For the spoiler-conscious, let's just take a moment to talk about themes. Much of the drama of Game of Thrones and the books from which the show is adapted surrounds characters' motivations and ambitions, and their relative skill in playing the eponymous Game. Ned Stark, our original protagonist, was a classic hero. Honest, noble, generous, principled. He was a good father and a good ruler of his realm. But his unwillingness to play the game ruthlessly cost him his life. Had he seized power and controlled the narrative surrounding the discovery of Joffrey's true parentage and known not to trust Littlefinger so easily, he might have made a real go of it, and perhaps he would have succeeded... in putting Stannis on the throne (oh boy, yeah, that might not have worked so well either.)
The thing is, the very first sequence in the series has nothing to do with court intrigue. Before we know about Winterfell or King's Landing, the Iron Throne, or the history of the Targaryens and Robert's Rebellion, we see a trio of rangers in a snowy landscape who discover a wilding village that has been wiped out, their corpses arranged in a horrible sigil, and soon thereafter, a zombie girl and a much more frightening White Walker comes and kills two of them while the third flees.
The undead have always been a part of the story, even as we are distracted by other conflicts.
A fair amount of stuff happens in this episode. It all more or less happens as we expect it to, but I don't think that's a problem of predictability as much as we've gotten to the point where certain things are inevitable. And just as I think most of us predicted would happen at the end of the second-to-last season from perhaps the first episode of the series, this week we saw the Wall come down (or at least a big chunk of it - big enough for the Army of the Dead to get through.) But let's save that for last.
There are a few plots here that develop, but aside from the aforementioned one, the big ones are in King's Landing and in Winterfell.
In King's Landing, we get a ton of the surviving characters who have either never met each other or haven't been seen together since the first episode of the series. Dany and Jon and their collective entourage come to King's Landing to meet with Cersei and her forces, bringing the Wight with them.
The presentation goes about as well as one could expect: the Wight leaps out of its crate (with some prodding by the Hound) and strikes out at Cersei in particular, and in a moment that is mirrored later in the episode by Littlefinger, she actually shows some shock and alarm. While Jon nearly cocks it up by proclaiming his loyalty to Daenerys, Tyrion goes and has a talk with Cersei that he expects he'll not walk away from.
Things are far from clear between them, but ultimately Cersei agrees to help, sending her army up to help in the fight (which would give her a tactical advantage against the North if the war agains the Dead is won.)
Naturally, though, Cersei is full of shit, sending Euron to pick up the Golden Company, a powerful mercenary army. She's going to take advantage of the distraction to shore up her defenses and fight whichever side wins in the North. It's not that she wasn't disturbed by the wight they brought, but rather than inspiring her to rise to the defense of humanity, this fear has merely activated all her most selfish instincts. She wants to be safe, and she thinks the best way of doing that is staying the hell out of this war.
But Jaime is more thoroughly convinced. And so we see him on his way North, as they originally planned, to aid in the fight.
In Winterfell, Littlefinger talks Sansa into holding a trial. But while he thinks she's putting Arya on trial here, she instead asks him to answer for all the nasty things he's done. Apparently Littlefinger never anticipated Sansa turning on him - he was so convinced that he had driven a wedge between them that he figured he had nothing to worry about. And for that, he got his throat cut in the Great Hall. He taught Sansa too well for his own good.
It's also at Winterfell where Samwell Tarly comes by, on his way to the Wall to see Jon (man has he been out of the loop. Does he even know that Jon died and came back from the dead? I can't remember.) Bran has been able to see Jon's birth, knowing him to be Rhaegar and Lyanna's son, which we sort of knew but this time got spelled out. The information Bran didn't have, though, was that Rhaegar and Lyanna were lawfully wedded, making Jon, real name Aegon Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne.
And just as we get the full confirmation that Jon is actually Daenerys' nephew and has a better claim to the Throne than she, the next scene the two fuck.
Yep! Incest forever!
Now, no fault of theirs - both young, attractive people in isolating positions of power who have gained a great deal of respect for one another and have no reason to believe they're related, and they're staring down the end of the world, and hell, it's not a bad way to secure a really strong alliance. But now the audience (as well as Bran and Sam) knows that this is a little too close on the family tree for comfort. Sure, the Targaryens used to marry siblings all the time, but that wasn't exactly a good thing, was it?
But ultimately, as nice as it is to see our two most heroic characters getting a little action in blissful ignorance of how gross it is, the ultimate problem is now center-stage.
Beric and Tormund are atop the Wall at Eastwatch when the dead begin to march on it. That's pretty scary in and of itself, but then the Night King rides in on a newly zombified Viserion (or White Walker-ized. While the zombie girl in the first episode had the blue eyes, subsequent wights we've seen have not had the blue eyes of the White Walkers. Still, definitely undead, given that he was definitely dead.) Viserion breathes his new blue-flame breath (not sure if it's some kind of frostfire thing or if it's just super-oxygenated like the fire on a gas range) right into the Wall, blasting through it in about five passes as the Wall crashes down on top of Eastwatch.
As far as I can tell, Beric and Tormund were on the part of the Wall that remained, leading west to, among other places, Castle Black. So they might live to give the dire news. But the dead are now marching into the North, and they've got an undead dragon with them.
So let's look at our pieces:
Dany and Jon and company are heading to White Harbor, to eventually begin their preparations at Winterfell (where they might learn something that will make their romantic ship time as less pleasant memory - unless they just lean into it.) They'll meet up with Sansa/Arya/Bran, who are now at least solid with each other. But with the North now flooding with zombies, this isn't a great place to be.
Actually, nearly every character is heading to the North. It'll be quicker to list who isn't.
Cersei is staying in King's Landing, not about to overextend herself. Qyburn and the Mountain are sticking with her. Jaime is not, and is instead heading North to help. (Not sure where Bronn or Podrick are headed.)
Euron said he was fleeing to the Iron Islands (as the zombies don't seem to be able to swim. Maybe everyone can just move to Essos?) In fact, he's going to Essos to ferry the Golden Company to Westeros so that they can shore up Cersei's defenses.
Theon has decided he has to redeem himself and rescue Yara, though if they're sailing to Pyke, they won't find Euron there (though that might actually give them an advantage.)
And I think that's actually it. Unless they want us to check in with Daario in Mereen (I doubt it) we've basically got every character accounted for, and the vast majority are heading to the North or are there already.
This episode brought in more narrative cohesion than we've seen on this show ever before. Did it all work? Well... maybe not perfectly, but we always knew the last season would be the war agains the Ice Zombies, and by the Lord of Light, that's what we're getting.
No comments:
Post a Comment