems him worthy to pass.  Damn straight, ‘cause he’s a true Targaryen!

Meanwhile, Daenerys enters the throne room – or rather, what’s left of it.  The roof has been blown off with several of the exterior walls missing and the floor is covered with so much ash, it looks like a blanket of snow.  She stares at the Iron Throne - solitary in the open space -and walks toward it.  At last, she reaches it and touches one of the swords. This throne has always been so far from her grasp – even in her vision from the House of the Undying she never did manage to touch it - this moment has been a long time coming.

She turns to see Jon Snow at the doorway and she tells him a boring story about her childhood and how she assumed the Iron Throne was this gigantic behemoth of a throne.  Jon is just all “Hey, gurl…so…your soldiers are still slaughtering peeps in the street.  That’s pretty effed.”  Dany is all calm with crazy eyes saying things like “We can’t hide behind small mercies – sometimes you have to kill a whole bunch of innocent people to save an even bigger bunch of innocent people.” When Jon asks her if she’s actually seen all the children that she’s killed in the streets – children, women, men who had nothing to do with any of this, he insists that mercy has to be a part of the vision for a better world.  

Dany’s just all “I’m a visionary – I get that it’s really hard for you to see the grand scheme here, since you know nothing, but just trust that I know what is good and right.” It’s a callback to the convo Jon had with Tyrion just five minutes ago. Jon asks “Well, what about everybody else who thinks they know what’s good and right?” Dany replies, slightly flippantly “They don’t get to choose.”  She asks Jon to be a part of her awesome dream and of course he tells her “You’re my queen.  You always will be.”  They kiss and embrace.  

 Then, mid-hug, THWUMP! Jon plants a dagger into Daenerys’ chest. Dany didn’t see this coming and is flummoxed.  She collapses and dies in Jon’s arms, a trickle of blood spills from her mouth as he lays her on the ground.

Sensing a disturbance in the Force of the Mother of Dragons, Drogon flies up to investigate.  He sees him momma lifeless on the ground and gives her a few nudges with his nose “Wake up, mama!!!” It’s all kinda heartbreaking if you can forget the entire last half of the previous episode where Drogon and his mommy were burning up all of King’s Landing.

Drogon looks at the dagger in Dany’s chest and then at the Iron Throne and Jon.  He breathes in deeply and you can see the fire near the back of his throat.  Holy Moles, is he going to toast Jon and then we see Jon arise from the flames? Nope. He lets out a huge stream of fire…not on Jon, but on the throne.  What?!  Is Drogon a big dumdum for thinking the pointy throne killed his mom or is he such a genius that he understands the Iron Throne is a symbolism for power, the pursuit of which ultimately led to his mother’s demise?  We’ll never know, but either way, I think we can all agree it’s a weird reaction coming from the dragon.  But it looks cool, so I guess there’s that. Drogon melts the entire throne to the ground.  Then he picks Daenerys up gently in his talon and takes off.  Jon is completely unharmed and would ya look at that – no dead body!  Thanks Drogon!  Now Jon can be all “I dunno where Daenerys went…she said she was going out for some milk”, and nobody will be the wiser.  #PerfectCrime

We get a close up of Tyrion’s face – he wakes up from his prison cell floor and guards take him to the old dragon arena.  Judging by the length of his beard, several weeks have gone by.  Grey Worm leads him to a semi-circle of seated noblemen and women. It’s pretty much all the noble families left in Westeros - about a dozen or so peeps:  Yara Greyjoy, the new Dornish prince, Robin Arryn and his adviser, Ser Davos Seaworth, Ser Brienne of Tarth, Lord Gendry, Samwell Tarly, Edmure Tulley and a few faces we don’t recognize, plus the three Stark siblings: Bran, Arya and Sansa.

When Sansa asks where Jon is – he was supposed to be at this meeting - Grey Worm replies that he’s their prisoner and the Unsullied get to decide who earns a get out of jail pass to attend the Westerosi Nobles Summit.  Hold the door, people!! Wait a second.  First of all:  Jon’s milk cover story didn’t work???  Also, are we supposed to assume that Grey Worm has just been hanging out twiddling his thumbs waiting for somebody to tell him what to do?  Isn’t he second in command to Daenerys and thus the new person in charge?  Wouldn’t Tyrion and Jon be dead already for their crimes?  And who called everybody for this summit anyway?  Ok, none of these questions will be answered, so let’s get back to the action:

The gist of the gathering is that all the nobles have to decide what to do next, since there isn’t a monarch to make any decisions for the realm.  Tyrion, the prisoner, is the dude who gets to do all the talking and comes up with a plan where all the nobles should just get to vote on who should be king.  Sam suggests they try a democracy and everybody yucks it up. Lame.  Edmure Tulley tries to nominate himself and Sansa tells him to sit the eff down.  

Then Tyrion goes on to suggest that the person with the best stories should get to be the ruler – because, ya know, it’s stories that unite people.  And who has a better story than Bran Stark? Um…pretty much all the other perfectly qualified women in the half-circle.  Sansa objects that Bran doesn’t want to be king and besides, he can’t have kids.  But for Tyrion, this is a minor detail:  Who better to rule than somebody who doesn’t want the power?  And let’s just elect rulers rather than passing down the throne via birthright!  From now on, all the nobles will get to vote for their next king or queen.  When Tyrion asks Bran if he’s ok being the Big Kahuna, Bran with his super dead-in-the-eyes mug goes “Why do you think I came all this way.”  HOLD THE DOOOOOOOR, people!!!! Are you saying Bran knew this WHOLE time that he was going to be king?  Are you kidding me?  Is this the dumbest thing ever?  Do I now have to pick apart a gazillion instances that make this so messed up if Bran always knew where things were going?  No.  We’ll stop here.  

Everybody votes for Bran except for Sansa who goes “I love you little bro, you’re gonna be awesome as king but I can’t support you because the North is going independent baby. We’re ruling ourselves!!!” And Bran just nods.  Now everybody else feels like a total moron for not putting in any special requests for their regions when they voted “Aye” for Bran. Ha, suckers!

Finally, to conlude this extremely boring scene, Tyrion names Bran king and puts in a super offensive name in his official title:  Bran the Broken, first of his name…yadda, yadda.  Bran looks around at everybody super hurt and goes “You guys have been calling me that behind my back this whole time?!”  To get back at him, Bran tells Tyrion he has to be hand of the king. Grey Worm is all “You can’t do that! He’s our prisoner!”  And Bran’s all “I can do what I want cause I’m king! Nanny, nanny, boo, boo!  Also, Tyrion messed up big time and now he has to dedicate the rest of his existence to fixing his mistakes.”  Um, seems like a pretty cush job to me, frankly.  

They also throw in that the Unsullied can take The Reach as their own land, since pretty much nobody in Westeros lives there anymore.  It’s the equivalent of telling them they can have Nebraska, and guess what?  Nobody wants it.

Next, Tyrion visits Jon, whose beard is also looking cray from all the weeks of growing it out.  He gives him the news:  The Unsullied wanted Jon dead and the Stark sisters wanted him released, so Bran hit a compromise wherein Jon has to go back to the Wall and live out the rest of his days there, just like a regular Night’s Watchman:  No wifey, no kids, no lands.  Jon’s all “Why the hell is there even still a wall?” –“Duh, because.”

We see a freshly groomed Jon walk through the docks of King’s Landing, accompanied by two dudes from the Night’s Watch.  Grey Worm gives him the stinkeye from his ship – the Unsullied are heading to Naath. Hey, maybe Grey Worm can find himself another nice girl from there!  

Jon says goodbye to his siblings/cousins.  Sansa is now queen of the North, which is pretty much what she always wanted.  She laments that they lost their king, though.  When Jon tells Arya she can still visit him she’s all, “Nah.” She wants to explore the seas west of Westeros where the maps end – so basically, our girl is gonna hang out in Hawaii for the rest of her life, hopefully doing more Eat Pray Loving than colonizing.

Brienne of Tarth is seated with the big Knight-o-pedia book in front of her.  She finds the entry for Jaime Lannister and adds on to it.  She is sure to mention that he had the best sex of his life with her, in spite of his tiny cock.  Or, ya know, she takes the high road and puts in something really nice about him dying while protecting his queen.  Ugh, Brienne, why you always gotta be so good?

In the Red Keep, it’s time for the very first small council to convene.  Tryion gets all the chairs ready just so, and then in walk Ser Davos, Samwell Tarly, and Lord Bronn of the Blackwater – he finally got Highgarden, btw. They exchange some banter which falls short.

Soon thereafter Ser Brienne of Tarth and Ser Podrick Payne (awww he got knighted, too) enter with King Bran.  Bran notes they are still missing a few positions: boring, boring, and dullsville. Then he goes “Does anybody know what Drogon is up to?” He was last seen flying east and Bran excuses himself to do some Professor X-ing to see if he can find him.  But of course, we don’t actually get to see Bran warg.  The small council continues with the boring business of figuring out how to spend money on rebuilding King’s Landing and it all ends with Bronn gunning hard for new brothels.  Ugh.  Seriously.

At the Wall, Jon arrives to be reuinited with his good pal Tormund Giantsbane and also:  the bestest direwolf of them all, Ghost!  This time, Jon gives Ghost an affectionate cuddle.

We get a cross-cut of a bunch of dull scenes of Jon, Arya, and Sansa getting dressed and walking. Sansa is crowned Queen in the North, Arya sets sail on a ship with the Stark sigil and Jon walks out to the Castle Black courtyard.  

In the final scene, Jon heads out on horseback with Ghost and Tormund and a slew of Wildlings returning to their home. Has he abandoned the Night’s Watch? Is he Lord Commander again and can do whatever the heck he wants?  Is he finally a ranger and is just going out on a temporary jaunt with his pal Tormund? Who knows.  But it’s worth noting that the series finishes in the exact same way as it started:  Men leaving the wall to head North into Wildling territory. The end.

And there we have it: 8 years of Game of Thrones came to a lackluster end with the Starks all on top.  I’m still processing the weirdness I feel about the show ending this way.  Truly, watching the episode was so dull at times that I just wanted it to be over already. While this could have been a much worse end to the series, it certainly wasn’t satisfying.  But after the bombshell they dropped in the penultimate episode with Daenerys going nuts, I guess this final episode of the series didn’t have anywhere else to go that would have made it much better.

There are gazillions of cool things that were introduced throughout the previous seasons which were rendered somewhat pointless in the end.  I would have loved more exploration and explanation of the mythology and its origins:  The Children of the Forest, the Three Eyed Raven, the Night King, the previous defeat of white walkers and how they came back, the Lord of Light, all the fire priestesses in Essos, where the dragon eggs came from, the faceless men, etc.  Also, I guess Varys’ letters about Jon being Aegon Targaryen were never delivered – or peeps just didn’t care?  [shrugs] Oh well?

Airdate:  5/5/19  Season 8, Episode 4

Ack! The remaining episodes of Game of Thrones are dwindling as fast as the number of secondary characters – we’re more than halfway through the season and merely two episodes away from the end of the series.  Waaaah, I just want it to last forever!  This latest episode offered up a buffet of secrets, strategy, and surprises, oh my! There’s a lot to unpack, as the writers rush to neatly tie up storylines and set things up for the next big battle, so get comfy, grab a cup of your favorite Starbucks beverage and let’s hop right into the recap for “The Last of the Starks”:

We start off at Winterfell, with a somber send-off of all the valiant heroes who died in the battle against the Night King and his Army of Dead.  Ser Jorah’s body lays on a funeral pyre and a grief-stricken Daenerys Targaryen bids him farewell and whispers something into his ear.  

Sansa Stark stands by Theon Greyjoy’s pyre, crying.  You can’t help but think of all the horror they both endured together at the hands of Ramsay Bolton – the one person who best understood what Sansa has been through is now gone. She places her Direwolf sigil pin in his vest.  Awww, Theon has officially been redeemed in the eyes of the Starks.

After everybody has had the chance to pay their respects, the camera zooms out and we see the enormity of the casualites – rows and rows of multi-leveled funeral pyres stretch across the battlefield.

Jon Snow gives a heartfelt speech and reminds all the survivors of their honor and duty to keep the legacy alive of the brave men and women who died to ensure the safety of humankind. The pyres are lit, and the gigantic cloud of smoke they emit is immense.

With the mass funeral behind them, it’s time for everybody to celebrate their survival with a grand feast in the Great Hall.  Bran Stark, Sansa, Jon, and Daenerys are all steated at the VIP table for the festivities, though Daenerys won’t even look at Jon.  Arya’s absence is noticed by Gendry, who asks everybody he knows if they’ve seen her.  

As Gendry walks past the VIP table, Queen Dany calls him out.  It’s a tense moment as she asks him “Hey, aren’t you the son of Robert Baratheon? You know, the dude who tried to have me killed?” Gendry cautiously replies, “Um…well, about that, see, I didn’t even know my pops and I only recently even found out he was my dad, so…” and then Dany’s all “Dude, I’m just messing with you.” She makes him Lord of Storm’s End – which is apparently a title that is totally up for grabs, and she also tells him he’s not a bastard anymore. Because. She. Said. So.  She also decrees that it’s time for the realm to have access to hand-crafted coffee drinks from entirely different universes and everybody hails both Queen Dany and Gendry, Lord of Storm’s End.  Tyrion leans over to Dany and praises her on the smart move:  It’s both a fitting reward for a war hero and will ensure Gendry’s line will always be loyal to her.

Across the room, Jaime Lannister convinces Brienne of Tarth to let loose and drink a bit, seeing how they have fought Death and survived.  

Meanwhile Tyrion and Davos share a quick chat about Melisandre and the Lord of Light thing that was, actually, weirdly accurate -  and now  it’s all over without much rhyme or reason.  Thanks for acknowledging my feelings, GOT writers, because, yes, it does seem odd that we would have so much cool prophecy-driven stuff and have it suddenly vanish.  Tyrion cynically states that even though the Dead may be gone, they still have people to contend with – and humans are doing a pretty decent job in destroying themselves without the help of the Night King.

Tyrion makes his way to Bran and I can’t help wondering what conversation these two had the night before the battle.  When he points out that Bran’s abilities as the hard drive for their world’s memories will surely serve him well as the Lord of Winterfell, Bran shrugs it off, saying he’s not a Lord, and honestly doesn’t have need for wants in this world as he pretty much spends most of his time in the past.  Gah, I really want to see more time jumps!!! I’m really hoping that Bran’s nifty warging days continue and that they will have a role to play in the following two episodes.

As the men and women continue to celebrate and drink heavily, Tormund Giantsbane gives a toast to the Dragon Queen, who in turn toasts the absent Arya Stark as the true hero of Winterfell that she is.  Meanwhile, Tyrion joins Jaime, Brienne and Podrick Payne for a rousing drinking game.

The night wears on and Tormund  is sloshed out of his mind.  He boistrously sings Jon’s praises, listing his many daring accomplishments and at one point Tormund even roars “Who flies a dragon?  A madman!  Or a king!!” and the room breaks out in cheers.  Daenerys ain’t liking it.   She sulks in the corner and gives major side eye to Jon and his group of pals who are all having a blast as she sits alone and friendless.  Varys looks on with suspicious concern.  She rises with a resentful scowl and exits the hall.

Brienne, Podrick and the Lannister bros thoroughly enjoy their drinking game until Tyrion pulls an a-hole move by speculating about Brienne’s virginity.  It’s very Breakfast Club-y  (“Answer the question, Claire!”) and it sobers Brienne up real quick.  She excuses herself and walks off.  Jaime follows after her.

Sansa spies the Hound and joins him for a chat.  At first he’s his usual gruff self, but he soon comes to realize just how much Sansa has changed since her time in King’s Landing.   He points out that she could have been spared all the torment she’s lived through, if only she had trusted him and left King’s Landing with him the night of the battle at the Blackwater.  Sansa – boss that she is – goes full Christina Aguilera and tells him how all those hardships made her stronger and the woman that she is today. It’s really an awesome scene and solidifies why the Hound is one of my faves and also how savvy and confident Sansa has become since the start of the series.

Gendry leaves the hall and finds Arya, shooting arrows by herself in the courtyard.  He shares the news of his Lordship with her and before you know it, he’s professing his love for her and bends his knee to propose that she become his wife and the Lady of Storm’s End. Aw, Gendry! That’s sweet, but that’s also not Arya’s jam at all.  She lets him down super easy, and while it’s kind of a bummer these two aren’t going to settle down and make babies together, it’s totally the right move. Hold on, though – maybe they already HAVE made a baby together?!  I know it seems a bit far-fetched to throw that log onto the storyline fire with just a few episodes left, but it could be an actual possibility.  Just sayin’.

With the festivities winding down, errbody is looking for a booty call.  Jaime comes a knockin’ on Brienne’s door to do some serious follow up on the question about her virginity.  They hook up and it’s the first time for them both – for Jaime it’s the first time sleeping with a knight…and probably also somebody who isn’t related to him.  For Brienne, it’s the first time sleeping with a dude with a golden prosthetic – which might come in rather…handy.  Also, she is a virgin.  Well, she was.  ‘Till Jaime gave her a hand in that department.  Ok, I’ll stop.

As Jon sits in his room, there’s a knock on the door.  It’s Daenerys and he invites her in.  She gets super vulnerable with him and tells him she loves him.   Things start to heat up and they make out until Jon remembers that she’s his aunt.  Weirdly, it spoils the moment.  Dany wishes he had never told her the truth about his parents, and she begs him to keep it a secret. Jon reasons that he has to tell his family and he downplays the significance of putting the truth out into the world for everybody to know. Danerys counters that this will destroy them and he has a choice, but is being a d-bag about it.  “Ugh, why can’t you just go along with my awesome plan to live in blissful repression so I can be queen and everything stays amazing?!” She leaves in a huff.  I’m so torn by the stuff going on with Dany.  The writers are turning her into this unlikeable, selfish, pouty brat.  On the one hand, I feel she is justified to feel and act the way she does.  On the other hand, she’s making a lot of poor and rash decisions lately and really isn’t winning people over.  She needs a PR overhaul to get her mojo back, stat.  

The next day in the War Room, all the important people are discussing strategy as it pertains to knocking Cersei off her Iron Throne.  Daenerys has lost half her Dothraki and Unsullied troops.  Same for Jon and the Northerners.  They are now at an even balance with Cersei’s fighters which include the Golden Company.  Yara Greyjoy has managed to take back the Iron Islands, so Dany has her support. Dorne also stands behind Daenerys’ claim to the throne, because they hate Cersei’s guts.  Daenerys points out that is doesn’t matter that she has half of Westeros’s support if  Cersei remains in power in the capital – she must be removed.  And Dany’s gut instinct is to completely annihilate King’s Landing.

Lord Varys points out that it’s not the best move to kill thousands of innocent people, if they can find a better way to remove Cersei from power.  Tyrion suggests they make use of the Greyjoy fleet and cut off all food from coming into King’s Landing – he’s seen the people revolt against their monarch on their own in the past.  If they show the starving plebians what a crappy leader Cersei is, they’ll handle her  downfall on their own.  He also suggests that Daenerys offer Cersei a bargain, wherein the current queen can keep her life if she steps down without a fight.  At first Dany bristles at the idea, but she agrees to this plan, if only because it will make Daenerys look good to the people of King’s Landing that she attempted to broker a deal with Cersei to minimize the suffering of the common folk.

Sansa speaks up and says that her men – aka the North – need time to rest and heal from the battle against the Night King.  Daenerys snaps back like a petulant child. “Excuse me?? We need to attack my enemies NOW. I lent my forces for the Winterfell battle – and now that it’s time to pony up the North’s soldiers for my pet project of conquering the realm, you don’t wanna do it yet? What do we say to the God of stalling for time?  NOT TODAY, BIATCH!” Jon interjects that they’ll give Dany whatever she wants, when she wants, and both his sisters shoot him a look.   Ugh, I think it’s a really dumb decision on Daenerys’s part, and it is really solidifying her continued descent into becoming an unreasonable tyrant.  Plus, it’s not winning her any favor among the Northerners, which she badly needs. Really, what’s the harm in waiting another week or two?

Everybody agrees that Jon and the Northern army will march south along the King’s Road.  Meanwhile, Dany and her Unsullied will head to White Harbor and sail back to Dragonstone.  As everybody leaves the room, only the Stark siblings are left behind and Arya grabs Jon’s arm. “We need a word, bro.”

In the Godswood, Bran, Sansa, Arya and Jon all talk about how Sansa and Arya don’t trust Daenerys. But why?!  Cause she’s not family.  Ooooo-kay? Jon argues that’s a pretty stupid reason (I agree), as you can’t go far in life if you don’t widen the circle of trust beyond your kin. When Arya remarks the four of them are the last of the Starks and they need to stick together, Jon says he isn’t really a Stark.  Both sisters tell him that they see Jon as their brother, not their half-bro or a bastard.  Jon’s face is all “Oh, crap.  Maaaan, do I need to get this out now???”  “Dude, it’s your call,” says Bran.  And then Jon spills the beans.  Or rather, he swears his sisters to secrecy and then makes Bran fill them in on the details of his true parents.  Sadly, we viewers don’t get to see that part, so I’m left to imagine Bran pulling out a powerpoint presentation with a venn diagram of two circles that say “People Jon is related to” and “People Jon has slept with.”

The Lannister bros are chilling in one of the parlors at Winterfell, when who should walk in, but Bronn of the Blackwater – crossbow in hand.  Tyrion and Jaime ask him what’s up and Bronn tells him of Cersei’s plan to have him assassinate the two of them for a handsome reward.  Only problem is that Bronn doubts Cersei will win the war against Daenerys, and then she won’t be able to pay up.  When Tyrion reminds Bronn of their mutual understanding that Tyrion will double any amount that Bronn is offered to kill him, they reach an agreement. Jaime and Tyrion can live, and at the end of it all, when Dany takes over as queen, Bronn gets to be Lord of Highgarden – formerly the home of House Tyrell.  I don’t really think Tyrion is in any position to make this offer, but it gets the job done and Bronn is out of the picture till the fighting is through.  He’s always wanted that Castle, and now he may actually get it.  Huzzah for Bronn!

Outside Winterfell, the Hound is on a solo ride, when Arya shows up on horseback and joins him. They both disclose that they are each headed to King’s Landing for some unfinished business with no intention of returning to Winterfell.  And since these two travel so well as a duo, they agree to make the trek together. When the Hound asks Arya if she’ll leave him to die again, should he get hurt she quips “Probobaly.”  He grins and they trot off side by side.  It’s such a good scene.  These two are #FriendshipGoals. My guess is the Hound means to kill his big Frankenbrother, the Mountain.  And Arya, obviously, must be planning to murder Queen Cersei.  Hopefully she’ll do it disguised as Jaime and give Cersei the shock of her life when she ends it.  

From the ramparts, Sansa watches Queen Dany take off with her dragons.  Tyrion approaches and asks “What’s wrong, Buttercup?  How come you don’t like my queenie?”  Sansa considers things for a while and then goes “What if I told you there was a better choice?” Ruh-roh, don’t trust Sansa with your secrets, y’all!  Gurl is savage when it comes to pushing her agenda.  It’s a calculated move on her part, but damn, that is a major betrayal to Jon. I wonder what it’ll do to their relationship.

In the courtyard, Jon is ready to hit the road and bids farewell to Tormund.  His wildling pal is over life south of the Wall, and plans to head back North once the winter storms calm down.  Jon tells him to take Ghost, too.  WTF, Jon!  Rude.  Sam and Gilly say goodbye and reveal that Gilly is preggers.  Yay, Sam will have a legit heir for House Tarly…I mean…if they tie the knot, I guess. They’d better hop to it.  Then Jon gets on his horse and trots off without so much as a belly rub or a pat on the head for poor Ghost who just looks at him like, “Wow.  Ok, so all those times I saved your ass, and protected your dead body and saved your friend AND then ran like a madwolf into a horde of Dead for you…that meant nothing? Screw you, Jon Snow.  P.S. I peed on your entire collection of hair ties. See ya never.”

Dany’s fleet is on the home stretch with Dragonstone in sight. Tyrion and Varys are aboard one of the ships and discuss Jon’s secret and what it means for the future of the realm. Varys questions Daenerys’ state of mind and Tyrion sticks up for her.  Grasping onto hope that Dany and Jon might be able to get married and rule in harmony, Varys shuts it down.  “He can’t marry his aunt, dude!  He’s from the North and that just ain’t cool.  You think his people would stand for that union?”  But Tyrion lobbies hard for Dany and tells Varys she needs guidance from her trusted advisors.  Varys just gives him resting eunuch face.

Above in the skies, Dany flies on Drogon while Rhaegal soars nearby and the dragons both shriek out happy dragon sounds at the sight of their home when…THWACK!  Out of nowhere a spear pierces Rhaegal’s chest.  And then another comes at him.  Holy moles!  Euron’s fleet has been lying in wait and each ship is outfitted with a giant dragon-killing spear launcher.  More shots are fired and Rhaegal gets it in the wing and goes down, crashing into the water below.  Dany is furious and steers Drogon straight at Euron – pure rage burning in her eyes. This is exactly what Euron wants.  He readies the next spear and aims it at her.  But when the spears are launched, Daenerys manages to dodge out of the way and changes course away from the reach of the weapons.  Next, Euron turns the spears on Dany’s fleet, completely destroying all her boats.   Survivors – including Tyrion and Grey Worm –make it ashore, but Grey Worm soon notices that Missandei is missing.

In King’s Landing, Cersei watches from her balcony as commoners file into the Red Keep – she plans to use them as human shields.  Should Daenerys try to lay fiery waste to Cersei and the Red Keep, she’ll have to do so at the expense of the death of several thousands of innocents.  Not a great way to gain the love of the masses, Dany. Euron is there, too, and confirms that Dany’s one dragon was killed.  Cersei smiles smugly and tells  Euron how their child will rule both the land and sea.  Nice way to break the news to him – even if it’s a lie.  Euron is delighted that he’s knocked her up and secured his spot as future king.  As Cersei saunters away, we see she’s taken Missandei as her prisoner.  Ugh, Cersei is such a ruthless biatch.  I don’t understand why she wants to be queen if she doesn’t give a crap about her subjects and hates to be an actual leader to her people.  Seriously, she should just go and be a filthy rich Real Housewife of Casterly Rock and day drink all the time – it would be so less stressful and her quality of life would improve immensely.  

In the War Room at Dragonstone, Daenerys, Varys, Grey Worm and Tyrion all discuss next steps.   Both Dany and Grey Worm are out for revenge and are driven by their emotions, due to Missandei being kidnapped.  Grew Worm pushes for them to storm the city with no regard for the thousands of civilians who will die in the process.  Varys advises strongly not to do this and Dany gets a frightning look in her eye as she says it’s her destiny to free the world from tyrants – no matter the cost.  Somebody call Alanis Morissette because we really need to work this into her “Ironic” song.  “It’s like killing 10,000 peeeeeeeps, so you can be their beloved queen…”

In the Dragonstone throne room, Varys and Tyrion are in for more hand-wringing as they discuss the Daenerys/Jon problem.  Ultimately, Varys has lost faith in the dragon queen and he’s ready to bet all his chips on Jon.  He questions her ability to keep a cool head and worries she’ll get more ruthless and impulsive with more power.  When Tyrion protests that Jon doesn’t even want to be king, and can’t they just rule together, Varys dismisses it as an option.  In the end, Tyrion chooses to stand by his queen and do what a good advisor SHOULD do.   Varys, however, is ready to board the treason train.  When Tyrion asks Varys what would become of Dany, Varys just give him a look.  “Don’t do it, dude.” – “I’ve made my choice – now you make yours”, says Varys.  Oh man.  We already know Varys is gonna bite it, due to Melisandre’s prediction last season. I’m betting Dany is going to find out about his plotting and have him killed.  

Word of Daenerys’s ambush is delivered to Sansa.  When Jaime approaches her, she fills him in and adds “I always wanted to see your sis get executed – looks like I won’t have the chance. Tsk, tsk.”  That evening, Jaime leaves Brienne’s warm bed and saddles up a horse in the courtyard.  When Brienne notices he’s gone, she runs outside and begs him to stay. She believes he intends to save Cersei from Dany’s wrath.  Jaime won’t be persuaded and he gallops off as Brienne sobs, heartbroken. Personally, I think he might just go and try to kill Cersei himself – because, prophecies.  That is, unless Arya beats him to it.  Oooh, maybe he’ll get to King’s Landing just in time to see Arya disguised as him…killing Cersei.  Whaaaaat?  Mind blown. It could happen.

Outside the walls of the Red Keep, Daenerys and Cersei have a parlay.  Cersei stands on her ramparts – which have several dragon-spearing weapons set up – along with Missandei and the Mountain.  Both Hands of the Queen, Qyburn and Tyrion, meet up.  Tyrion informs Qyburn that Dany demands Cersei’s unconditional surrender and that Missandei be released immediately.  Qyburn placidly parrots nearly the same demand back to Tyrion:  Cersei demands Daenerys’s unconditional surrender and if she doesn’t, Missandei will die on the spot.  As Tyrion attempts to reason with Qyburn, he can see it’s pointless and he bypasses him, trotting right up to the gates to talk to his sister directly.  

When Tyrion approaches, Cersei’s archers all pull back their bows, ready to shoot him and oh my goodness, I’m so worried that Tyrion is about to get killed!  Cersei raises her hand, and after a good long moment of  trepidation, she gives her men the signal to stand down.  Whew!  Tyrion appeals to Cersei’s one good side – her loving nature as a mother – and he tells her she and her child don’t have to die if they cut a deal.  She can end her rule, and still have a great life with her child.  But Cersei ain’t having it.  She walks over to Missandei, who stands dangerously close to the edge of the wall. Cersei leans in and places a hand on her arm – is she going to push her?! Will she release her?! Nah, instead she tells Missandei this is her chance for some final words.  Ugh! WHY?  Missandei tearfully stares out at her Queen and Grey Worm and in a cracked voice calls out “DRACARYS!” The Mountain draws his sword and in one fell blow, chops off Missandei’s head while Daenerys looks on in helpless horror.  Her shock turns into pure simmering rage as Daenerys turns away and storms off.  And roll credits.

Ruh to the roh! This episode was rough! Poor Missandei. And poor Grey Worm!  I mean, I did assume one of them was going to die by the end of the series, but my money was on Grey Worm.  RIP Missandei!  I’m so upset that Daenerys is losing her most trusted people who love and support her completely.  I’m not happy at all that the show really seems to be setting her up for a total Mad Queen downward spiral.  Say it ain’t so.

I can’t say I really liked this episode, though I guess it was a necessary one to get all the pieces into place for the last two episodes.  I found it hopped all over the place to get as much stuff in as possible and tie up lots of characters’ stories.   I just hate all the things Dany did in this episode and it feels like a total betrayal to the viewer, if I may say so.  They just had her be this pouty, impulsive and manipulative person who makes a lot of dumb choices. If this is all meant to lay the groundwork to make her seem more and more power hungry and unstable, then well-done, but it doesn’t seem true to her nature at all and feels a bit like a cop out. Unless the writers just WANT us to believe they are going down that track and then they’ll surprise us all. Ahhh, the GOT mind games are messing with me.

Also, I really hope Arya gets to kill Cersei and I’m thinking maybe she’ll even help the Hound kill his bro – because Cleganebowl is starting to look like a sure thing here, right?  I kinda feel like Arya will die by the end of the series, because all four Stark siblings can’t possibly survive, can they?

#GameofThrones S08E02 Recap: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms #GoT #GoTrecap #GOT8 #AKnightoftheSevenKingdoms

In “A Knight for Seven Kingdoms” Winterfell prepares for war, while receiving some last minute volunteers. Most spend the eve of war contemplating death in the face of an enemy that doesn’t tire, doesn’t stop, doesn’t feel. Despite the overwhelming odds there are those still considering the future, asking what will come afterward. Bran reminds us all, “How do you know there is an afterward?” Game…

Airdate: 4/14/19 ; Season 8, Episode 1

Ah, the long winter for “Game of Thrones” fans is finally over…and yet, the Long Winter in Westeros has only just begun.  After much anticipation, season 8 is officially upon us and “Winterfell” was the perfect place to start things off.  This episode gave us callbacks,  shade-throwing and a handful of much-anticipated reunions.  And of course there is that awkward moment when you introduce your new girlfriend—who is technically already a blood relation—to the rest of the fam.

Cozy up in your warmest pelts, because the icy cold is spreading across the realm and extending to people’s moods in this recap of “Winterfell”.

First off, it’s worth noting that the credits got a makeover.  The Wall has been updated to show its gaping hole, and as we visit the different locations on the map, we get a look at the interiors – including the crypts at Winterfell.  It is…très cool.  They even take us all the way into Cersei’s closet with her clothes folded into perfect little Marie Kondo squares.  If you didn’t catch it, that’s on YOU, ok?

Homecoming

A young boy runs through the snowy wood and climbs a tree to take in the magnitude of Daenerys Targaryen’s vast army of Unsullied and Dothraki  as they march to Winterfell in the near distance.  Daenerys and Jon Snow ride side by side upon their steeds. Just as she did in the very first episode of the series, Arya Stark watches the royal procession amongst the commoners, unnoticed by the familiar faces that pass her. Her face lights up at the sight of Jon. She looks ready to call out to him, but doesn’t and her face fades to disappointment when his horse passes her.  Shortly after, she sees the Hound – if she’s surprised to see him alive, it doesn’t show. When she sees Gendry, however, a smile passes across her lips.  Yasssss, I so want these two to hook up,  I’m just going to put that out there right now.

The Northerners watch the army pass through, their faces stone-cold and suspicious, not much impressed by the foreign queen. But when her two dragons soar overhead, the crowd gasps in wonder and fear and Dany’s self-satisfied grin says it all: “Damn straight, betches!  The mother of dragons has arrived!”   I never get sick of Dany’s dragons gliding through the sky.  Arya beholds them with giddy amazement, but as the dragons glide over Winterfell Castle, Sansa looks on from the ramparts with awe and apprehension.

When Jon and Dany arrive at Winterfell, his siblings are there to greet him – well, sans Arya, that is. Bran Stark aka the Three-Eyed-Raven sits creepily and devoid of emotion in his wheelchair, so it’s business as usual, really.  Jon greets his little bro warmly a la “Dude, you’re a man now!”  Bran replies with a monotone “Almost.”  Sansa just flashes Jon her go-to look she gives anybody meeting this new version of Bran. “Yeah, he weird. Just roll with it.”  

When Jon introduces Dany to Sansa, the queen is met with an icy greeting.  Bran tells them they don’t have time for drama and need to work on a plan to defeat the Night King who has a newly acquired zombie dragon.  The Wall has fallen and the dead are on their way. Meep, that’s news to Jon and Dany!

In the Great Hall, it’s time for another powwow.  Sansa, in her wisdom, called all the House Stark banner men to Winterfell as soon as Bran told her the Wall was breached.  The Stark siblings, Daenerys, and Tyrion sit at the VIP table, while disgruntled banner men congregate and give Jon and Dany the collective stink eye.

The first item on the agenda is Little Lord Umber and the lack of reinforcements he brought.  The poor kid looks about 10 years old and totally unfit to be the head of his House.  Remember how the Umbers sold out Rickon Stark to Ramsay Bolton? Grrr, but we can’t hold this little boy accountable for his crappy elders.  When he explains he didn’t bring his men because they need more horses Sansa tells him they’ll give him the resources they can spare and she sends him back to his home at the Last Hearth.  

Jon says they need to notify the Nights Watch at Castle Black to leave their posts now that the Wall has been breached by the Night King’s army.

Next up, Lyanna Mormont addresses the elephant in the room: The Northmen were pledged to House Stark and are none too pleased with their King in the North giving up his title to Daenerys.  They aren’t down to serve an outsider and feel miffed and betrayed. Jon defends his actions and explains it was all to secure the safety of the North. They can only survive by making allies, and seriously, titles do not matter at a time like this.  Tyrion Lannister pipes up that Jon risked his life to prove the threat of the Whitewalkers is real.  And Dany – foreign though she may be – has brought significant resources to help the North in their fight against the dead.  “She’s got the greatest army ever and two mutha-effin’ dragons y’all. Throw her a bone.  Oh, and House Lannister will be sending an army for additional backup.”  Booooo, hissss! That tidbit doesn’t tip the scale in his favor, as the North hates the Lannisters with the passion of a thousand suns.

Sansa, who is basically House Stark’s stellar PR person, is also super pissed about Jon’s decision to bow down to Dany.  She has no qualms about looking a gift dragon in the mouth and gets down to practical matters. “Yeah, so…we don’t have enough food stores for all of us AND your impressive army, not to mention the giant dragons.  What the hell do they eat anyway?”  Dany turns to her and starts to explain how Drogon is going full Keto Diet right now, and Rhaegal is currently a pescatarian and may have a gluten allergy, so things are gonna be a little challenging.   Ok, fine. Dragon’s eat whatever the hell they want, ok?  Next question!

After that super tense meeting, we see Gendry going through the carts of dragonglass in the courtyard, and Tyrion takes a moment to chat with Sansa.  They last saw each other at Joffrey’s Wedding – ya know, when Tyrion and Sansa were still married. It’s a slightly uncomfortable reunion between the two, but they manage to share a laugh before Sansa makes it clear she doesn’t believe Cersei will send an army to support them, and Tyrion is a fool if he thinks she will.  As Sansa walks off, Tyrion notices Bran staring at him.  Creepily…obviously.  Tyrion has a cryptic look on his face.  I still can’t figure out if he is in cahoots with Cersei.

In the Godswood at Winterfell, Jon Snow is at the Weirwood Tree.  He’s startled by the sudden appearance of Arya.   They share a heartfelt embrace and I almost cry.  Jon was always Arya’s favorite sibling, and vice versa, and the only time these two were together on screen before was the very first episode of the series. Man, this reunion was a long time coming and it made me so happy!  Jon tells Arya he could’ve used her support when he arrived, ‘cause Sansa is kind of a bitchy know-it-all.  But instead of commiserating with him, Arya tells him Sansa is the smartest person she knows and she is just looking out for the family, as is Arya.  When Jon says it’s his family, too, Arya hugs him and says “Don’t forget it.”   Oooh, knowing what we know about Jon’s true lineage, it’s an extra poignant line.  

Dirty Deeds

At the Red Keep, Qyburn informs Cersei of the terrible news that the Wall is down and the dead are marching south.  In typical She-Devil fashion, Cersei says “Good. “She saunters away with that infuriating smirk of hers.  

Meanwhile, Euron Greyjoy’s fleet arrives at King’s Landing with literal boatloads of soldiers of sell-swords from the Golden Company of Braavos.   Below deck, Euron pays a brief visit to his niece and prisoner, Yara Greyjoy, who tells him he’s supporting the wrong side.  He retorts that he’ll just take his fleet elsewhere.  But first, he wants to bone the queen.

In the throne room of the Red Keep, Euron and hunky Captain Strickland (the head of the Golden Company’s army) meet with Cersei.  Strickland gives the queen a count of soldiers and horses at her disposal. When Cersei is informed there will be no elephants in her army, it’s a huge disappointment for her and hilarious to watch.  I can only imagine the hours Cersei has spent daydreaming about riding on an elephant with friggin’ laser beams attached to its head and putting that smug little dragon queen in her place.  How do you come back from something like this?  

Meanwhile, Euron jockeys real hard for a private meeting of the “Do I make you horny, baby?” variety. Really, this whole scene is an homage to Austin Powers, in my book.  Cersei shoots him down at first, but then relents and Euron skips off to her chambers.

Speaking of horny, Bronn of the Blackwater is about to get some action with three whores.  The women can’t stop talking about their former customers who died in the recent battle against Daenerys and her dragons.  The fun(?) is cut short when Qyburn interrupts them with an urgent matter.  Cersei wants Bronn to kill both of her brothers, should they survive the Night King and his army.  In return, Bronn will finally get all the riches he’s dreamed of – and the ever elusive castle Bronn has been jonesing for.  Qyburn hands him a cross-bow and Bronn mutters “That f*$&in’ family!” Hmmm, will he go through with it? He’s known to sell out to the highest bidder, but don’t his good times with Tyrion and Jaime count for anything? And didn’t Tyrion once tell him that he would always double whatever Bronn was promised?

Next, a post-coital Cersei waits for Euron to get the hell out of her room.  She is still hung up about the elephants and Euron wants to know how he stacks up against her former lovers: King Robert and Jaime Lannister.  Cersei shoots daggers at him with her eyes but also weirdly flirts with him before telling him she wants to be alone.  As he leaves, he tells her he’s going to put a prince in her belly. Ew.  As Cersei sits at her table, you can tell she’s scheming.  If she truly is pregnant, as she indicated last season, will she try to pass it off as Euron’s child?  Maybe she’ll push for a hasty marriage now, so she can have a seemingly legit heir to the throne, and then worry about how to get rid of Euron later.

Back on Euron’s ship, Theon Greyjoy and a few of his men have snuck aboard on a rescue mission.  They kill the guards, free Yara, and commandeer the ship. Theon asks his sis if they're on their way to support Daenerys up in Winterfell, but Yara has other plans.  With Euron otherwise disposed, the Iron Islands are theirs to reclaim.  Plus, if Dany & Co. don’t succeed, they’ll need a place to retreat from the Night King.  Since the army of dead can’t cross water, the Iron Islands will be a perfect plan B.  Yara senses Theon wants to return to Winterfell to be with his surrogate family, so she sends him off to join the Starks.

Diplomacy ya later!

At Winterfell, more banner men arrive and Davos walks the grounds with Varys and Tyrion explaining the Northern culture and the need for Daenerys to earn their loyalty.   Oooh, might the North be in for a kick-ass open mic night, where Dany wins them all over with her Marvelous Mrs. Maisel-esque comedy set?  Sadly, no.  Davos’s suggestion is a marriage proposal between Jon and Dany. Finally the realm will have two good and just rulers.  Tyrion doesn’t look excited about the prospect.

Cut to: Dany and Jon are discussing Daenerys frosty welcome - she isn’t here to make friends with Sansa, but she does want some danged respect.  Before Dany can go full tilt Aretha, two Dothraki ride up and inform her that her two dragons, Rhaegal and Drogon, aren’t eating enough. Great, like Dany doesn’t have enough on her plate, now she has to worry about her dragons developing eating disorders.  She brings Jon along to check on her darlings and remarks that they don’t like the North. I’m pretty sure that’s called projecting, but ok.  She invites Jon to hop onto Rhaegal – yes, the one named after her big bro and Jon’s actual father – and they go on a thrilling joyride.  Or is it joyflight?

The dragons land in a secluded spot– it’s a bit reminiscent of Jon and Ygritte’s little cave adventure- and Dany muses they could just stay there forever.  Then the two of them make out.  In front of the dragons.  Who stare at them, making it both awkward and totally relatable for any viewer who’s ever had a hot and heavy makeout session only to look up and see their pet staring at them.

Back at Winterfell, Gendry has forged a dragonglass axe for the Hound who serves up a healthy helping of smack.  Arya appears and tells the Hound to leave Gendry alone.  This is their first meeting since Arya left him to die back in Season 4.  I feel these two genuinely like and respect each other, but they would never let the other know, so the most sentimental line we get is from the Hound sneering “You’re a cold little bitch, aren’t you? Guess that’s why you’re still alive.”  Awwww, they really do care for each other! Once the Hound leaves, Arya and Gendry flirt ever so subtley. Gendry puts out some intense Princess Bride vibes when he literally says “As you wish, milady.” Squeeee! These two have to hook up. I’m just putting that out there.  Of course if they do, I’m sure one of them will die shortly after, because there is no true happiness on GOT.  Anyhoo, Arya wants Gendry to make a special weapon for her. She shows him a sketch of what might be a sword or dagger that can detach in the middle. Knowing Arya, it’ll be used from some bad-ass purpose in the near future.

Meanwhile, Jon is back from his outing and meets with Sansa in private.  House Glover has just sent word that they won’t help and Jon and Sansa argue about him abandoning his Northern crown.  Jon insists titles are completely moot right now.  He asks Sansa if she has any faith in him at all, and while she says that she does, she also wants to know if he gave up his crown to save the North or because he’s hot for queenie.

Say It Ain’t So

In the maester’s quarters, Daenerys and Ser Jorah Mormont pay a visit to Samwell Tarly.  Dany commends him on his miracle worker skills in curing Jorah’s greyscale and indicates that she’ll need a maester once she’s taken her true place on the Iron Throne.  Sam’s the man for the job. The conversation takes a nasty turn for the awkward, however, when Daenerys realizes that Sam is related to Randyll Tarly, whom she barbecued a few episodes back.  “Hey, I told your pops he could keep his land and titles if he bent the knee, but he refused, so obviously I had to torch him.  You get it, right?” –“Well, at least my brother will let me back in the house now.” – “Ummm. So, about that…yeah, he’s dead, too. So. Um, should we join the rest of the group for some Pictionary now?”  

Sam excuses himself to get some fresh air and bumps into Bran who is sitting in the courtyard waiting for an old friend.  It’s time for Jon to know the truth about his parents, and Bran informs Sam that it needs to come from him, as Sam is the person Jon trusts most.

To the crypts we go! Jon pays his respects at Ned Stark’s coffin.  When Sam arrives, he asks Jon if he knew Dany killed Sam’s family. The conversation escalates when Sam asks if Jon would have handled it differently and when Jon eventually counters that he isn’t a king, Sam drops the bomb.  He lets Jon know that he and Bran pieced together that Jon Snow is actually Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark’s legitimate son:  He was named Aegon Targaryen, sixth of his name, yadda, yadda and  is the actual heir to the Iron Throne.  Jon is not interested in being king and is incredulous that Ned lied to him his entire life.  Things end with Jon declaring that Daenerys is their queen and to claim otherwise is treason.  Sam points out that Jon sacrificed his crown for his people, but would Daenerys do the same now that the tables are turned?  Hmm, looks like Jon has some pondering to do.  Gah, I can’t wait to see what happens next.  Will he tell Dany?  Will somebody else tell her?  Will they gargle Listerine for about a week and take hot Clorox showers (separately!!!) to try and remove the ick?

Up at the Last Hearth, we see Thormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion – huzzah, they survived the fall of the wall at East Watch!  Joined by a few other men, they look around the courtyard – it’s eerily empty with fresh blood stains on the ground, but no dead bodies.  They investigate further and hear footsteps down a corridor.  As their group braces for an attack, we see Dolorous Edd (aka the dude left in charge of Castle Black) and a group of the Night’s Watch turn the corner.  Whew, no White Walkers here.  They’re grateful to see each other, then Edd leads them to another room.  It’s a super grisly sight:  Little Lord Umber’s dead body has been pinned to the wall.  His corpse is surrounded by a spiral symbol made of dismembered body parts.  Beric says it’s a message from the Night King.  Might that message be “I have so many dead people in my army that I can just waste random body parts and still win this war?”  Cause, I gotta say…that’s pretty effective in terms of psych outs.  

It dawns on the men that the Army of Dead is between them and Winterfell.  Fortunately, Edd and his guys brought extra horses down from Castle Black. With some luck, they may be able to get to Winterfell by horseback before the Night King and his crew.  I say the odds are in their favor, especially now that the Night King is embracing his inner Banksy, futzing around and leaving corpse art installations everywhere.  Suddenly, Little Lord Umber’s eyes open – glowing blue – and with a terrifying shriek he flails at the men with a dagger.  Beric raises his flaming sword and sets Snow Zombie Umber on fire – still pinned to the wall. The screams are the stuff of nightmares, as the whole thing – boy and spiral body parts – goes up in flames. Yeesh, that was intense.

Back at Winterfell, a cloaked figure arrives on horseback.  When the rider dismounts, he pushes back his hood and…it’s a bearded Jaime Lannister. He gazes around the yard and does a double take when he sees Bran calmly, creepily sitting across the way, staring at him as though he’s been expecting him.  Of course he has.  They lock eyes and Jaime’s “Oh crap” face, is priceless.  Bran just stares back, expressionless.  Roll credits.

Wowzers!  What a way to start the season!  I think it was all pitch perfect and it was so bittersweet to see the remaining Stark family members back at their home – all of them changed and hardened.

I was never rooting for the Jon and Daenerys relationship, so I’m glad they put the info about Jon’s parents in his hands right away. And I’m super curious to know if and how Dany will find out.  I hope they don’t draw it out forever.  

Now that Jon can fly Rhaegal, are he and Dany going to challenge the Night King to a high stakes winner-takes-all Quidditch match?  Meh, they got 99 problems and a snitch ain’t one.  But it will be interesting to see them both on dragons in a battle - assuming this happens, which of course it has to!

Mostly, I can’t wait to see what happens next between Bran and Jaime.  I feel like Bran is so removed from his past self that he probably won’t even hold anything against Jaime, since getting pushed out of the tower ultimately turned him into what he is now.  I feel like they have more pressing matters to discuss. Also, I want Bran to start doing a lot more greensight time traveling into the past.