*There are spoilers and explicit content discussed in this post*
Stay tuned for the full rankings at the bottom and you can check out the other reviews here. However, based on my intro you may know where this episode ends up on the list.
After ending last week on one of the highest notes in show history, Game of Thrones reverted to their season seven storytelling problems as bad pacing and bad character decision making showed themselves.
The problem with the pacing in this show is that the show is trying to do too much with too little time. Additionally, we have no context in terms of exactly how much time has passed. For example, look at Cersei’s pregnancy as a timetable. She was pregnant last Sunday on top of the wall's of King's Landing looking down on Tyrion, but she was also pregnant last season about half way through the season. It you look at her in this most recent episode she’s not showing at all. In the meantime, Euron has recruited an entire army, Dany and Jon have traveled north and south multiple times, they fought the living dead, and Cersei’s army built dozens of scorpions that are stronger than the previous ones. I wanted to use Cersei’s example as of the overall pacing problems in the show. If you want to have someone move around the world from one scene to another as quickly as possible that’s okay. Just show us time has passed in between scenes so that the world still feels large (unless Cersei is faking being pregnant then that changes my example).
Bad dialogue and poor decision making are the next gripes I had with this episode. Dany acted dumb, Tyrion and Varys proved once again to be useless advisors, Jaime loved Brienne and then didn’t, and the scene with Tyrion, Jaime and Bronn proved to be out of character for everyone. In addition, when Jon is ready to tell Sansa and Arya about his true heritage, the show just cut away from the scene and we’re left to guess what was said and how they reacted. We can kind of guess how it went based on how they act after, but it’s still incredibly disappointing that they didn’t show the scene themselves. After seeing Dany’s reaction to the news, Arya and Sansa’s reactions are the ones I care about most.
Overall, I was very down on the episode this week and I think that the show failed as they artificially attempted to try and even the odds with Dany and Cersei again. The show let me down in many aspect this week. Let’s get into why…
*unlike usual, I want this week to be more of a free-flowing discussion, so this won’t be a scene by scene recap like usual. Instead I want to just go through what worked and didn’t work in this episode. *
Let’s start with the good parts of this episode because I have some big things to say about the bad stuff in this episode. To preview, the good stuff was the acting. The bad stuff was just about everything else.
Good Stuff
First off, the opening scene with the funeral and speech by Jon was a very touching way to start the episode. Jon gave a great speech and once again showed why he’s a great, natural leader. Sansa’s moment with Theon’s corpse when she gave him the direwolf pin was really touching too and a great conclusion to Theon’s character arc. This pin on top of his Ironborn armor reminded us, that a man who struggled to identify as a Stark and a Greyjoy can really be both.
Gendry’s rejection at the rim when he asked out Arya was great too because it really shows you how little he really knows about her. He thinks that she wants to be a lady; we also get a great callback to Season 1 where Arya tells Ned Stark “that’s not me”.
The Winterfell spring break scenes to start the episode were pretty fun to begin the episode, but overall, I felt like the episode was wasting time doing things that they didn’t have time to do. Also, Tyrion needs to think of new drinking games because he consistently plays this one and I think he needs some more if he wants to continually entertain others.
Emilia Clarke’s acting overall in this episode was absolutely incredible. She had to display a wide range of emotions and she perfectly displayed jealousy, anger, sadness, and joy over and over again. Her great acting started in the party scenes as well. She had a look of jealousy on her face as Jon was celebrated for fighting back the Night King when he didn’t really sacrifice anything. Dany on the other hand sacrificed everything for Jon and she was getting none of the rewards for it. She lost half of her army, her most trusted advisor, one dragon, and she learned that she no longer has the strongest claim to the Iron Throne. Now she has to get ready to fight another war with a North who doesn’t support her and would be happy to see her lose because all they want is independence. She perfectly encapsulated jealousy in this scene while doing a great job of trying to hide it every time Jon looked over at her.
This scene also had another great callback to Season 1 as Dany found herself in the same situation Viserys found himself in. He was incredibly jealous at a Dothraki celebration because Dany was being worshiped like a queen while he didn’t get any respect. He ended up speaking out and got his head drenched with boiling gold as a result. Hopefully the future bodes better for Dany.
Continuing this point; when Dany goes to see Jon in his room and begs for him to not tell anyone about the secret, her facial expressions and actions switch slowly from a plea out of love to a command out of anger and frustration. Emilia Clarke really had to do a lot of work to show us what she was thinking since the show rushed to get as much into this episode as possible. We really had to rely on her acting in order to interpret what was happening since not much was being explained to the audience like in previous seasons.
Staying on the acting, every scene with Varys and Tyrion was really well done. Varys did the best he could to plant seeds of doubt in Tyrion’s mind regarding Dany’s ability to rule on the Iron Throne. You could see the doubt in Tyrion’s mind grow as Varys continually pointed out reasons as to why Jon would be a better leader. However, Varys still forgets that Dany has another dragon who is way bigger and stronger than any of her other dragons. I think he doesn’t realize that she can still wipe the floor with Cersei once a battle breaks out next episode. Basically what Varys is doing this whole episode is trying to justify why he can commit treason. Tyrion is being smart and resisting him as much as he possibly can.
I thought that the Brienne and Jaime relationship culminating in them spending the night together was nice and I appreciated that they finally acknowledged their feelings for each other, but I couldn’t help but feel like Jaime knighting her in episode 2 of this season was a more touching moment than them finally hooking up. Also, this scene loses a lot of the meaning it has once Jaime leaves Brienne for Cersei.
The final thing I liked about this episode; Tyrion’s emotional plea to Cersei at the end was really well acted out and Lena Headey’s performance was incredible! She is a monster and Tyrion appealing to her motherly side is ultimately fruitless in the end, but when she looks away from him for a second and her lip sort of quivers, you can see that she still feels the loss of her children and that she would do anything to protect her current unborn child.
Not So Good Stuff
Let’s start with the name of the episode. It’s called The Last of the Starks and I am not really sure why. Jon isn’t a Stark anymore, he made sure that Sansa and Arya knew that, and the episode is much more about Dany than Jon or any of the other Stark children. The episode name just seemed weird and out of place overall.
Speaking of Jon, let’s just cut to the Godswood when Jon tells Arya and Sansa his secret. Or actually when he doesn’t tell them anything because we don’t see it! I can understand from a writing point of view that it is tough to write a scene and disseminate information again that the audience already knows (especially when its delivered for the third time), but I feel like besides Dany and Jon’s reaction to the news, and then Arya and Sansa’s response to Jon’s parentage is the crucial to how the show plays out. It also feels like lazy writing to me. This scene would be a difficult scene to write and shoot because you need two different characters to respond to this breaking news and have one character (Jon) rebuttal while Bran watches or maybe chimes in. I feel like we needed this scene in order to understand why each of the sisters did what they did after. Obviously, Sansa distrusts Dany and she knows (because she learned from Little Finger) that Tyrion will spread that news, so she tells him. Arya doesn’t seem to be phased at all by the news even though she looked to be incredibly concerned in the Godswood before he told them. Because we don’t know how they react in the moment or how Jon responds to that we then don’t know why the sisters then choose to do what they do next. The show is repeating its biggest mistakes from Season 7 by telling and not showing us why something is happening.
Another problem I had, that didn’t ruin the episode, but disappointed me – was Bronn’s interaction with Jaime and Tyrion. This for me, is when the episode began to really fall apart looking back on it (although there were some worse scenes before that). As Jaime and Tyrion sit together drinking and discussing girls, Bronn barges in with the Lannister crossbow and creates an incredibly awkward situation as they two brothers try to talk their way out of death. This scene had literally zero tension for me because it isn’t in Bronn’s character to kill the two brothers who can pay Bronn more than Cersei can. I also don’t understand how Bronn was able to just roll up on Jaime and Tyrion without arousing any sort of suspicion. He has a golden crossbow on him with a golden lion on it which many people in the north would have noticed. This scene all around felt awkward and uncomfortable in the worst ways.
The Bad Stuff
The first bad thing happened at the Winterfell party. Sansa is talking to the Hound about how she’s not a “little bird” anymore and its because of the terrible things that happened to her that she’s the strong woman she is today. I don’t like this notion because it implies that without trauma then you can’t learn a lesson and be strong. I especially disliked this because Sansa’s rape scene from Season 5 was so unnecessary and incredibly controversial in the first place. It seemed disgusting of the writers and hurtful that they would double down and say that this scene was important to them because it made Sansa stronger.
Next let’s get to the battle planning for "The Last War" and the character’s departures from Winterfell. The assessment of the soldier situation and our heroes’ strategy to take out Cersei sounds kind of good when they plan it but then once you think about it for more than five seconds you realize how fundamentally flawed it is. First, Greyworm said that they only lost half of their forces…based on the last episode it looked like they lost way more than that. Secondly, the plan to surround King’s Landing with the Dornish and Greyjoys was horribly planned last time and turned out as poorly as it could have. Why would they try to do something like that again? Also how is their no mention or contribution from Varys that Cersei is planning to ambush them or that she is building better scorpions (unless he’s a plant and purposely withholding information)? His role is to be the master of spies and he has not done that at all this whole season.
Another point I have to make; how does not a single person at the table think about how Cersei may have made strategic moves while the North was fighting the dead. It would be criminal for Cersei not to have done at least a few other moves to give herself an advantage over Dany. Whether it was building more scorpions or taking back different parts of Westeros, the fact that no one even mentioned either possibility is pure negligence on their parts. They know she has the Golden Company and that she wouldn’t just let them waste. Or maybe they don’t know anything, and everyone is just incredibly dumb.
Now for another bad scene. Jon leaving Winterfell felt really out of place, awkward, and out of character for many of our favorites. The only part of this scene I liked was Jon’s goodbye to Tormund. It was emotional and you really could reflect back on how much they have gone through together. From Jon accidentally kneeling for him when they first met, to climbing The Wall with Ygritte, battling on opposing sides at Castle Black, fighting together at the Battle of the Bastards, and then surviving the battle versus the dead; their journey together was really incredible and is just another testament to how great the characters in this show are.
Then Sam and Gilly (who is now pregnant) say bye to Jon. I couldn’t help but think, why does Sam not care anymore about Jon not pressing his claim for the Iron Throne. Just two episodes ago he was adamant that Jon needed to rule instead of Dany. Now he doesn’t seem like he cares and he’s completely over it. Did the show-runners really forget that Sam hates Dany or has Sam just gotten over it? Also are they just going to stay in Winterfell or are they returning to Old Town? The show doesn’t answer that either. Add it to the list of loose ends.
Now we get to the part I hated the second most in the entire episode. How, if you’re Jon, do you not either a) bring ghost with you or b) at least pet him before you go!! Ghost is one of the most important parts of your life. Starks are basically supposed to be one with their direwolf! You can’t just leave him alone like that as you head south. The worst part is that the reason Jon did that is because the show didn’t have the budget to make Jon go hug Ghost.
"Since the direwolves are kind of CG creations, we felt it best to keep it as simple as possible,” Nutter told Huffington Post. “Keeping Ghost off to the side, I thought that played out better. ... Then [Jon] just walks off by himself, he turns to Ghost and has this moment with Ghost that I thought was very, very powerful."
How did you not have the ability to do that?? I don't buy that explanation for a second. You have CGI dragons! It’s like two seconds! Jon would never do that in a million years. He is too close to Ghost and Ghost means too much to him for Jon to just leave without saying goodbye. This scene, in any other episode would be my least favorite scene, however the next one coming up is way worse for so many reasons.
Let me just begin this section by saying that, the scene where Dany loses Rhaegal is emblematic of Game of Thrones over the past two seasons.
Their biggest problem, besides pacing, was been the show-runners making characters act dumb and out of character in order to create artificial tension so that future battles with their foes are more evenly matched.
Dany has been a ruler, a conqueror, and a general for almost five seasons now. She understands how war is fought and she understands that – even though you beat an enemy once – your enemies will continue to fight you and take back their lands until you crush them completely. There is no better lesson in this than what Dany faced in Mereen versus the Sons of the Harpy. She liberated Mereen from the slave masters there and assumed everything would be clear sailing after that. However that could not have been further from the truth as Harpy soldier and rebels killed her men in the streets of Mereen day after day until she finally stopped them. This lesson was clearly one she had to learn before she could rule Westeros because it taught her the valuable lesson that wars are never over. It taught her that she needs to be cautious and be ready for her enemies to ambush her as they did in the fighting pits.
Maybe she didn’t actually learn any of these lessons and they all died with Jorah. I’m sure if you asked the show-runners, they would say that was the reason “she forgot about Euron’s fleet” but I still don’t buy that Dany would be that forgetful and dumb.
On top of all of this, her previous fleet from Season Seven was ambushed by Euron before and she lost basically two allies in one. There’s no way that she’d forget such a devastating blow from last season.
Now onto the scene itself. I am just going to break this scene down by problems I had with it.
Firstly, how does Dany not see Euron’s ships at all? How does she not use her dragons to scout ahead or scout from high above in order to make sure that Cersei didn’t take back Dragonstone while Dany was fighting up north. Like I said, it was criminal of her advisors not to even remotely consider the fact that Cersei would have taken back Dragonstone, when it is basically (pun intended) a stone’s throw away from King’s Landing. Also how did Euron, a C+ version of Captain Jack Sparrow at best, have the accuracy and ability to hit Rhaegal from about a mile away and then miss Dany when she was charging towards their fleet. Also, in terms of Dany being artificially stupid. She saw that Rhaegal could barely fly. Why would she then think its a good idea to bring him into war. Give him some time to rest and recover! That way you can bounce back stronger. The only real justification I could see for why Dany wanted to leave so soon is that she is sick and tired of not being loved in the North so she just needs to leave as soon as she can and complete her destiny.
Also killing Rhaegal created shock for the audience but I feel like the shock was unearned because we had no reason to expect that Euron would be there. While we can interpret and expect that Cersei would be planning for Dany’s return, the show gave us no indication (besides the recruitment of the Golden Company) that Cersei had built new Scorpions or that she had positioned Euron to ambush Dany. I feel like we really needed a scene in this episode where Cersei and Euron either planned to ambush Dany or where it showed them building a better scorpion. We can’t be relying on the After the Episodes to tell us what happened off-screen. We need some line or a quick scene setting up the tragedy ahead of time. The reason that the Red Wedding was so tragic was because it was shocking but earned. They set that up almost two seasons and you could see Robb’s army starting to fall apart before it completely collapsed all in one night. Dany’s dragon just was killed out of nowhere with absolutely no indication that would happen.
Finally, one nitpick about this scene. How can Varys swim? That man has never lifted a finger in his entire life and now we expect him to be able to swim 500 yards to shore? I personally don’t believe it…because the rest of this fantasy show is much more believable than that.
Because of some of the glaring mistakes in this scene we forget about two major developments. Varys starts planting the seeds of doubt in Tyrion’s mind that he needs to think about changing sides and Missandei gets kidnapped!
Now onto the stare down from hundreds of yards away (green eyes on all sides!).
This scene also had tons of problems and let me just get the biggest one out of the way right now. Cersei should have killed every person outside the walls of King’s Landing. It is completely in her character to do so and she had every reason to.
Historically, Game of Thrones has had a tradition of pre-battle meetings between enemies in order to establish the sides and try to see if they can resolve anything at the last second before the bloodshed starts. Ramsay and Jon met before Battle of the Bastards, Dany agreed to meet the masters of Mereen before liberating the city and both sides agreed not to harm each other in these instances so it makes sense that this is what happened here.
However, what has given us any reason to expect Cersei to honor a promise like this and not just off Dany right then and there. She has done more for less. She destroyed the entire Sept with hundreds of people inside in order to kill the High Sparrow and Margery. Her father planned the Red Wedding and she also sent a sell-sword to kill her brothers. Cersei is ruthless and has absolutely no honor when to comes to killing her enemies. That is why it made no sense to me that she didn’t kill Dany, her army, and Drogon all right then and there. They were outnumbered and grounded with nowhere to escape to. Cersei not killing them is out of character and once again is a mistake she would not make.
However, since she doesn’t kill everyone, she gives Tyrion the chance to make the case for peace and the opportunity to avoid bloodshed. He appeals to the only way he can, by telling her she can protect her child. I immediately thought that Euron would be surprised by this comment considering that he just found out she was pregnant, and Tyrion hadn’t spoken to Cersei since the end of Season Seven. The camera didn’t show his reaction at all, but I’d be surprised if this isn’t mentioned again. If it isn’t then this is just lazy writing by the show-runners as they try to avoid another tough moment or they try to cover-up something they clearly screwed up in the writing process.
Finally we get the second big death of the episode. The mountain beheads Missy, she yells "Dracarys", Grey Worm flinches, Dany gets pissed, and we get the set up for a massive showdown next episode between two powerful, queens.
Jaime’s “Addiction to Cersei”
You may have realized I forgot a very important scene involving Jaime and Brienne. Don’t worry I didn’t forget. However, this scene may be more complicated than we realize so I have to wait to see until Jaime’s story plays out before I come to full judgment of Jaime’s return to the mean.
Jaime, in an incredibly surprising move, and total reversal of his character arc, decided to leave Brienne to go back to Cersei! At first, I was incredibly put off by this move because there was no indication that this would happen and we had finally gotten the ultimate personification of Jaime and Brienne’s love in episodes 2 and 4.
When Jaime decides to just dip, we as the audience are left stunned and confused as to why Jaime would do this. We can only guess at this point as to why he would leave the woman he loves for his sister. There have been guesses that he is going to kill Cersei because he can’t be happy in a world where she is still breathing in order to fulfill the Valonqar prophecy. However, we have to remember that the part of the prophecy about Cersei being killed by her little brother is never stated in the show (only the books) so there is no reason for us to think they will bring it up now. I think instead Jaime is going back to kill Euron and then die with his sister because he believes he is unworthy of being loved by anyone else and also that he is “addicted” to Cersei. Maybe he can’t “redefine himself” - as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau said in an interview with Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson (one of the best GOT writers out there).
If Jaime, who was so close to ultimate redemption and happiness, decides to go back and die with the woman who made him miserable, then this would be an unparalleled form of tragedy for a character who we have come to root for after hating in the first episode of the show. That is why I am deciding to reserve judgement on this character decision as a whole. I feel like this is one where it is important for us to see how the rest of this arc plays out over the next two episodes (or one) before I decide how I feel about this specific moment.
Another interesting thing that Nik talks about in the interview is how quickly everything is happening this season and how we don’t have time to watch characters process and make decisions like we did in previous years. Nik in the interview states “’We’re used to having a whole season to get to a point. Now suddenly, a lot of things happen very quickly.’ The actor says he has to fill in a lot of the details for himself.” This is true for the audience too. Clearly the show is moving at a pace that is costly to what made the show so special before. We are left interpreting scenes and guessing rather than knowing and using pieces that the show explicitly gives us to put together a whole puzzle.
Mad Queens and Mad King in GOT
It looks like the show is setting up Dany to finish her character arc as the Mad Queen who becomes the very thing she never wanted to be. The show, especially after this week’s episode, sort of showed an inevitability and tragedy that every character will end up going through. Jaime best exemplified that trait this week but Dany seems to be next in line to do so.
Unfortunately, the circumstances she finds herself in are mainly due to bad advisors and her love for Jon. It is probably incredibly difficult for her to grasp with the idea that she could have won the war in about five seconds when she first arrived in Westeros and now, she has to fight in a battle she may not win. Because of her love for Jon – as I mentioned a billion times now – she has lost almost everything on her journey to the Iron Throne. For those reasons she is becoming mad (as the show would put it). However, I believe it is more complicated than that. I think she is just broken after all of the hardships she is consistently facing because she is fighting with her desire to rule but also her desire to liberate and free those from oppression who cannot help themselves. She is the breaker of chains for a reason.
So Dany finds herself in this situation, but she is not the first mad ruler we have seen on this show.
Joffrey was clearly insane, as was proven by his abuse of Sansa and his order to kill every bastard in King’s Landing. Cersei is even more mad than he was. She blew up the Sept killing hundreds, she tortured the waif, she poisoned Ellaria’s daughter and then made her watch in the dungeons below the Red Keep. On top of that, she allied with Euron who is crazy in his own right. Like Dany, she had her reasons and own unique journey to getting where she is today but let us remember who the original mad ruler on this show is…and I am not talking about the Mad King himself.
Stannis Baratheon is the original Mad King! He literally burned his own daughter at the stake, along with dozens of others along the way. He also used blood magic to kill his enemies, including his own brother. So throughout this week leading up to next episode, let us not get tempted into thinking Dany is mad or crazy because she is a woman. Same with Cersei. Anyone can go crazy with the wrong influences around them. Davos tried to control and temper Stannis but even he couldn’t do it despite his best efforts. Dany’s advisors may face the same problems next week.
Next Week
It looks like Jon finally arrives south and is ready to help Dany, but I think that by the time Jon arrives Dany will have taken care of most of King’s Landing. She is going to be pissed and she is going to be done listening to her advisors (which she should be - her best plans usually come when she just trusts her instincts). She is going to do what she should have done from the beginning and she will “be a dragon”. I think Dany is going to kill as many people as she can and make a statement that this is all Cersei’s fault. If Cersei would have just surrendered, then everyone could have lived. We will also get the most hyped moment in show history next week…Clegane Bowl!!
The Meme of the Week
I don't award this very often, but this one takes the cake:
Episode Rankings
1. The Long Night
2. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
3. Winterfell
4. The Last of the Starks
5.
6.
Overall, I was just frustrated with this episode because major characters acted out of character, the pacing problems were prominently displayed once again, and the show did a poor job of showing/explaining what was going on. The show has a chance to redeem itself next week and we are in for an action-packed episode of TV as one of the best shows ends in two weeks.
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