Every week for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, three Atlantic staffers will be discussing new episodes of the HBO drama. Because no screeners were made available to critics in advance this year, we’ll be posting our thoughts in installments.
Spencer Kornhaber: Game of Thrones’s ending apparently has put David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in the wistful mindset of a high-school yearbook editor. How else to explain this premiere’s doling out of superlatives? Jon Snow called the late Ned Stark the “most honorable” man he ever met, which is awkward because Sam was telling him Ned had lied all his life. Euron Greyjoy was named “most arrogant” by Cersei in the sole compliment she could muster after the Greyjoy PUA asked for post-coital feedback. Arya titled Sansa “the “smartest person,” and Sansa in turn said Tyrion was formerly the cleverest person she ever knew. (He lost his honorific by believing a promise from Cersei Lannister, the least trustworthy person in this realm and any other.)
This premiere may not rack up many superlatives when all the Thrones episodes are accounted for, though. After a two-year gap and a dragon’s-feast worth of hype, fans probably wanted grand plot movements. Instead, they got a buffet of inevitabilities (Daenerys arriving in Winterfell; Jon learning of his parentage), some spooky-but-short set pieces (the Seal Team Six–like rescue of Yara; the pinwheel of severed arms), and one long sequence of lighthearted dragon-flying that evoked Harry Potter seeking a Snitch. Yet I’d argue this was the best Thrones episode in a long time. After the disastrous Season 7 channel-surfed between far-flung battlefields and contrived confrontations, Thrones looks to have re-centered itself in human relationships and a concrete timespace.
The shift was announced in the new title sequence, which not only relit the Seven Kingdoms in a wintery palette but hinted at a tweaked perspective. With the locations winnowed down to just the decimated Wall, Winterfell, and King’s Landing, the camera swooped and pried into crypts and throne rooms. It’s okay to gasp: After seven years, Thrones’s opening credits could legitimately be called iconic, and to tinker so drastically is nearly in the lineage of the show’s actual plot twists. I found myself thrilled by getting to go inside the cuckoo clock, but mostly I was reassured by the underlying implication. After so many years of sprawl, Thrones now wants to go deep, not wide.
Which means that details matter more than ever. The kid scampering up a tree at the start of the hour made for a clear callback to Bran’s climbing in the series premiere (more yearbook-nostalgia feels!). But that callback also deepened the episode-closing shot of Bran locking eyes with Jaime Lannister, the man who pushed him out a window all those years ago. Rounding out the motif of “watch out, little boy” was young Ned Umber, who requested wagons for his people and then was sickeningly crucified by the undead. All of which felt like omens about Bran’s fate. When he told Jon he’s “almost” a man, he probably was talking about his humanity. But he also, despite having the mind of an ancient being (and possibly The Night King?), is still just a kid.
That’s part of why it felt so shockingly heartwarming to see Jon plant a gentle kiss on the forehead of his long-lost brother early in the episode. This was the first in a line of tender moments between characters, many of whom were reunited for the first time in a long time. Jon and Arya shared a hearty hug; Jon and Sam were emotional about each other’s presence even before Sam dropped his 23andMe bombshell; Yara delivered Theon an affectionate skullcrack. Most memorable were Arya’s encounters at the blacksmith’s. First, the Hound called her “a cold little bitch” in a way that sounded like a compliment. Then, she met up with Gendry for an unmistakable bout of goth-teen flirting, confirming the important fan theory that she’s been thinking about his abs since season two.
Indeed, romance and sex ran throughout the episode. In what felt like another throwback to the show’s early days, Bronn partook of a gratuitous prostitute confab. After some of the least sentimental wooing imaginable, Euron coupled with Cersei. At Winterfell, Varys, Tyrion, and Davos played yentas and schemed to pair up Jon and Daenerys. Those two, of course, have been secretly dating since their cruise to White Harbor. The scene of their dual dragon riding surely served the plot purpose of setting up future dogfighting sequences, but more importantly it was the kind of glorious ham upon which any good screen romance must be built. Jon got a better version with Ygritte on top of the Wall, but still, there are signs of life to this intra-Targaryen couple. If there weren’t, why would Drogon be staring?
Now: As Jon made like Atreyu on Falkor, audience members may well have made like Bran and screamed at their screens, “we don’t have time for this!” But the best moments of Thrones—see: all the big deaths—have been enabled by the sturdiness of the connections between characters. Focusing on relationship ahead of what’s sure to be a bloody, fiery, snowy, casualty-laden slog is smart. It’s only though caring about these knights and lords as human beings that we might get a jolt when Bronn is told to assassinate his buddies Tyrion and Jaime. We need to believe in Jonaerys Snogaryen to be wrenched by Jon’s face when informed of his parentage, which is both a complication for his political mission and his romantic life. “Did you bend the knee to save the North, or because you love her?” Sansa asked him, but the answer of course can be both. Or at least, that might be what Jon hopes.
I’ll leave you two to unpack the loyalty drama between Jon, Sansa, and the lords of Winterfell. Bonus points for figuring out which zodiac sign or spin-class logo the White Walkers assembled out of arms on that wall.
We will update this story with entries from David Sims and Lenika Cruz.
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