This season of Game of Thrones has been primarily stories that surpass where things have gone in the books. The show's writers have had to work from the skeletal outline that George R R Martin gave them, but we don't know how much has been their invention and how much awaits us within the book, The Winds of Winter.
But we'll talk about the episode, The Winds of Winter, and how a whole ton of stuff has happened.
King's Landing
The first third of the episode is maybe the tensest, most upsetting and momentous things to happen in the entire series.
It's the day that Cersei is meant to have her trial at the Great Sept of Balor. We begin with the High Sparrow accepting Loras Tyrell's guilty plea, where they carve a seven-sided star into his forehead and make him swear to join the Faith Militant and relinquish all rights to the Tyrell name and inheritance.
Nearly all of the important King's Landing characters are there: High Sparrow, Margaery, Loras, Kevan Lannister, Mace Tyrell, Lancel Lannister. Notable absences: Tommen, Cersei, Qyburn.
As Tommen prepares to do his kingly duty and observe the trial, he is stopped by Ser Gregor Clegane, who to be fair is actually doing his duty as Kingsguard.
Grand Maester Pycelle is running late. Noting Cersei's absence, Lancel is sent out to see what is going on while Margaery realizes that this is all a trap. Unfortunately for her, she is unable to convince the High Sparrow in time.
Lancel follows one of Qyburn's (formerly Varys') "little birds" down into a tunnel beneath the Sept. He is stabbed once, bleeding on the floor with only three little lights in the distance.
Pycelle winds up in Qyburn's lab, where Qyburn has his little birds (and even the prostitute Pycelle had been sleeping with that morning) stab him repeatedly.
Margaery tries to get out of the Sept, knowing what is coming, but the Faith Militant are not budging (this is the most upsetting aspect of the sequence.)
Lancel drags himself to the lights, finding three candles that are almost burned down into puddles of Wildfire where they have been left. Before he can do anything, "The Substance" ignites.
The Great Sept of Balor, with most of the characters from King's Landing that we know, explodes in a massive burst of green fire.
Cersei looks on from the Red Keep, triumphant, and then has Septa Unella, who had been her "confessor" when she was imprisoned, tortured by Gregor.
But Tommen also looks out over the ruins of the Sept, a third of the city in flames, his wife, uncle, and most of his Small Council all incinerated in the blast. He steps out the window and plunges to his death.
(All this is the Holy Shit)
Later in the episode, as Jaime returns to the city, totally stunned by the ruin that he sees, watches as Cersei is crowned Queen of the Seven Kingdoms - with no one left to oppose her (but also no one left to help her.)
Mereen:
Thankfully, much less that's upsetting here. Daenerys breaks up with Daario, given that she needs to marry in Westeros for alliances and she wants Daario's Second Sons to ensure that the new leadership in the city have stability while they get established. Fun fact: Slaver's Bay is now the Bay of Dragons.
The Twins:
Jaime feasts with Walder Frey to celebrate taking Riverrun (with only one casualty, no less.) Edmure's back in chains, and Frey happily claims victory. Jaime dresses him down as the opportunist shit that he is, but Frey's too smug to take it hard.
Later, after Jaime's gone, Frey is served a pie by an unfamiliar servant girl. When she reveals to him that the pie actually contains one of his sons, she removes her face and reveals that she is in fact Arya Stark, right before she slits his throat.
This death I was ok with.
Old Town:
Sam arrives in Old Town and gets a look at the Citadel's library, which is enormous. Basically we get some levity after the "everyone dies" sequence at the beginning of the episode.
Winterfell:
Jon and Sansa talk about how they need to trust each other. Sansa wishes she had told Jon about the plan with Littlefinger, but he forgives her.
Littlefinger talks to Sansa about his goal - he claims he wants the Iron Throne and Sansa as his Queen. He warns her not to trust Jon, and not to let him take her legacy. She's skeptical.
Then, as they dine with the other Lords of the North, many of whom had not helped in the fight, the Lords proclaim Jon King in the North, despite the fact that Jon had previously said he would defer to Sansa as the true Lady of Winterfell.
Littlefinger and Sansa exchange a look, but honestly, I really, really hope that Sansa isn't going to let the guy who sold her to Ramsay Bolton manipulate her. After all, some other revelations might suggest that Jon's place isn't at Winterfell after all...
North of the Wall:
Benjen/Coldhands drops Meera and Bran off near the wall, explaining that because he's undead, he can't cross the Wall, as it's magical in addition to massive (which just makes sense - we saw those Wights climbing over stuff easily.) Bran has one last communion with a Weirwood Tree and we finally get to see what happened in the Tower of Joy.
As we all suspected, Ned Stark never fathered a bastard. We only hear whispers of what Lyanna had to say to him, but I definitely heard "if he finds out, he'll kill him," which is certainly referring to Robert and Jon, respectively. So Jon is basically confirmed to be the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. One question that remains is whether Rhaegar and Lyanna got married - basically whether Jon is a Targaryen or a Waters. If the former, he's actually the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms (and given that he did die, he's free from his Night's Watch creed.)
So Jon's now King in the North, but he might just be plain King.
There is a lot to process in this episode. I'm really sad that Margaery is dead, as she was a great character, but I also think it's appropriate that Cersei got what she wanted by losing everything she ever loved. I also think that the prophecy that her younger brother will kill her probably means Jaime's going to slay another monarch sitting on the Iron Throne, given that he's younger than her by a minute or something.
So this summary's going to be most of what I have here. I'm still kind of shocked. I have to say that I think the show's writers did a really good job of keeping the ball rolling without the books to guide them. It's not as much of a cliffhanger ending, though. There's definitely a very, very new status quo after tonight, but we've got the next ten months or so to mull over what might be coming next.
But if the explosion of the Sept of Balor was this episode's Jerry Bruckheimer moment, I'm 90% sure that next year's is going to be when the Wall comes down.
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