Joe Roberts

By Joe Roberts JoeRoberts

Much of the criticism surrounding Game of Thrones’ last few seasons is that the showrunners had lost their stomach for death. No one will be saying that anymore. DB Weiss and David Benioff have maintained throughout that this final season will not please everyone. The question now remains whether it will please anyone.

Regardless of the plot and character issues and the inevitable debate that will ensue after this episode, Miguel Sapochnik has done it again. Another stunning visual masterpiece which expertly brings to life the horrors of war, masterfully accompanied by Ramin Djawadi’s incredible score.

There are exceptional performances from most, if not all, of the show’s main cast. Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Rory McCann, Emilia Clarke and Maisie Williams all put in fantastic turns, the years spent embodying these characters really shine through in this penultimate episode. Even Kit Harrington gets to show off some range, departing from his usual dour, stoic expressions.

This is a penultimate episode full of action, violence and heartbreak as the show has finally reached its endgame with this assault on King’s Landing. And there is still plenty of fodder for a very dramatic finale for the characters who survived as they handle the fallout of this battle.

Lena Headey in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

The Bells: Episode recap — Spoilers ahead

We open with Varys writing treasonous letters and plotting with a kitchen hand — murder is on the menu. Jon soon arrives in Dragonstone and Varys tries to convince him he ought to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Unsurprisingly, he’s still not interested. 

Daenerys and Tyrion have yet another tense conversation about his questionable decisions. Dany looks like a woman at the end of her tether, convinced that Jon has betrayed her. Tyrion gives up his old friend Varys as the traitor and Dany makes good on her promise to burn him alive. The Spider may be able to swim, but he can’t survive dragonfire. 

Dany and Grey Worm reminisce about Missandei and Grey Worm throws his slave collar on the fire, portraying their moods ahead of this pivotal battle. Dany confronts Jon about his ‘love’ for her. It does seem like lip service at this point, Jon becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the whole incest thing, as well as her increasingly distraught state of mind. 

Tyrion makes a final plea to save King’s Landing, but it falls on deaf ears. He is informed of Jaime’s capture. Tyrion decides to set him free, supposedly for one last attempt to reason with Cersei. Jaime is at least honest about the prospect and points out the constant fallacy of Tyrion’s argument — that Cersei’s love of her children means she’ll consider surrendering. There is a beautiful moment as the brothers say their final goodbyes, their love for each other expertly portrayed by Dinklage and Coster-Waldau. 

Marc Rissmann in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

The battle is about to begin and once again director Miguel Sapochnik and composer Ramin Djawadi do a phenomenal job of building the tension. The scorpions are armed, the Golden Company ready to meet the Unsullied, Dothraki and Northmen and the Red Keep stuffed to the brim with the citizens of King’s Landing. Tyrion, having failed to convince Daenerys, appeals to Jon to make sure if the city surrenders, his forces will hold back. 

And here comes Drogon and Daenerys, and they are not about to make the same mistakes as before, as they evade all the scorpion bolts and torch the Iron Fleet and the battlement defences. The city is well and truly overwhelmed, and after a tense stand-off with Jon, Grey Worm and co., the Lannister army throws down their weapons. The bells of surrender ring out, although not by Cersei’s command. 

But Daenerys isn’t interested in their surrender, and neither is Grey Worm. Her descent into madness is complete. We get the shot, first seen in one of Bran’s visions, of Drogon’s shadow flying over King’s Landing, and then it is open season. Drogon strafes the city, much to Tyrion’s horror, and Grey Worm begins the slaughter of the Lannister army, and despite Jon’s best efforts, the Northern army joins in. 

Carnage ensues. Mindless, horrific slaughter as the city is put to the sword. The cinematography is incredible and the horrors of a city being sacked are stunningly and viscerally brought to life. 

Euron and Jaime have a battle to the death for no apparent reason other than Euron fancying a fight, having been resoundingly beaten and emasculated by Dany and Drogon. Jaime overcomes him by sheer will alone and Euron is finally dead, but not without his usual dose of self-delusion, convinced he has slain the Kingslayer. 

Cersei finally realises her folly in provoking the Dragon Queen as she watches the city burn and her castle crumbles around her. Qyburn, loyal to the bitter end, convinces her to flee to a Maegor’s Holdfast. 

The Hound saves Arya one last time, stopping her from marching to her death in pursuit of vengeance. And CleganeBowl, the grudge match for the ages, is on. Qyburn tries to control Ser Gregor, but his mad dog is off the leash and he meets a swift end. The Hound looks like he has the upper hand and we finally get to see what’s under that helmet. And it’s… Darth Vader? Sandor stabs his brother in the stomach but it’s not very effective. Should’ve gone for the head. 

Photo: HBO

There is some excellent back and forth mirror footage as we see Arya try and escape the chaos of the crumbling, burning city and The Hound battling with his brother. He eventually prevails after a near-death experience, Oberyn style, as he stabs The Mountain in the head and then pulls a Harry Potter and tackles Ser Gregor off the top of the Red Keep and they fall into the flames below. 

Arya becomes the centrepiece of the episode as we watch her struggle to survive, surrounded by the horrors of Dany’s rampage. There are numerous near death experiences, and at one point it looks as though she has been crushed by the falling rubble, but thankfully she comes through alive, although bruised, battered and no doubt horrified. 

Cersei and Jaime are reunited, and Jaime tries to get to his escape dinghy through the dungeons. But there is no way out and Jaime takes Cersei in his arms as the castle collapses on top of them. This is an elegant twist on Cersei’s prophecy, which predicts that she will die with her Valonqar’s (little brother) hands around her neck. Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are phenomenal here, and despite her horrendous past, including using an entire city as her human shields, her death becomes tragic as she begs Jaime to save her. 

The dust and ashes begin to settle as Arya takes stock, clearly shell-shocked, and a white horse covered in blood appears. Arya calms it down before riding off into the distance, a stunning final, lingering shot of the burning city. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” 

Episode discussion 

Pilou Asbæk in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Game of Thrones used to thrive on moral ambiguity and making its fans support ostensibly awful characters, c.f. Jaime Lannister, but even the most ardent Daenerys fans would struggle to reconcile this behaviour. Her descent into madness has been telegraphed for quite some time and is in many ways understandable. But to destroy the city when they were surrendering is shocking, even for “The Mad Queen”. The caches of wildfire exploding are clearly a symbolic completion of her descent into becoming her father.

The showrunners will undoubtedly be criticised for this decision, one which they have been foreshadowing for some time but not many realised would be quite so brutal. It is a bold choice, but whether it fits with Dany’s character is another matter entirely. On the one hand, her history as the Saviour of smallfolk suggests that this is out of character. But then again, she is the Khaleesi of the Dothraki, a people who regularly slaughter and destroy entire cities. While this may be shocking, even by Westerosi standards, she grew up in the East under far more brutal circumstances. 

In addition, Tyrion’s failure to understand either of the queens once again leads to poor counsel. By saying the smallfolk would never turn against Cersei out of fear he reinforces the idea in Dany’s mind that the only way to rule these people is through terror. And given Tyrion’s recent history, exacerbated by Jaime’s defection and capture, Dany clearly does not trust him any longer. 

Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Jon might be the only person that could have convinced her to stay her hand when sacking the city, but he is so afraid of seeming like he wants the throne that he goes along with her plan, even when it clearly horrifies him. And his inability to even pretend he still loves her, when she clearly needs love and affection, is the final nail in the coffin. 

The confrontation between Jon and Daenerys is coming and after this slaughter, even Jon might be convinced he needs to sit on the Throne. Plus, Arya has survived this ordeal and witnessed and experienced the true horror of this sacking. There is no way she will allow this to go unpunished. And so, one final week of waiting. And no doubt a few more deaths to still to come following this bloody and brutal episode. 

Rest in Peace Varys, Jaime Lannister, Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, and our plucky psychopath Qyburn, as well as tens of thousands of King’s Landing citizens. Good riddance to Cersei, The Mountain, and especially Euron Greyjoy, the most annoying character in Game of Thrones’ long history. And Captain Harry Strickland, we hardly knew ye. 

Joe is the film and TV critic for The Lincolnite. He is a Master’s student at the University of Lincoln, having abandoned the sunny beaches of the Cayman Islands for the slightly colder climes of Lincolnshire to see whether he could make it as a writer. Joe graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland in 2016, where he studied the Liberal Arts and drank far too much bad American beer.

By Joe Roberts JoeRoberts

After last week’s spectacular battle and climactic ending, there is an inevitability to this episode feeling hungover. The show is returning to its roots, teasing the political intrigue and moving squarely back into the Game of Thrones, but it seems unsure how to do that. 

The pacing of this episode is all over the place, caught in a valley between two pivotal moments (The Great War vs The Final War), and not entirely sure when to speed up and when to slow down. There are some moments which felt like the Game of Thrones of old, but the struggle to wrap everything up has caused some inevitable problems and they are back at the forefront in this episode.

Kit Harington in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Another issue at hand is that, having moved into (short) movie length episodes, it seems to demand more traditional storytelling. This episode is a classic three-act structure, the first being about confronting the recent and traumatic past, and the following two about looking ahead to the war to come. The show has of course done this in the past, but has also been willing to subvert that in order to develop the characters and their motivations. Here, the shift in tone and ramp up in pace is necessary, but feels rushed nonetheless, a result of having only six episodes to pull it all together. 

As always the cinematography and score are excellent, but, unlike the previous episode, they are unable to save the episode from its flaws. The show’s creators have an unenviable task of trying to pull this vast world together, and this episode is a perfect demonstration of the issues they face. For every storyline, reunion, battle, etc. that they have handled well, there is another they have not acting as a counterpoint.

The Last of the Starks: Episode recap & discussion

SPOILERS AHEAD 

Lena Headey and Pilou Asbæk in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

We’re burning the dead. I suppose that even if the White Walkers are gone, burying that many people is a logistical nightmare. Jon is responsible for the eulogy, and his voice is a little hoarse, a small price to pay for surviving a yelling match with an undead dragon.

Celebratory feast time, and it’s a little tense. With no more common enemy to unite against, the game is back on. Game of Thrones is harkening back to its finest days with these very anxious feast scenes. Gendry looks like he might be about to lose his head, but is now in fact Lord of Storm’s End. Bit of a meaningless title at this point, but a nice touch as Dany’s opening salvo for her charm offensive.

Despite all this, Sansa is making strange faces at Tyrion. At this point her dislike of Daenerys seems downright rude. Bran continues to be the family member no one really wants around, but feels they should keep inviting to parties anyway. Jon has some lovely moments with his old Wildling buddies, which seems to bother Dany, especially when they keep referring to him as King right in front of her. 

Tyrion’s idiotic drinking game from Season 1 has returned and this time he’s using it to get Brienne drunk. This seems like a rather crude way of being Jaime’s wingman. Anything to take his mind off Cersei, I suppose. 

Newly crowned Lord of Storm’s End, Gendry shoots his shot with Arya and misses spectacularly. If only he’d been paying attention to anything Arya’s ever said to him, ever.

Sansa does some poor expositional work with The Hound, saying that she would still be a “Little Bird” if she hadn’t been traded as a pawn by Littlefinger and then repeatedly and brutally raped by Ramsay. Clumsy writing, to say the least.

Brienne and Jaime finally get together, although trying to be sexy with only one hand does pose its difficulties. This whole scene reeks of fan service, although it is nice to see Brienne getting some much-deserved love and affection. Although why their relationship couldn’t stay as a lovely platonic friendship that makes them both better people, I do not know. 

Peter Dinklage, Conleth Hill, Jacob Anderson, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Dany and Jon finally have The Conversation, and it doesn’t go too well. Jon seems relatively unfussed about the whole aunt/nephew dynamic, but being the rightful heir to the Iron Throne is a bit more problematic. Jon says he doesn’t want the throne, but does seem to have a problem with keeping his claim a secret. Daenerys is rightfully upset about this; if Jon doesn’t want to claim the throne, there is no reason the best kept secret in Westeros can’t remain precisely that. Emilia Clarke does some terrific work in this scene, expertly switching from love to desperation to determined, queenly resolve.

We have a scene in the war room, where we find out that they have lost half of their armies. Could be worse. Daenerys wants to march South immediately, but Sansa rightly points out that maybe they ought to let their soldiers have a well-earned rest. Jon backs Daenerys, no doubt to try and quell her fears about the Starks ganging up on her to steal her crown. Which leads to a showdown with his sisters in the Godswood. 

Jon defies his Queen’s orders to keep his parentage a secret, and lets Bran tell Arya and Sansa. As Dany predicted, Arya and Sansa are not the girls he grew up with, and have no qualms breaking sacred vows in order to throw a wrench in Dany’s plans for world domination. Given the episode’s hints at the Red Wedding earlier in the episode, the breaking of this sacred oath may come back to haunt Sansa.  

Bronn has finally reached the North and has come to bargain, armed with a crossbow. Already promised one of the Great Lordships of Westeros, he’s come to trade up for an even bigger one. At least the end of the world is working out nicely for someone. 

Conleth Hill, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Arya and the Hound, on the road again. CleganeBowl is imminent, and Arya still has some green eyes to close (Cersei). I’m curious to see what faces Arya has brought with her for her assassination attempt. Littlefinger, perhaps? 

We have some farewells to deal with before the armies move South, Jon saying goodbye to Tormund and Ghost, Sam and newly pregnant Gilly. Hard to escape the feeling that Jon won’t be seeing any of his friends again, certainly not Ghost, who ultimately falls victim to the CGI budget rather than any logical plot point.

And out of nowhere, Rhaegal is dead. That was certainly unexpected. I’m absolutely fine with a shocking death on Game of Thrones, but how have Daenerys and her commanders not come to expect being ambushed by the Iron Fleet? Also, how exactly do they manage to ambush them when Daenerys can presumably see quite some distance from atop her dragons? And when is Euron going to stop being a clean-up artist for the plot? If Euron was a more compelling villain, as he is in the books, then maybe his almost superhuman power to singlehandedly destroy Daenerys’ armies would be excusable. As it is, he’s just a crude brute and has become tiresome. Aside from the plot, the symbolism here is clearly significant. Daenerys is down to one dragon, and with Rhaegal being ‘Jon’s dragon’, the idea of Jon and Dany ruling together is very visually being taken off the table. 

Tyrion and Varys are conspiring, which in the past has led to some excellent scenes, but here feels strained. Varys’ noble assertion that he serves only the smallfolk of Westeros is naïve and treasonous at the same time, and the show is very blatantly setting up the possibility of Daenerys becoming “The Mad Queen”. The only problem being that they’ve been setting it up for quite a while now and we don’t really need it to be rammed down our throats. Varys at least does a decent job of shooting down various fan theories about Jon and Daenerys sharing the throne, but again this wasn’t necessary. If Daenerys wanted to share the throne with Jon, she would have already asked him to marry her and do precisely that, especially after he revealed his superior claim.

The news of the ambush reaches Winterfell, prompting Jaime to decide he will support Cersei after all? This whole scene seemed forced, breaking Brienne’s heart to run back to his “hateful” sister, undoubtedly to set up a confrontation with her and Euron. Jaime’s character arc had reached a logical conclusion, so why not blow it all up for Cersei once again. 

Lena Headey in Game of Thrones. Photo: HBO

Cersei is playing The Game using the smallfolk as her pawns. No change there. She is testing Dany’s resolve to keep King’s Landing unburnt. If there was any doubt left about who won the exchange between Tyrion and Cersei at the end of the last season, it’s gone. Tyrion revealed that Dany wanted to torch the city and Cersei is happily using that to her advantage. 

And so we have the tense final scene setting up the inevitable battle for King’s Landing. Tyrion desperately tries to find another way out, appealing to Cersei’s better judgement, at least to save her child. Did he really think that would work? Tyrion’s fall from smartest man in Westeros to whipping boy for two different queens is both implausible and disappointing. Missandei at least knows what it will take to win this war, and is prepared to die for her Queen. Valar Morghulis. 

Benioff and Weiss have found their teeth again after being unexpectedly generous in the Battle of Winterfell, but murdering Rhaegal seems like ill-advised shock and awe tactics. Why let him survive the battle against Viserion only to kill him off immediately? Qyburn has got his Scorpions up to dragon-murdering snuff, but why did we need to know that before the battle for King’s Landing? Killing off Missandei is the ruthless Game of Thrones we’ve come to know and love, but if it only serves to push Daenerys over the edge, it will ultimately feel cheap.

Once again, they have fallen victim to the shortened season, with thousands of miles being travelled unfathomably fast and squeezing dozens of scenes and plotlines, which normally would have been given time to develop, into one episode. Despite my optimism, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the feeling that, for all of the incredible battles, cinematography and CGI work that HBO has pioneered through Game of Thrones, the end result will be worse off because of that shift to visual spectacle over compelling human drama.

Joe is the film and TV critic for The Lincolnite. He is a Master’s student at the University of Lincoln, having abandoned the sunny beaches of the Cayman Islands for the slightly colder climes of Lincolnshire to see whether he could make it as a writer. Joe graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland in 2016, where he studied the Liberal Arts and drank far too much bad American beer.