Game of Thrones, Season 8 Finale: The Bitter End

Grief is the price we pay to love. And what show were we more infatuated with as a culture than Game of Thrones? So now that it’s dead, we’re mourning – there’s no other way to describe the anguish and betrayal and disappointment. We’re not only mourning the death of the quality of GOT as a work of art (it has declined in terms of plausibility with respect to space-time as well as the loss of interiority for many of our protagonists): we’re mourning an intellectual property that captivated us for a decade (longer if you read the books), that we invested many hours of our time and energy in. So now that it’s over and it didn’t disappoint to disappoint, it feels like a sucker punch, but really – they’ve been subtly warning us about this outcome all along. We just didn’t want to listen.

On an existential level we use fantasy as a genre to escape the often harsh, boring reality that is modern human existence. Sure, tragic things happen in fantasy/sci fi properties, but in fiction, we can arrange for evil to be easily identified and defeated at the end of the story – which isn’t at all how evil operates in real life. The main characters can survive and walk off happily into the sunset – the divorce rate in America proves the opposite is true more frequently than not. Fantasy is utilized to be cathartic as much as it’s used to thrill and entertain – but clearly, Game of Thrones was not intended to fit into that mold. GOT is an epic fantasy that used magic and divine prophecies as misdirects, red herrings – it is a story that had few satisfying conclusions for its principle characters and the underlying hints at fate and divine intervention turned out to be irrelevant. In other words – Game of Thrones is a fantasy that, though it rolled with dragons and smoke monster babies and resurrections, operated with real life software. How often does the best person for a leadership role actually get the job? How often do faithful people pray and genuinely believe only to have bad things happen to them again and again? How often does it seem like someone is meant for greatness but ultimately they flame out before they can get their name in the history books? ALL THE DAMN TIME. So what we’re really mad at is the fact that George R.R. Martin (Benioff and Weiss didn’t write the ending, after all – they just condensed/altered the route to get there) “broke the wheel” of the paradigm of the fantasy genre – he denied us our righteous, happy ending. He denied us the cosmic importance we sought for the Starks and Targaryens. He created an amazing story with compelling characters and then stopped short; the equivalent to making Star Wars beginning at Phantom Menace only to end it on The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps the ending in the books will feel more organic and satisfying, with more attention/credence paid to the supernatural elements– but that gives me zero comfort.

Anyway, lemme break it down.

First of all, I started crying during the opening credits because my husband remarked that this would be the last time we ever got to hear the theme song “live” and it made me super emo. Loved that King's Landing was accordingly demolished and missing any sigils behind the Iron Throne to indicate who would ultimately (not) be occupying it.

The first person we see is Tyrion, who is wandering through the silent streets, Jon and Davos not too far behind. They pass a few people still living, completely shell-shocked, but mostly they pass charred bodies and mutilated corpses as ash rains down around them. Tyrion wants to head into the Red Keep alone, which alarms Jon, who is increasingly suspicious of Grey Worm and the Unsullied (rightfully so). He offers him men to accompany him, but Tyrion declines – he’s going to see if Jaime and Cersei escaped, after all – slightly treasonous behavior that he’d rather not have an audience for. He gets to the tunnels and finds the entrance caved in – except for a narrow gap in the bricks at the top. How convenient – a path only a dwarf or a child might be able to squeeze through.

He also super quickly and easily finds what he was hoping not to – the Lannisters’ corpses lightly buried under fallen bricks, signaled by the sight of Jaime’s gold hand. Tyrion has a good cry because he is now the final Lannister in Westeros and his rescue attempt was for naught.

Meanwhile, Jon and Davos are making their way to the Keep, and are dismayed to find Grey Worm and his crew slaughtering the defeated Lannister soldiers. Jon lays hands on Grey Worm in an attempt to stall the war crimes – nearly resulting in a full on brawl between the Northmen and the Unsullied right there in the street. Grey Worm gives the Nuremberg Defense (he’s only following orders), and Davos diffuses the situation by pushing Jon to address the policy with Daenerys directly.

The surviving edifice of the Keep is draped in a Targaryen banner, which reminded me of the many swastikas that were hung over the sides of bombed out buildings across Europe during WW2 – I think this was intentional. This whole sequence as Jon goes to find Dany is visually stunning – some of the best film making (in a technical sense) of this season. Jon is staring up at the banner – we along with him – so he doesn’t notice that the pile of ash-covered rubble in front of the building isn’t rubble at all – it’s a sleepy Drogon. The dragon sits up and shakes off the ash and glares at Jon, but allows him to walk into the building before taking to the air, to pick up his Mom - this makes no sense guys, where is Daenerys if Drogon is down here?

Jon makes his way past the courtyard full of celebratory Dothraki – not seeing Arya as she stalks the gathering from the side. Arya must have doubled back after riding the horse away from ground zero at the end of the previous episode– it’s not out of character, she would have wanted to at least see what was up with Dany after having multiple buildings almost dropped on her. Drogon swoops in; I'm still not sure if Dany was making a grand entrance or if he was just flying in alone coincidentally. Either way, Jon climbs the stairs to see Daenerys approaching, giving us the coolest shot on the show ever of Drogon stretching his wings way behind Dany, but the angle makes it seem as though Dany has sprouted her very own dragon wings (I’m a sucker for visual symbolism – the implication is obvious, I hope). 
 

Somehow (because the laws of spacetime don’t exist anymore) Grey Worm beat John up to the platform, preventing him from confronting her, so he slinks off to the side so she can make her victory speech to her army.

She thanks the Dothraki for fulfilling their promise to destroy her enemies – recycling her rallying speech after she burned the Khals (which was recycled from Drogo in his conqueror's speech in Season 1). She praises the Unsullied for their service, congratulating them that though they were raised as slaves they were now themselves ‘liberators’ who freed a nation from a tyrant, and who will go on to keep liberating oppressed peoples the world over. That’s right folks – Dany is no longer content to control the lands bordering the Bay of Dragons (formerly Slaver’s Bay) and the Seven Kingdoms, it seems – once King's Landing is squared away they will be liberating the rest of the known world. She has fully bought into her own white savior bullshit, fully embraced the family motto of ‘fire and blood;’ Jon and Arya look on in disgust as Daenerys’ followers celebrate.

About now Tyrion comes up from behind Dany, who immediately brings up the fact that he freed Jaime against her wishes. “Yeah, but you burned a city full of women and children,” he responds. He chucks his Hand pin down the steps, which makes the Unsullied cease their enthusiastic spear tapping. She has Grey Worm arrest Tyrion for treason, and then she storms off before Jon can get a word in.

Arya sneaks up on Jon, who is understandably surprised to see her. “I came to kill Cersei…but your queen got to her first,” she deadpans. “She’s everyone’s queen now,” Jon sulks. Arya seems like she would have seriously considered assassinating Dany, but it’s clearly something that would hurt Jon, so she leaves Dany’s fate in his hands. Besides – she killed the Night King, it would be criminal to give her Dany too.

Jon goes to visit Tyrion in his cell – which is basically just a spacious storage room since the dungeons are caved in, so this is def the nicest place Tyrion has ever been held captive. The conversation that takes place is a rumination on the roles love and duty play in life, but it’s really just Tyrion asking Jon to put Dany down like a rabid dog for the good of the realm. “Love is the death of duty,” Jon says at one point, which is devastatingly poetic – so obviously Jon didn’t come up with it and Tyrion calls him out. Actually, it was Maester Aemon from the Night’s Watch – who Jon has realized by now was his great-great uncle. “Sometimes duty is the death of love,” Tyrion counters. This was one of the more meta moments ever in the show; Tyrion has commentary about Daenerys that makes her brutal transition into a dictator seem less out of character. He rambles off all of her strategic wins against the patriarchy – destroying Slaver’s Bay, killing the nobles in Mereen, killing the Khals in Vaes Dothrak – and reminds us that at each of these turns, we cheered her on and rooted for her victory. She began to see herself as a grand hero in the story of the world – the underdog, the person destined to “break the wheel” and change the world for the better. So when she was sitting on the defeated walls of Kings Landing, considering the options in front of her (mercy for/total annihilation of the remaining enemy), remembering all of the loved ones that had been taken from her to get to that point and the threats to her legitimacy as a ruler – she abandoned mercy and chose violence, much like the tyrant that proceeded her. Daenerys Targaryen outdid Anakin Skywalker in his own story – a child of prophecy destined to bring balance to their worlds, who began with noble intentions and was corrupted into becoming the very monster they were fighting to eradicate. As per The Dark Knight: "you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Jon doesn’t want to kill Dany – on some level, he still loves her. But he knows that if she’s allowed to ascend to the Throne, anyone who challenges her authority will be put to death, and the Seven Kingdoms will effectively become a tyrannical dictatorship that would make Cersei Lannister’s reign seem like a buffet of rainbows and unicorns. Even if he doesn’t want the Iron Throne for himself – Tyrion insists that it would be folly to let Dany have it: they should have listened to Varys. Jon leaves the room, his inner conflict evident.

We return to Dany, who finally made her way up to the throne room (well, what’s left of it). The scene is filmed and scored as if we’re watching a religious moment – and for Daenerys, who has dreamed of this moment for her entire life, it kind of is. This is her Promised Land - she looks at the Iron Throne with awe and if it weren’t for the fact that she just murdered thousands of innocent people on her way up there, I would have shared her reverie. Her walk is a shot for shot remake of her vision from the House of Undying, which was a callback that I appreciated for symmetry's sake but since prophecy ultimately means dick, it's sort of annoying. She lightly touches the arm of the throne, on a rounded pommel of a sword – when Jon appears in the doorway behind her, breaking the spell. His arrival was framed in the way you would show the killer appear over the Last Girl’s shoulder in a slasher flick – another great bit of cinematography.

She doesn’t seem unhappy to see Jon – she tells him that when she was a little girl, she had no concept of what 1000 swords looked like because she couldn’t even count to 20. She envisioned a mountain of metal - this is a direct reference to how the throne is actually described in the books - it's probably 4 times as tall than the one we're familiar with, complete with makeshift steps. Just some inane smalltalk – no outward reflection of the fact that she just massacred a city. 

Jon brings up that Grey Worm was executing the conquered Lannisters and asks if it was true that he was carrying out her orders. She makes the same frowny face that every mid-level bureaucrat has made when justifying a cruel policy to their employees and confirms – “we can’t get by on small mercies.” She then launches into a monologue ripped right from the Delusional Dictator’s Handbook – that her war crime was an act of mercy – that she had righteously vanquished a tyrant who used innocents as a shield against her, that Jon just can’t conceive of the utopia only she can build because it hasn’t ever existed before – like when she was a child and couldn’t count past 20 to picture the Iron Throne.

Again, the Darth Vadar parallels are too prevalent to ignore – she asks Jon to rule the world with her, like Vadar asked Luke to rule the galaxy at his side. But rather than reject his evil relative’s offer, fleeing to fight another day like Luke Skywalker did – Jon embraces Dany and tells her she’ll “always be my Queen” – and then stabs her in the heart.

This is the second time Jon Snow has held the woman he loved as she died as a result of his necessary betrayal, except he didn’t actually kill Ygritte. He killed Dany in a way that mirrored his own murder – stabbed face-to-face by people he knew and trusted. Dany never gets a chance to utter a final word – her confusion outweighing whatever anger she must have felt.

He cradles Dany for a few minutes, remaining with her even as Drogon sweeps into the room, alerted to his mother’s death either through instinct or the severed magical connection that linked the pair. My waterworks kicked in again at this part as he nudges Dany like a dog would, trying to wake her. Drogon is now entirely alone in the world – the last of his kind, his human companion dead. So it makes little sense to me, considering Jon could have been the only conceivable person to murder Dany, that Drogon didn’t roast him on the spot. Rather, in his rage Drogon unleashes hellfire on the Iron Throne itself, completely melting it. Is it because Jon is also a Targaryen and whatever magic they have over dragons prevented Drogon from turning on him? Or because Dany had a blade through her chest and the throne was made out of blades and it triggered him? It’s probably just that Jon has plot armor because I don't think Drogon is sentient enough to parse out it was really the mania of seeking the Throne that got Dany killed. Anyway, Drogon picks up Dany’s body and glares hatefully at Jon Snow one last time before launching himself into the sky with her, never to be seen again.

There you have it – after 8 seasons and countless maneuvers, no one takes the Iron Throne, because it has been destroyed. Anti-climactic, much?

Oh wait, there’s more! We do not get to see the immediate aftermath of Dany’s death – the next person we see is Tyrion, who has been imprisoned for at least a month or two’s worth of beard growth. Grey Worm marches Tyrion to a familiar place – the Dragon Pit outside the city, where the parlay took place at the end of season 7. Awaiting him are all of the other main characters – Bran, Arya, Sansa, Brienne, Davos, Gendry, Sam, Yara Greyjoy, as well as some of the secondary characters – Robyn Aryn, Lord Royce, Edmure Tully (Catelyn Stark’s brother, the groom at the Red Wedding). There are other lords from the Seven Kingdoms present that aren’t important enough to be given official names but are clearly important enough to merit an invite to these peace talks.

Apparently this meeting is taking place to determine the release/sentencing of Tyrion and Jon Snow – who was imprisoned for Dany’s murder by the Unsullied – and to decide who actually gets to claim the title of Regent of the Seven Realms. NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY GODDAMN SENSE! So we’re lead to believe that the Unsullied and the Dothraki have been occupying King’s Landing for about 2 months, holding Jon hostage to keep the Northern army from attacking them. Sansa and Arya want Jon released so he can return to Winterfell, but Grey Worm refuses because he murdered their Queen. And he sure as shit won’t be letting Jon claim the throne, even though as the last Targaryen he is entitled to it in accordance with dynastic succession. Davos offers Grey Worm the Riverlands as a peace offering to retreat to with his people since the former citizens have all been wiped out there. I’m sorry, but who the fuck is Grey Worm to be making demands!? I guess we’re also supposed to assume that Grey Worm still has the allegiance of the Ironborn and the Dornish – how else would they be getting supplies in to the city, if it’s surrounded on land by the Northmen?

Good ol’ Samwell Tarly suggests that the people should elect the next ruler of Westeros – and is promptly laughed off the stage. “Why don’t we give my horse a vote as well?!” Lord Royce cracks. Democracy isn’t a laughing matter but like Daenerys told Jon – these people have no concept of a world outside of feudal monarchy – it’s been that way for 10,000 documented years. Now that some of the tension was broken, an uncomfortable silence followed. I’m not sure there was a greater Sansa moment than when she shut down her uncle for attempting to nominate himself King. “Sit down, Uncle.” Lady Olenna would be proud.

Tyrion is given the space to pontificate about what should happen – though as Grey Worm rightfully pointed out – why is a treasonous king-maker and current prisoner the go-to person for political advice? Tyrion has made more tactical errors than anyone else at this powwow but they still all want his input!?

His opinion is that the crown should go to the most intriguing person at the gathering: *drum roll* Bran Stark should be the next King of Westeros. WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. Bran “I’m going to go now” Stark!? Vacant-eyed supernatural encyclopedia Brandon Stark!?!?!? Apparently the annoying qualities Bran has picked up as the Three-Eyed Raven have been making him uniquely suited to the role: he is essentially incorruptible because he isn’t strictly human – by his own words he no longer “wants” - not political power or money or anything else. He is incapable of greed or avarice. Who better to lead them all than a dispassionate guy who literally knows everything there is to know about their history upon request and is guaranteed to not abuse his power? The choice is rational, albeit wildly dissatisfying for the audience. Tyrion insists this plan will fulfill Dany’s dream of “breaking the wheel” of oppression and is what is best for the people.

The first person to object is – no surprise here – Sansa Stark. “My brother’s dick doesn’t work so he can’t have heirs,” she blurts. “Irrelevant!” Tyrion replies – “the ruler should be chosen by a committee comprised of aristocrats from now on, so Bran’s inability to procreate is a non-issue!” Her next argument should have been that the previous Three-Eyed Raven was like, several hundred years old when he died but she declined to continue. Basically everyone shrugs and agrees to elect Bran – except for Sansa. Again. “The North must remain an independent kingdom,” she whines. Well, Bran doesn’t give a shit about things like sovereignty – he concedes to be ruler of the Six Kingdoms. He immediately chooses Tyrion to be his Hand – which Grey Worm objects to, perceiving the appointment as being a reward for his misjudgments, and Tyrion objects for the same reason. “It’s not a reward – it’s a punishment, because now he’ll have to spend the rest of his life making up for his mistakes,” Bran says. Perspective is a bitch, isn’t it? Well, Bran’s Jedi mind trick actually works – Tyrion agrees to serve as Bran’s Hand, and it is agreed that Jon Snow will be sent North to the Wall the reinstate the Night’s Watch – which makes ZERO SENSE because there is no White Walker/Wildling threat to protect the realm from. Tyrion justifies the decision by telling Jon that the world will still need a place to send its bastards and broken men, which… I mean, if we’re breaking the wheel, shouldn’t we be doing away with the notion of illegitimacy and establishing prisons for criminals and all that?

Either way, Jon is released so he can say farewell to his siblings – Sansa, the usurper of throne of the North, Bran the Broken, first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men blah blah blah (there have been like 7346734874 Brandon Starks throughout history so all the flattering nicknames must have been taken already - I would have gone with 'Bran the Weird'), and Arya, who is so bored now that she has no names on her Kill List that she’s decided to pull a Frodo Baggins and leave her homeland forever in search of whatever lies west of Westeros (she expressed interest in this as early as season 6, when she talks about it with Lady Crane in Braavos).

The Unsullied and Dothraki leave Westeros as part of their treaty – setting sail for Naath, Missandei’s place of birth, presumably to liberate the slaves there. Sure, why not, let the war criminals be someone else’s problem!

We watch the very first Small Council meeting take place under Bran’s reign – this is the only part of the episode that I actually smiled. So Bronn is now the Master of Coin and the Lord of High Garden – having gotten his fuckin’ castle, the Crown’s debts to him are paid. Ser Davos must have been promoted to Lord of somewhere; he is now Master of Ships, hoping to bum some coin off Bronn to rebuild the navy and the ports of Blackwater Bay. He’s also the Master of Grammar, as per Bronn. That’s character growth – Davos couldn’t even read a year ago, and now he’s correcting other people’s speech! Can he be my grandpa, please? Anyway – Sam shows up in Archmaester robes, which I guess means he’s going back to Maester school? What happens to Gilly and their unborn child? Is Lil Sam the defacto Lord of Horn Hill? This loose end bothered the shit out of me! He presents Tyrion with Maester Ebrose’s book recounting the events following King Robert’s death – titled “the Song of Ice and Fire,” because we needed another allusion to Tolkien before the show ended. Brienne enters the room in her Lord Commander of the King’s Guard finery with King Bran, who is being rolled in by Pod – also in King’s Guard armor! Yay, Podrick is a knight of the realm!

Tyrion tries to be official like about the tasks at hand but Bran isn’t really interested – he asks if Drogon has been found yet. When the answer is no, he decides to leave the hard work to the Council so he can go dragon hunting in his head – he really is upper management material!

Part of Brienne’s new job as the Commander of the King’s Guard is to fill in the details of the big book of Knights – so it’s her responsibility to finish Jamie Lannister’s section, effectively determining how he will be remembered by future generations. Rather than being petty and scribbling “fuckboy extraordinaire” like I would have, she writes about all of the redeeming things Jamie did, saying of his ultimate rejection of a future without Cersei: “Died protecting his queen.” Brienne is a woman of honor, and treats Jaime in absentia with a level of respect that someone with such a complicated story doesn’t normally receive in the annals of history. This only endeared me more to her – Jaime pissed me off, but Brienne is still a class act.

We cycle between the conclusion of Arya, Sansa, and Jon’s story arcs. Arya is on a ship with Stark sails, happy to be on an adventure in uncharted territory. Sansa gets the crown she always wanted, and is hailed as Queen of the North. And Jon meets up with Tormund and the Wildlings up at Castle Black, where he is reunited with Ghost. This is the only completely satisfying event for me in the entire episode, to be honest. Such a good, loyal boy!

Jon opts to head North beyond the Wall to go ranging with the Wildlings rather than be Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch all alone for a while. This is the closest we get to watching anyone ride off into the sunset; our remaining Starks are basically ruling Westeros across 3 terrirories, 4 if you count wherever Arya lands if they don't die at sea.

Obviously, this wasn’t what any sane viewer wanted to happen. Sansa and Tyrion got the best outcomes as far as earning what they wound up with, in my opinion. Sam, Davos, Bronn, Brienne, and Pod all fared well too – not sure Bronn really deserves his job, but he has vision at least – bailouts for the brothel industry! The rest are most assuredly qualified for their new jobs. Bran stole the throne without ever once expressing an interest for it, which is so flippin’ frustrating. I don’t even dislike Bran – it just feels like a commentary on white privilege or something (as in – white people be born to privilege and wind up successful through little to no effort simply by being descended from important or influential people). Was the wheel even “broken” if a Westerosi nobleman wound up in charge again?

Dany was obviously the most tragic loss in the entire story – but I have to say, rushed though it felt in the last season to 180 on her principles – she’s the best “fall from grace” character since Darth Vadar in popular culture. In fact, because the prequels dealing with Anakin Skywalker’s path to the dark side were so fucking awful, Dany’s transition is the more convincing and compelling one. I’m not going to go out and burn the Daenerys stuff I own, anyway. She deserved better but I'll make do with what we got.

Jon’s ending was probably the most upsetting for me, if only because there were so many loose ends and red herrings involved in getting there. His whole secret identity and the huge shock of it was ultimately meaningless- whatever Varys was trying to pull off in installing Jon on the Iron Throne was erroneous because he was kicked out of the running for killing Dany. The whole Azor Ahai prophecy was dropped like a hot potato – in the books it will probably be addressed in more depth, but on the show it basically passed from public consciousness with the death of Melisandre. Why was Jon brought back if not to kill Dany and restore balance to the realm? Shouldn’t he have died soon after fulfilling his role, like Beric Dondarrion did? Is he alive because he still has a purpose that we just aren’t going to see pan out?

Cersei Lannister was wrong about one final thing, then. You don’t necessarily have to win or die playing the game of thrones – Bran proves you can win without directly playing, Dany proves you can win and lose by sacrificing your humanity, and Jon proves you can lose doing the right thing and survive. These are unfair and inescapable truths of human existence – truths we weren’t seeking to be reminded of as we watched a show featuring witches and dragons and ice zombies to help us forget about the freefall our society has been in over the course of the last 8 years.

I’m going to try not to be bitter when I recall the time I dedicated to this show. More often than not, it thrilled and entertained, even if it was full of upsetting and frustrating developments. C’est la vie, right? Or more appropriately: valar morghulis.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 5: For Whom The Bell Tolls

“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.” Ramsey Bolton (then Snow) once said this to Theon Greyjoy in the midst of torture. It was all I could use as a grim anchor as I reeled from last night’s episode, in which we watched Daenerys Targaryen lose her mind and raze the city of King’s Landing, destroying the Red Keep and the majority of the local civilians with it - arise, Mad Queen Dany.

I think what hurts the most is the fact that we’ve essentially grown up with Dany, following her assent with admiration and sympathy: she has overcome countless obstacles, liberated the slaves of half a continent, given signs that she would live up to her goal of “breaking the wheel” of what we might call tyrannical patriarchy – we’ve been rooting for her to defeat Cersei Lannister and take back the Iron Throne for years now. I didn’t really care for Dany until around Season 3, but she definitely grew on me (she’s no Arya or Jon Snow, but I respected her at least). So this whole descent into madness, though implied throughout the show (see: crucifying the masters of Mereen, burning the Khals in Vaes Dothrak, burning Slaver’s Bay, burning the Tarly men for refusing to bend the knee – picking up on a trend here?), feels like ham-fisted character assassination.

The show handled this transition with all the grace and nuance of a brick to the face, but unfortunately I think this was GRRM’s intention for Dany all along. Her trajectory as a protagonist has had sort of an inverse relationship to Jaime Lannister’s – while Jaime started out as a selfish monster, he’s steadily been redeeming himself one moral act at a time (until his redemption arc was blown up like a roadside IED at the end of the episode – more on that later); Dany has slowly been morphing into the very monster she’s been working towards exterminating. Daenerys’ journey has gone the way it has with the purpose of showing us how people with good intentions can be corrupted – by power, by grief, by love – into becoming the very thing they were seeking to avoid. She’s basically the Darth Vader of GOT now, which fucking sucks. Because we really didn’t get the opportunity to watch her convincingly unravel, her empathy and purpose chiseled away by all that’s happened to her, she’s basically been reduced to the trope of the hysterical woman – like Medea or Clytemnestra, resorting to murder out of revenge and spite.

The precise moment Dany lost her shit.

That being said, let’s get back to the actual content of the episode, which begins with Varys scribbling treason notes to be sent to leaders all over Westeros, I would guess. I bet Robyn Aryn and Lord Royce in the Vale got one, maybe the dude in Dorn – probably just enough to make trouble in the last episode. A young serving girl comes to tell Varys that Dany won’t eat, and she expresses that she’s nervous that the Unsullied are watching her – which, I mean, she should probably be worried about, but Varys gaslights her and sends her on her way. It wasn't until my second viewing that this made more sense - Varys said to the girl (a kitchen servant) "we'll try again at supper." Try what? Poisoning the Dragon Queen with some tainted food, perhaps??? I think that's what is being inferred, and if so - daaaamn Varys! You tryin' to put your head on spike?

Tyrion knows what Varys is up to and comes to tell Dany that someone has betrayed her – and the person she names is Jon. “Varys,” Tyrion corrects her, confused. But Dany isn’t stupid – if Varys knows the truth about Jon, it’s because Tyrion told him, if Tyrion knows it’s because Sansa told him, and Sansa knows because Jon did what she asked him not to do and told his sisters. Sansa’s snitching has put people in grave danger, so again – fuck Sansa.

Varys meets Jon on the shores of Dragonstone and brings up right away the old axiom about Targaryens: the Gods flip a coin each time one is born to decide whether or not they will be homicidal maniacs, and while he’s not sure if Dany’s coin came crazy side up yet, he knows that Jon’s coin came up sane. Jon knows Varys wants to prop him up as king instead of Dany, and he flatly refuses to challenge Dany’s claim.

Varys is writing some more treason notes that night when he hears footsteps in the hall. Curiously, he removes his rings and sets them into a bowl (maybe he left the jewelry for his little bird to find as a thank you for her service?), and then burns the note he was working on, knowing full well that the Unsullied are coming to arrest him.  It’s more than that, though. Varys is marched to the beach, where Tyrion, Jon, and Dany are waiting. Tyrion admits that it was he who turned Varys in, and the Whisper Master takes it pretty well, simply bidding his old friend goodbye – but not before saying “I hope I’m wrong [about Dany going darkside].” Tyrion clearly feels like shit about this – aside from Jaime, Varys is the person with whom he’s had the longest positive acquaintance, and he owes his life to him (he smuggled Tyrion out of the city after his conviction for regicide, remember?). Dany judges him guilty of treason and Drogon sneaks up out of the darkness (excellent use of CGI here) to toast him. Thus fulfilled is Melisandre’s prophecy – that Varys would die upon the continent of Westeros. She knew this, I assume, because she saw it in the flames – of his execution.

Dany tells Tyrion that Varys’ death is as much Sansa’s fault as it is Tyrion’s (or Jon’s, I guess) as a kind of mea culpa, and she informs him that her forces intercepted Jaime enroute to Kings Landing. He begs her to promise that if the city’s bells were rung, conveying Cersei’s surrender, that she would call off the invasion to protect the citizens within. She agrees, signaling so to Greyworm, and sends him away, promising that if Tyrion failed her once more – it would be for the final time.

Jon comes up to visit Dany, who just before had an emotional moment with Greyworm, in which she presented him with the collar Missandei had worn before her liberation – her one possession. He tossed it into the fire, echoing Missandei’s final word: dracarys. Now alone with her newest political rival, Dany laments that she has no love in Westeros – literally all of her close advisers from the beginning of her conqueror’s journey (the people keeping her in check, I believe we’re supposed to infer) are dead, only Greyworm remains, and he’s never been a strategy adviser, only a gifted soldier. Tyrion has fucked up left right and center and Varys betrayed her. She only has fear to secure her rule. “I love you,” Jon tells her, but the words are hollow – he may love her now in the way that she loved Jorah – he can be loyal but he can’t be her lover; their failed kiss is proof of this. Dany plagiarizes Machiavelli and says “fine – let it be fear.” As in – if I don’t have the love of the people, I will make them fear me. Christ.

As Dany’s military prepares for battle, Tyrion badly lies his way into Jaime’s prisoner tent; butchering his request multiple times in Valyrian, only to have the soldier roll his eyes and tell him that they speak Westerosi. Jaime reveals that the reason he was captured was because he failed to disguise his golden hand – I mean, seriously? This moment was clearly orchestrated so we could see Tyrion and Jaime say goodbye to each other, which I’ll admit was touching. Tyrion is convinced that King’s Landing will fall in the morning and practically begs Jaime to go to Cersei to try to save her and their baby’s life, although Jaime is quick to point out that Cersei never listens to Jaime’s advice, so there’s little chance of convincing her to give up her crown to flee. This still seems out of character to me – not the saving Jaime part – Tyrion says he’s happy to repay the favor for Jaime springing him to escape after his trial. Cersei and Tyrion have always been at odds – why would he care about saving her this much? The baby? I don’t buy it. But Jaime is freed with instructions to make sure the city’s bells were rung to prevent the worst of the sacking, and Tyrion sullenly returns to his duties. Arya and the Hound arrive at the front, and the soldier on duty doesn’t want to let them pass. “I‘m Arya Stark – I’m going to kill Queen Cersei,” she says simply. “Think about it,” the Hound chimes in: “if Cersei dies, the war is over – and you might survive tomorrow.” The guy isn’t entirely convinced but they get past him without any violence. After all – Arya just took out the Night King; Cersei should be easy to kill comparatively. Why not let her try?

To their credit, the tension in the build up to the actual battle was intense. Euron and the Ironborn in the Bay, the Lannister soldiers along the battlements of the walls of King’s Landing, the mass of Golden Company soldiers parked in front of the city gates, Cersei smirking from her porch in the Red Keep – it seems unlikely that Team Dany has a chance in hell of winning.  Jon and Davos and company wait, eyeballing the Golden Company from what I think is way too close across the field to avoid an unintentional clash.

Meanwhile, we see Arya and the Hound just make it into the walls of the Red Keep after elbowing a mom and her young daughter out of the way. Jaime is maybe 100 feet behind them; waving his golden hand around as if some soldier would recognize it and let him pass. The Kingslayer is forced to get in the back way and starts winding his way around the backstreets to the sewer entrance, where he’s supposed to escape with Cersei from under the Red Keep.

The dragon killing ‘scorpion’ weapons are all over the damn place – which makes it all the more unbelievable to me that Drogon could successfully destroy all of them without a single injury. Like, seriously – was the element of surprise all Euron needed to kill Rhaegal and fuck up Dany’s armada? Because when she nosedives Drogon into the Bay, he avoids all the spears shot at him and burns the whole fleet with ease.

We feel glad to root for her for now – Drogon decimates the threat in the water and moves on the scorpions along the city walls after blowing the gates completely to hell, taking out half the Golden Company within seconds. Jon and Greyworm lead the charge into the city while Dany finishes off the dragon defenses.

This whole time Cersei’s denial becomes more and more pathetic– she repeatedly dismisses Qyburn’s warnings and reports of defeat, until finally, Dany brings Drogon to rest on the wall near the front of the city, the scorpions all burned, the Red Keep breached by the her forces.

Below, the citizens scream for Cersei to sound the bells – but her stubborn arrogant ass won’t budge. Tyrion glares at the bell towers, psychically willing them to ring, until finally – they do. Team Dany is poised to take out the Lannister army along the main road in the city – Team Cersei hears the bells and throw down their swords in surrender. It all seems like a resounding success, until Dany appears to have a psychotic break. In the recap that preceded the episode, there was a supercut of voices played over Dany’s enraged face after Missandei’s murder – among them, Lady Olenna, who once told Dany: “Be a dragon.” There was also Missandei’s final request: “Dracarys.” This was actually a really great device that should have been included in the episode itself, because I assume this is what’s running through her head as the bells sound, deafening her.

At any rate, Dany glares at the Red Keep, and it looks like she’s going to fly up and roast Cersei out of her tower – but much to our horror, she starts torching the city itself on her way to the Red Keep. This gives Greyworm the permission he needed to take his revenge on the Lannisters – who have already surrendered – much to Jon’s surprise. He tries in vain to get the army to fall back, but it’s too late – the carnage has begun and taken on a mind of its own. He can only fight the men who attack him on his way to the castle, bewildered and remorseful.

This was hard to watch, and with purpose – the show had gotten away from its more gruesome violence in recent seasons; most of the casualties being undead wights or roasted soldiers. No longer – the pillaging and resultant gore was vividly on display, thousands of unarmed civilians killed, either by sword or by the collapse of buildings or from dragon’s fire.

Jaime reaches the secret backdoor to the castle at the exact moment that Euron Greyjoy washes up on shore, which is about as plausible as Bronn sneaking in to Winterfell and finding both Lannister brothers alone in a room together. Euron is eager to kill Jaime – there’s lots of banter about Kingslaying and boning Cersei, which results in a brutal dual which ends in two mortal stab wounds (or so it would seem) taken by Jaime, and Euron being run through and left to die with a smile on his face, convinced that he was the man who killed Jaime Lannister. Jaime gets away, even though he really should be on the stones bleeding out. Glad Euron got speared like Rhaegal did, but this was really shoddy in terms of plot development.

The Red Keep finally gets attention from Drogon and begins to fall – Cersei, Qyburn, and the Mountain make for the basement as Arya and the Hound get to Cersei’s chambers. The ceiling is starting to crumble around them, and the Hound stops Arya, convincing her that her revenge isn’t as important as her life. The Hound has resigned himself to the fact that this is his last stand – his final chance to take out his brother, the only thing that has been driving him since he got sucked back into Westerosi politics and saw the Mountain at the dragon pit last season. If she stays here with him, either to help him in his quest or to hunt down Cersei – she’ll certainly also die. Arya’s kill list – a checklist to avenge her family as much as a mantra for her sanity – has kept her going in rough circumstances, and it ultimately resulted in her defeating a huge threat to the realms of the living due to the skills she picked up along the way. But she’s only a teenager and still has family to live for – which is why I think she chooses to comply with the Hounds wishes – he has been a father figure to her, even if neither would admit that – a comrade in motive and temperament. He risked his life repeatedly for her safety, even after she left him for dead. It’s essentially his dying wish for her path to diverge from his once more, and rather than defy him like she did the last time she was convinced he was going to die, she agrees. She even calls him Sandor, humanizing him and acknowledging his importance in her life, before thanking him. I definitely shed a tear as he walked away.

The Hound eventually finds the Queen and her retinue after surviving the crumbling of the  stairwell they were descending; he quickly dispatches the few other guards who survived the falling debris and calls out the elder Clegane. Cersei demands he remain by her side, but apparently Sandor is overriding the controls in the Mountain’s zombie brain because he moves to fight. Qyburn, aghast, commands his creature to obey its master – and promptly gets his brains dashed against the stones for his trouble. How very Frankenstein – killed by his own hubristic creation.

The Hound allows Cersei to pass, because she’s as good as dead as far as he’s concerned. Thus commences Cleganebowl – a showdown we once thought for certain would never be. It has a bitter sweet conclusion – after failing to kill the gross zombie after multiple stabbings ("Fucking die!"), the Hound gets one of his eyes gouged out, Oberyn Martell style – but finally succeeds in killing them both after charging his brother into the crumbling wall, sending them both over the edge of the tower to the fiery chaos below. I for one will miss the Hound and his curmudgeonly quips – he died well, the only satisfying end to a character in this tragic endeavor of an episode.

The remainder of the episode mostly tracks Arya as she tries to flee the city – a disorienting and horrifying sequence that plays out like a disaster movie. We also catch a glimpse of Jon and Davos, who are trying to get their forces and the civilians out of the city. Jon also stops an attempted rape by killing one of his own soldiers; his disgust and dismay evident. The weight of what’s happening is heavy on his shoulders – he’s already blaming himself for not preventing this massacre, as if he could have. There are bursts of green exploding along the streets as Drogon razes the city – a reminder of the fact that Dany’s father, the Mad King, had stashed wildfire all over the city, poised to use it in lieu of dragonsfire to destroy it. These must be the stashes Cersei didn’t get her hands on when she blew up the Sept of Baelor – the stashes Jaime was trying to prevent from being lit up when he killed the King all those years ago.

Cersei gets back to her chambers, where she runs into Jaime. C’mon– how the fuck did he not bleed out climbing all those steps up to the high parts of the Red Keep without getting crushed by the falling stones? Seriously? At first, I was convinced Arya had crossed paths with Jaime and taken his face and gone back to kill Cersei, but then the scene cuts away from the reunited Lannisters to Arya trying to outrun dragon fire and falling buildings – so it couldn’t be her in disguise.

The twins eventually make it back down to the underground tunnels, only to find their exit caved in, with no way to get out. Only then does Cersei acknowledge that she’s about to die – all of her scheming and all the people she’s murdered and double crossed, and she’s going to die beneath the weight of the very kingdom she so badly wanted. Jaime grabs her and tells her that it doesn’t matter – they’re together at least – from the womb to the tomb, just the two of them. They hug tightly and then the ceiling collapses on top of them – almost assuredly killing them, probably from the crushing suffocation that would follow being buried alive. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?!?!? This fucking bitch gets to die like the old people in the bed in Titanic, at peace with her lover/brother, while Lyanna Mormont gets crushed by a giant and Theon gets run through by the Night King? Judge me if you want but this was the most infuriating thing to happen in this episode – Dany becoming a homicidal tyrant was sadly always an endgame possibility and I had steeled myself for it. But this!? The valonquar prophecy a misinterpretation – Jaime didn’t choke her to death, but was merely present as they both suffocated under the Red Keep? Fuck this death scene – if anyone deserved to die suffering alone it was Cersei Lannister. And also – fuck this fucking aborted redemption arc for Jaime Lannister! Another character assassination –I like him even less now than I did when he threw Bran out the window, and Jaime was my favorite Lannister! The magnetic pull of his doomed sister was enough to tank a possibly healthy and happy future? What are they trying to say (as if they’re trying to make any points)? It comes across as “family is more important than your growth as a human being” or “no matter what you do, certain behavior is beyond redemption.” If I wasn’t such a completionist I would fucking RAGE QUIT. *kicks soapbox into rush hour traffic*

Tyrion stalks the terrorized streets of the city in shock, knowing full well that his planning has led to the annihilation of thousands of civilians - his worst nightmare come true, Varys was right after all. The last moments of the show follow Arya as she tries to help the mom and daughter she pushed aside earlier in the episode to escape the city. Her machinations culminate in the immolation of both – a close up on their charred bodies shows the remnants of a wooden figurine still clutched in the girl’s hands, a call back to Shireen Baratheon – because it’s not Game of Thrones if children aren’t being burned to death.

Arya regains consciousness to a sky darkened with ash – the only other living thing around a dirty white horse stained red with blood in the street across from her. This feels strongly like an allusion to the Book of Revelation: the White, Red, and Pale horses of the Apocalypse carry the embodiments of Conquest, War, and Death, respectively.  My take is, the horse represents an amalgamation of all three concepts, given the circumstances. Naturally – Arya gets on the horse and rides it to safety: “behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death.”

I think it would be too much to give Daenerys’ assassination to Arya, considering it was she who took out the Night King, and not Jon Snow. I’m sure she’ll try to kill Dany for her war crimes – but ultimately it has to be Jon that takes her out. Jon will likely kill Dany over something more personal – my guess is that she’ll try to put Sansa to death along with Tyrion for treason, and Jon won’t just sit by and let his once- love kill his once-sister.

They’ll inevitably try and crown Jon – but after the shit he’s seen and the killing he’ll have to do, he probably will quit society altogether, my guess is he heads North to the Wall to rejoin the Wildlings – or what’s left of them.

I have a hunch no one will sit on the Iron Throne – I don’t know nor do I particularly care what form of government replaces Cersei’s reign. By now I’m more concerned with them wrapping up the Three Eyed Raven mishegas – where was Bran warging all that time during the Battle of Winterfell? Are the White Walkers truly gone? What happens to Drogon when Dany dies – does Jon kill him somehow also, or does Jon assume ownership of him?

There will be no happy ending – I just hope whatever we get is final, with no cliff hangers.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 4: Cersei Strikes Back

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuug, what a shit sandwich of an episode! Easily my least favorite of this season thus far, because none of the sneaky machinations of our warring factions had any satisfying payoff, unless you’re a Cersei Lannister stan.

We open with the largest funeral pyre in human history on Winterfell’s front lawn, where our protagonists are weeping over the ones they lost – Dany over Jorah (she whispers something inaudible in his dead ear: newsflash, Khaleesi – telling him “I love you” now is too little, too late!), Sam over Edd, Sansa over Theon (she slips a Stark pin into his vest), Arya over Beric, and Jon over little Lyanna Mormont. Christ- just writing that made me tear up again. If you’ll notice – the pairs are made up of the people who died saving the very person who is about to light them up.

John launches into a heroic eulogy with a very Night’s Watch bent, announcing that the departed were “the shields that guarded the realms of men and we shall never see their like again.” Notice, it’s the ‘King’ in the North who takes lead on this; Dany is quietly sobbing with her contingent off to the side. This tracks because John was the person who understood the stakes and got Daenerys to make up the difference with her army and dragons, and we are at the Stark family castle, after all. But Dany is the ruling party here, as she would insist – shouldn’t she have made a small speech?

Anyway, as the smoke that could rival an exploding Krakatoa rises over the landscape (seriously, the dead wights have to be there too, right? They didn’t just explode into ice chips. Also – how the fuck did they drag all the bodies and make all the pyres so damn fast? How many days later is this?), the remaining living humans retreat back into the castle to dine (and presumably to avoid dying of smoke inhalation).

Gendry is on the lookout for Arya, and asks the Hound if he’s seen her. He hasn’t, but he knows Gendry is thinking with his dick so he makes commentary. Not that he disapproves – they all survived a showdown with literal death, what else were they trying to preserve if not drinking and fucking? Chagrinned, Gendry gets up to find Arya, but is sidetracked by Queen Daenerys herself as he passes by the head table. She identifies him as Robert Baratheon’s bastard, and graciously legitimizes him as Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End – but not before reminding him that the father he never knew was responsible for the destruction of her own family. As in – look guy: you’re an underdog like me, so Ima give you a huge promotion, but don’t ever forget who you have to thank for it, ‘k? Awkward…..

Dany toasts the new Lord of the Realm, and then toasts Arya Stark, the hero of Winterfell! The somber room is suddenly very cheerful – ‘cause now everyone has license to get wasted and celebrate the fact that they’re alive.

Gendry finds Arya where he found her the last time they crossed paths – archery practice. The poor fool gushes about his new inheritance and drops to one knee, asking Arya to marry him. I have to admit – she looked so happy before she kissed him I was nervous for a split second that she would agree, with conditions – but thankfully she declined the proposal, staying true to the statement she made to her father so many years ago when he told her she’d be a great lady and mother to many children: “That’s not me.”

What do we say to the guy that proposes? That's not me.

The rest of Winterfell is basically a giant frat party now, playing drinking games and busting one another’s chops. Tormund and some buds are chugging and singing Jon’s praises, and Brienne, Pod, Jaime, and Tyrion are playing some Westerosi version of “Never Have I Ever” in which the players guess things about the other players so when they’re wrong, they drink – if they’re right, the other person drinks. 

The big take away from this sequence is that Tyrion – ever the pervert – guesses correctly that Brienne is still a virgin, because duh. This obviously makes Brienne prickly, excusing herself to piss. Tormund thinks this is his shot to get it in, but Jaime takes off after her first.

A very lucky serving girl saunters off with Pod, and for some strange reason another serving girl offers herself to the Hound, who literally barks at her, uninterested. Sansa sits down across from him, curious why he would turn down such an opportunity (cuz clearly, women don’t often throw themselves at Sandor Clegane). The Hound grumbles and changes the subject to Sansa's rapey wedding night with Ramsey Bolton - party foul much? But this gives Sansa the opportunity to reveal that she killed Ramsey for his crimes - via hounds. He makes similar commentary to Sansa as he did to Arya – “you’ve changed, Little Bird.” He reminds her that if she had just fled King’s Landing with him so many years ago, she would never have fallen prey to Ramsey Bolton or Littlefinger. Dude – I know you don’t socialize much, but I feel like you should know better than to bring up the worst moments of someone’s life in the middle of a party at their own house. But Sansa doesn’t wallow in regret or self-pity – if she hadn’t been brutalized by the world, she would have remained a little bird forever. This made me uncomfortable, like it was implying a woman has to be raped and tortured to cast aside her girlish whimsy, but whatever – at least Sansa isn’t crippled by the tragedies that have marred her past.

Dany isn’t faring well at the feast, despite Jon’s reassuring smiles, because she is quite noticeably the outsider in the room. Tormund and company are stupid drunk now and have zero nuance – he lauds Jon, who may be small, but he rode a fucking dragon! “What kind of person climbs on a fucking dragon? A madman, or a king!” 

I’ll tell you what kind of person, Tormund: Daenerys fucking Targaryen, who is both possibly a mad person and a Queen! This very woman; who was essentially a slave, who woke three dragons out of stone following an attempted immolation, who liberated half of Essos against all odds! But Jon is getting the Gatorade poured on him!? She gets up and leaves the party, disgusted, and you know what? Rightfully so.

Maybe she was just pissed that they made her drink wrong?

The whole of Winterfell is a series of low-key orgies, and Jaime won’t be letting Brienne not take part in the festivities. She winds up having to take off both of their clothes, because drunk one-armed Jaime is apparently a fumbly mess – let’s hope for Brienne’s sake that only applied to laces. Ser Brienne of Tarth – Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, virgin no longer! I think Arya probably had a better time losing hers because both parties were sober, but that’s neither here nor there.

Dany knocks on Jon’s door, and asks if he’s drunk (he is, but “only a little”). It seems as though these incestual love birds will be hooking up too, until Jon pulls away, because she is his aunt, which doesn’t seem like a good enough reason for Dany. Their confrontation devolves into an ultimatum from Dany – don’t tell anyone about the fact that you’re Aegon Targaryen, swear Bran and Sam to secrecy, or else we’re through, because you have the better claim to the throne and the love of the people. Who thinks Jon’s going to Ned Stark this situation right up the ass?? Do I ever!

The next morning doesn’t help the tension between both parties as they plan their invasion of King’s Landing because it’s clear their losses have put them at a distinct disadvantage against Cersei, who is letting the people of King’s Landing into the Red Keep to “protect them from the usurper” and now has the Golden Company mercenaries and Euron Greyjoy’s fleet. Yara Greyjoy retook the Iron Islands (which could only have what, like, 4 people still living on them?) in Dany’s name and the new Prince of Dorn has declared his loyalty to her (we never learn who the new regent is since House Martell is no more, just that he exists), but that’s not much help. Sansa – ever the buzzkill – isn’t wrong in pointing out that the remaining living troops are pretty worse for the wear, maybe we should hold off and let them heal, but Dany takes it as Sansa looking to tank their bargain – her help against the Night King for the North’s help against Cersei. They come to the decision that Jon and the Northmen will ride south, and Dany, the dragons, and what remains of the Unsullied will sail south for Dragonstone. Why? I have no idea – plot convenience? This makes zero sense! Euron Greyjoy’s fleet outnumbers theirs and Dragonstone is super close to the capital – they don’t think they’ll run into each other??

So Jon... we have to talk about Yoko....

Sansa and Arya grab Jon for a family meeting at the Godswood (Bran is there too, because reasons) and lay into him about Daenerys – whom they do not trust because she’s going to get them all killed. Arya really drives in the knife (see what I did there?) about him being their brother and Ned’s son as much as any of them, and Jon cracks – because he’s more Ned Stark than any of Ned’s actual offspring. He swears the girls to secrecy and tells Bran to break the news about Jon’s true ancestry – naturally, Jon’s secret will die with Arya, but Sansa is a petty stupid bitch who thinks she’s smarter than she actually is, who tells Tyrion the first chance she gets the truth about Jon – because she knows he’s the better choice for King than Dany. I’m not saying Sansa’s wrong – Jon is clearly the better leader – but she just had to betray Jon’s confidence so she could run her mouth, didn’t she? And Tyrion can’t keep this shit to himself – he tells Varys on the boat as soon as they’re alone. Eight people now know the truth, by his count: which means it’s basically just common knowledge.

The Hound is on horseback by his lonesome on the road out of Winterfell – or he was, until Arya joins him. They both disliked the crowd, and both have unfinished business down South. The Hound wonders out loud if Arya will leave him to die by the side of the road again. “Probably,” she chirps – and just like that, our favorite road trippin’ duo is back together again! Clearly, the Hound is off to kill his brother, the Mountain, and Arya is off to try and pull another Hail Mary to kill Cersei, presumably. If they work together, maybe they can actually pull their respective gambits off? We’ll see.

Jon is leaving for the south and saying his goodbyes – Tormund and the Wildings are going up beyond the Wall again, to the ‘true’ North, and agrees to take Ghost with him. What the fuck, Jon!? We didn’t get a single reunion pet or hug or anything! Maybe we’re supposed to see this as Jon casting aside the last remnants of his Stark identity (which is silly because regardless of the fact that Ned isn’t his bio dad – he’s still half Stark!)? This episode is called “The Last of the Starks,” after all. I suspect Ghost isn’t gone, though – I have a feeling something bad is going to happen to the Wildlings and the return of Ghost will be the herald of whatever fucked up shit befalls them. Anyway, from a hug Jon figures out that Gilly is pregnant (“I think he knows how it happened, Sam”) and gives his bestie an emotional farewell – which now makes me fear for Sam’s life.

Night has fallen and the Lannister brothers are having a beer before Tyrion sails south – because Jaime is staying behind in Winterfell to shack up with Brienne! This is easily the best part of the episode – Tyrion gets to make a tall person joke! As they toast to “climbing mountains!” (totally poor taste to make fun of Brienne’s height, but could this also be foreshadowing that Jaime will have a showdown with zombie-Clegane!?), Bronn shows up, crossbow in hand. I love the sheer absurdity of this – how the hell did Bronn just wander into Winterfell, as a known enemy of Dany’s Crown? He just happens to find the two guys he was sent to take out, alone together? It’s insane! What makes it even better is that neither Jaime nor Tyrion is particularly surprised or concerned to see him. Bronn is there to do the Bronn-iest thing he could do – he tells the guys about the hit Cersei hired him for, and gives them the chance to promise him something better than Riverrun in exchange for their lives. What’s better than Riverrun? Highgarden, Tyrion offers – which was the old Tyrell estate, since raided and stripped from the lesser Tyrell’s that still live, if any do. That sounds good to Bronn, who plans now to let the two sides have their endgame battle and side with whoever the winner is. Content, he calls the Lannisters “a pair of gold-plated c***s” and strolls out of the room, I guess to hide out somewhere up North in a brothel until the dust has settled?

Sadly, that was the last of the good mirth for the episode. Dany, Drogon, and a banged up Rhaegal soar in the skies over her fleet, Dragonstone within swimming distance- which is fortunate, because shockingly (or really not, because Cersei wasn’t just going to sit and cower in the Red Keep) Euron’s fleet is just on the other side of the island, equipped with dragon slaying tech – the kind Bronn failed to kill Drogon with last season. They succeed this time – RIP Rhaegal, you couldn’t catch a break, and for that I’m sorry. Rhaegal takes three hits and crashes into the sea, and the armada gets torn to shit by the same gigantic harpoons. Greyworm, Missandei, Tyrion, Varys and the Unsullied are all forced to swim for it as Dany bears down on Euron’s fleet, enraged. She thinks better of it and banks out at the last second, returning to the island in defeat.

The others wash up on shore – except for Missandei, who hasn’t actually drowned. Nay nay – she’s been captured by the enemy, back in chains at the Red Keep, where Euron and Cersei gloat over their win. Cersei tells Euron he’s the father of her baby, which Qyburn ‘confirms’ with a nod. There’s still no proof she actually is pregnant, and I’m comforted by the fact that the prophecy says she’s already had all the kids she’ll ever have, and that she’ll be dying at the hands of someone she probably knows soon.

Varys, Tyrion, and Dany have a fraught argument over their next move. Understandably, Dany wants to sack the city, dragon blazing, but Varys begs her to reconsider because slaying thousands of innocents won’t only not earn her any loyalty from the commoners – it will turn her into the very tyrant she has been working to vanquish.

Sansa and Brienne get a raven explaining that Dany plans to march on the city before Jon’s army gets there to give Cersei a chance to return Missandei and surrender (who sent this letter? Tyrion?), and Sansa laments at Jaime that she won’t get the chance to watch Cersei die after all (I guess because she assumes Dany is going to raze the city). Jaime falters – he sneaks out of Brienne’s room that night to run back to Cersei, but not before Brienne follows him out and begs him to stay with her, insisting that he was a good person and it wasn’t his job to deal with Cersei’s bullshit any longer. In a fit of self-loathing, Jaime confesses to throwing Bran out the tower window and a string of other contemptible things he’s done for love. “She’s hateful – and so am I,” he says by way of apology, leaving Brienne bawling in the courtyard. Feminists will undoubtedly sneer at this scene, saying that it undermines her whole story arc as an independent woman, but c’mon bitches: she has been secretly in love with this guy for years now at this point. He just left her for his ex – who is also his sister, and an evil bitch. After she stuck out her neck for him and fought the Dead alongside him! Wouldn’t you be upset? Brienne is a badass but she’s still human, and is allowed to be moody for a night.

Dany and a small retinue march to the gates of King’s Landing, where Cersei is waiting for them on the battlements, which are lined with anti-dragon weapons. Tyrion and Qyburn meet just outside the gate – two Hands going over the conditions of surrender, which for Dany means she gets Missandei and Cersei steps aside and keeps her life, but for Cersei means Dany fucks off or else Missandei dies. Tyrion tries to make it seem like Qyburn is turning up his nose at a chance to save the city, but Qyburn knows that they have the upper hand and doesn’t even flinch.

So stupid fucking Tyrion gets right up to the door to talk at his sister and pleads with her to agree to Dany’s terms – because she isn’t a monster (she totally is), and she and her baby don’t have to die (I hope this announcement comes back to bite her in the ass next episode – that Euron figures out the baby isn’t his or isn’t real and he leaves. Wishful thinking, I know). She seems poised to let her archers pump him full of arrows, but instead she asks Missandei if she has any last words.

“Dracarys,” she says before the Mountain unceremoniously lops off her head. I have to say – if I had to guess who would have died first, I would have said Greyworm, not Missandei. The look on Dany’s face says that she will be honoring her confidant’s last wish – looks like we’ve waded into Mad Queen Dany territory, folks. Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of hatred on the internet about them killing the only woman of color on this program, who died as a pawn between Queens with little regard of the fact that she was a person in love, with ambitions to live free of service or bondage. The outrage is justified, I’m afraid – Missandei’s death is just a means to an end for Dany’s descent into becoming a heartless conqueror, which is less than the character deserved.

Tyrion insists Daenerys won’t pick up where the Mad King left off, but Varys is convinced Dany is about to go full dark side. They bring up the notion of marrying Jon and Daenerys, so that Jon could temper her worst impulses – but Varys knows full well that Dany hasn’t gone through what she’s gone through to play second fiddle to her nephew. Varys also finally brings up the fact that while incest isn’t considered quite so gross down in the South – up North it’s still taboo; so when Jon’s true parentage becomes word on the street, it won’t be well accepted up North should their hero wed his new-found aunt. Plus – most lords will favor Jon as regent simply because he’s a dude. “Cocks,” he quips back at Tyrion, “are important, I’m afraid.” His treasonous conjectures bother Tyrion, who has to know that he’s backing the wrong horse (well, dragon) here, but he’s not wavering – because he’s in love with Dany too? Because he thinks she’s the only person who can unseat his sister and re-settle Westeros? Who the hell knows.

Next week is the penultimate episode – historically, the best episodes of each season of GOT are the second to last ones. There’s a lot to make up for given how crappy this episode was. We can expect a final battle between the Dragon and Lion teams, and I’m sincerely hoping that Dany and Drogon don’t burn down the city, but it certainly seems like they will, given Dany’s vision from the House of the Undying – where she stands in a roofless, burned out Red Keep in the snow. Given that Cersei has ramped up the dragon-killing tech across the city, I suspect Drogon is doomed to be a goner, unless they manage to outfit him in dragon armor really fast, which maybe Gendry could have managed given a few months but shit getting real like tomorrow. Which is going to depress the shit out of me. I’m a bit bummed out that everyone in the Stark/Targaryen alliance has opted to wear their idiot caps since they united at Winterfell – I thought Arya was nuts to say Sansa was the smartest person she knew a few weeks ago, but evidence is suggesting that may actually be the case. Why the hell didn't Cersei just kill Dany's retinue when she had the chance? She easily could have! Will Jon be forced to kill Dany? Will Dany try and take Jon out to secure her claim on the throne?

Your guess is as good as mine.