Game of Thrones Watch: 8.1 "Winterfell"

The Tales after Tolkien Society is pleased to present the resumption of the flagship series!
Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here!

---

8.1 “Winterfell”

Written by Dave Hill

Directed by David Nutter

Well. Here we are again. How have you all been? Nice break? Cool. Let’s get right to it.

So here we are at the beginning of the end. The battle for the Seven Kingdoms is approaching, the Night King is south of the Wall, Winter is here. And humanity is still fighting amongst itself.

As usual, the show has a lot going for it. The new opening sequence is breathtaking and absolutely gorgeous, and it sounds like they might have punched up the main theme just a bit. The cinematography, especially when Jon’s riding Rhaegal, is also amazing. Also, A+ jump scare there at the end. Great work on the director’s part.

Overall, compared to last season, this episode was pretty strong (which I’m aware isn’t saying a lot). It had a lot to do, and it managed to balance everything pretty well, though there were definitely some oddities with pacing and the order they decided to do some things in.

So, let’s dive into the things this episode set up or paid off or got done.

Daenerys and company have arrived in Winterfell, and everyone has to deal with the fact that Jon gave up being King in the North in order to secure her alliance. They also have to deal with the dragons (but not in a fun, Patricia C. Wrede kind of way). Also, since “and company” includes people like Sandor Clegane, Gendry, and Tyrion, there’s a lot of emotional backlog that has to be taken care of.

Daenerys’ arrival shows that the writers still don’t know how to handle communities of women—so they don’t. Arya and Sansa seem to be getting along better, but they don’t appear on screen together at all in this episode. Sansa and Lyanna immediately hate Daenerys—based on what, besides her being an outsider and interloper isn’t made clear, which is dumb because the Starks have a baked-in reason. Aerys Targaryen killed their grandfather and uncle, and they’ve been taught that Rhaegar Targaryen kidnapped and raped their aunt. There’s all sorts of possible bad blood here that doesn’t involve fighting over the attention of a man (Jon). Sure, Bran knows that Rhaegar didn’t kidnap Lyanna, but he doesn’t seem to have told anyone but Sam (unless he did off-screen, like the entire plot against Petyr Baelish last season).

I’m not saying they don’t have reason to be upset with Jon. They do. As Lyanna pointed out, the North put him on a throne, and at the first chance, he abandoned it. I’ve maintained for years that the show version of Jon is not a good leader despite how often we’ve been told he is, and his discussion with Sansa re: “I never wanted to be king” reinforces that. He was given a responsibility, and he abrogated it. For a leader, one’s own wants and needs come second. The only leader on this show who seems to get that is Sansa; she recognizes that unity is necessary and turns down the not-so-subtle suggestion that she be made Queen in the North when Jon’s gone for an extended period. She might want to be queen, or would at least accept being queen, but she doesn’t take it because her wants don’t outweigh the necessity of keeping the North unified.

I mean, for goodness sake, people, winter is here. Bran, for all the issues I have with how his character is being handled, has it right. We don’t have time for any of this.

Now, do I expect that everyone is going to suddenly, miraculously, get along? No, of course not. In fact, there’s one example in this episode of why they can’t and shouldn’t—Daenerys and Sam meeting for the first time. To her credit, Daenerys is open about what happened with Sam’s family (though it’s interesting that nobody seems to wonder or care what happened to his mother and sister now that there’s no male heirs left to take on Horn Hill)—or, openish. She doesn’t, of course, tell him exactly how they died, only that she executed them. I wonder how much more upset he’ll be when (if) he finds out. Considering his immediate reaction is to go straight to Jon and tell him that a) he’s totally related to his new lover; b) she murdered his family; c) she didn’t even consider not being queen; and d) by the way, all of this makes Jon rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms (though that last bit’s kind of a leap and predicated entirely on him being male; technically, Daenerys is daughter of the old king and Jon is grandson, so she comes first).

Although the core point of the show isn’t—or shouldn’t be—who gets the Iron Throne at the end, but how are they going to defeat the White Walkers, if all of this is a setup for Jon to suddenly yoink the Iron Throne out from under Daenerys, who’s been working hard for it this whole time, and Jon barely showing an interest in being anything resembling a leader, I’m going to be pissed. Not that I think Daenerys will be a fantabulous queen, either (not the way Benioff & Weiss & company have written her, for sure), but it would just be typical that the person who’s fought for seven seasons to win the Iron Throne, who’s shown an interest in protecting the kingdom by fighting Winter (pouring one out for Stannis here), gets usurped by some guy who can’t even breathe with his mouth closed.

The Jon dragon-riding scene is beautiful as it stands, but it has some oddities with regard to placement in the episode. I mostly agree with Jeff “BryndenBFish” here (click through for thread):

Alright, so I've said good things about the episode (a pretty good episode all things considered!). Before heading to bed, let me briefly touch on the dragon-riding scene and why it left me a little flat.

— BryndenBFish (@BryndenBFish) April 15, 2019

I think, as Jeff says, the setup could definitely have been better. I do think, though, that if they’d gone that direction, it would have been a very different scene with regard to his relationship with Daenerys, and thus might not have happened at all. Jon’s shit at hiding his feelings, so there’s no way he wouldn’t have been awkward around her. That’s not to say that there isn’t a way to work it so that being able to ride Rhaegal wouldn’t have been proof for him, just that the way Benioff & Weiss et al. have constructed things, it would have been more difficult.

Also, can we appreciate that Jon rides the dragon named after his biological father?

JON SNOW IS RIDING HIS DAD

— Emmett Booth🌹 (@PoorQuentyn) April 15, 2019

Some smaller things to wrap up:

Oh, goody, we’re back to nudity as a backdrop and prostitutes being just so happy to do their jobs. Also, hi, Bronn.

I love how Emilia is allowed to do things with her face in this episode. She’s spent so much time being completely deadpan—first because Daenerys is suffering from trauma at the hands of Viserys and Illyrio, then because . . . I don’t know, conquerors don’t smile?—that it’s nice to see what looks like genuine joy and happiness on her face.

I also like Daenerys’ winter jacket better with the red undertones than with grey. I still don’t like the overall design, but this is better. And on the subject of costuming, I hate that Sansa’s still wearing that collar-and-chain looking thing.

Jon seems to have no understanding that other people have grown and changed and gone through The Shit. He talks to Arya as if she’s still the nine-year-old girl he left behind and gets confused/upset when she’s not that person anymore. He tries to joke with Sam about reading all the books in the Citadel when Sam’s clearly upset. His reaction to Bran is completely understandable, though, because Bran is—well, just wrong.

Speaking of Bran being wrong, I wondered as I watched this episode whether in the books, Bran is supposed to stay in the cave and talk to people through the weirwood trees, and that’s why he ends up kind of wooden here. (I’m not even sorry.)

"I am smiling."

Will someone THROW BRAN STARK OUT A WINDOW???

— ZR/Zabé Ellor (@ZREllor) April 15, 2019

I don’t even know what to do with Cersei’s bit of this episode. Fake!Euron continues to be ridiculous and campy rather than the horrifying force he is in the books. There’s a lot of sexual politics happening with Cersei promising sex, then refusing it, then giving in that I’ll need more time to unpack.

And, again, A+ jump scare with the kid at the end. I might have actually gone “gyaaaah!” out loud.

But can we just, for a second, examine the fact that the first line of the very last season of Game of Thrones, on a backdrop clearly meant to invoke episode one with the marching and the music and everything else, is Tyrion pointing out, again, that Varys is a eunuch. That’s just . . . such a way for them to begin the end. And Tyrion continues to be not just sarcastic, but mean throughout the whole episode, and if we’re still supposed to like him, I have Questions for the writers.

Next week: War! Trials! Politics! Tyrion staring over the walls of Winterfell!

All screenshots taken by me.