The Wait Is Over And Winter Is Here

The wait is over and Game of Thrones is back, we survived. Like the early episodes of any season, most of the episode consists of catching the characters up to speed with the audience. Most of the episode is split between two places, King’s Landing and Winterfell.

At Winterfell we see the various power dynamics shifting and forming once Daenerys arrives with her army of the unsullied, Dothraki and her dragons. Tyrion, Varys and Davos are trying to figure out the best to make the alliance work. Sansa due to her trust issues is having a huge problem trusting Daenerys, while Jon is trying to smooth things over. Jon is still continuing his affair with Daenerys and he learns to ride the dragon (pardon the pun). The brotherhood without banners get an ominous, urgent message from the night-king and Jon learns about his lineage from Sam.

At King’s Landing, Euron gets the reward for his loyalty. Cersei learns that the night-king is getting closer. Theon rescues Yara and then goes on his own personal quest.

Filled With Nostalgic Moments

The episode aims to be more nostalgic than revelatory. There is not that much new information or plot progression. Everything is being set up to be accelerated from the next episode. Jon being the emotionally stunted person is not going to react the right to the information he learned. I liked how defensive he got about Sam’s revelation and uses Ned Stark as a pawn and how he would not lie to him. Arya is her aloof self, catching people off-guard. I especially liked her confrontation with The Hound. Bran seems way too over-powered now, maybe it will pay off later. But, at this point, I feel like he knows everything and he is being used as a way to explain away convoluted back-stories.

While the episode was not really great, it’s pretty good. The things I am looking forward to in the episodes to come. What is it that Bran knows and what is he going to do about it? How is Theon going to help the Starks? How is Jamie going to settle his differences with the Starks and Daenerys? What is Cersei plotting? Finally, what is Jon going to do with the earth-shattering secret he just learned about? Let’s wait and see.