Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 1: Winterfell Review

8/10

It was actually much less boring than most Season premieres, considering it was mostly exposition and gentle reminders of what happened ten years ago when we the last episode aired. Though, as Bran said early on: none of this matters.

And none of it does.

When you think about it, all of it: Cersei’s evil schemes, the question of whether or not Theon’s going to go to Winterfell or Arya flirting with Gendry (gag) or Tyrion making bad jokes (I’m used to it now, by the way: Tyrion is now the worst, most pointless character on the show, followed closely by Baldy the Ball-less); or Sansa getting all sniffy’or the Onion Knight being all gruffly Teddy Bearish, or Sam getting caught masturbating in the library; or Euron’s mutton chops stealing the scenes again; or that kid climbing that tree…none of it amounts to a hill of beans.

We all know what’s coming.

But before it comes, there is also the inevitable conflict that is coming between Jon and Dany which will fill four whole episodes and maybe not be resolved until the final episode, when Jonny will be fighting Ice and Fire alike — which is what apparently Bran-the-All-Knowing wants anyway, since he is the one pulling the strings here.

Yes, Bran is the chief player at this point. Is anybody else even playing at all? Dany is a prisoner of her character, without free will. The Night’s King is merely an omnicidal meanie with far too little screentime — and he’s pissed off about it.

Jon Snow is typically amazingly easy to manipulate: just show him the Hero Path and he walks right down it without a think, jaw slackly hanging open.

So it boils down to Bran and non-Jon Starks being the only characters that can really make decisions at this point. Just saying. Just pointing out.

Tyrion? What side will he choose?

Does he even matter anyway? Something tells me he does, just because he used to be so important. I suppose something important will hinge on Tyrion but there’s no clue of it in this episode.

Does Cersei matter? I mean you’d expect her to fuck things up, but she probably won’t; she’ll probably just sit there with that smug smile and that smug eyebrow perpetually raised until she’s zombiefied and/or reduced to ash. Ditto Euron only sans eyebrow. Ditto everyone really.

This should have been a three episode season: one episode of what we got; one episode of Dany vs Jon. And one episode of defeating the Night’s King and Dany together, but sacrificing everybody to do so because that is how this show rolls and if you have been paying attention, you would know that.

Which is not to say I didn’t notice a few details:

• Opening sequence has upped its game. Looks expensive. Which explains why there are no elephants with the Golden Company. I’m sure there are elephants in Northern Ireland;— not indigenously, mind you, but in zoos. It’s just that the animal rights people would be really up-in-arms if a bunch of those went down.
• What is the Golden Company’s role anyway? Are they just going to, like, get zombiefied? What’s the point if there are no elephants? I demand ice zombie elephants! You have computers, make it happen!
• Bronn interrupts his menage a quatre to go off and kill Tyrion and Jai-Jai, whose hair gets darker every season. It is now an unLannister shade of black, but does look newly washed, which is a rarity in this show.
  
   I don’t know. Would it be terribly untoward of me to state that I don’t believe that Bronn is going to kill Tyrion and Jaime? At any rate, the meeting with Qyburn lasted only three minutes; you telling me Bronn couldn’t go back to what he was doing before saddling up the horses? It’s a month-long journey to the North what does a few minutes matter! Oh, yeah, I forgot what show I was watching. He’ll be there by episode 3. But I'm just saying, I would have carried on, only with out the poxy woman. Oh well, at least he doesn’t have the pox, which, by the way, is something Colombus imported from from Americos.
• Cersei looks at Euron and says; “You’re not boring, I’ll give you that.” Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!! She should have looked directly into the camera and given us all a big wink when she said that. There should have been a muted trumpet playing “wah, wah, wah!"
• Where’s Ghost?
• Where’s Melly? I know she’s banned from Winterfell, but you’d think she could, like, hangout somewhere. She’s probably plotting the death of Cersei and/or Dany’s unborn child.
• You want a queen you have to earn her.
  You want their loyalty you have to earn it. 
  This is a theme of the episode: when Sanser or Sammy-boy or whoever asks Jon Snow if Dany would set her crown aside for her people, it’s the same concept.
  
  You could see the light slowly dawn on Jon Snow. Oh yeah. I’m bettuh.Oh, Jon you are so easily manipulated by the power-mongers and string-pullers who are Sam and Bran, of all people.
• When Dany finds Sam in the library or wherever he was, he jumps as if he’s just been caught masturbating. I bet he was. I bet the flame is off his and Gilly’s relationship by now.
• The people don’t like Dany. Sanser doesnt like Dany. Arya doesn’t like Dany. Bran doesn’t like Dany.
  
  Fuck. Sucks for Dany, I know how it feels, I’ve been the new guy in school.
• OK, you just hold on when you are flying a dragon. There is no saddle or anything. I’m sorry but I find that implausible, particularly when you add in the factor of hypothermia — it being Winter in the North and them flying to the top of some mountain somewhere. Why isn’t that waterfall frozen? Come to think of it…
• Doesn’t winter in the Winterfell look a whole lot like Summer in Winterfell? Where are the hundred-feet-snows? I see quite a lot of sunshine actually. Geez, this show.
• When Jon is lighting torches in the crypts (that was the crypts, right?) I couldn’t help thinking that he was preparing for another session of sweet kinky dragon sex in the crypt. I would totally do it in there, how freaky would that be?
  
   Unfortunately, Sam cock-blocks him with the news that he is the heir of the kingdom — and not just any old Kingdom. The Seven Kingdoms— which may or may not include Dorne which is…best forgotten.
• Disappointed that I didn’t get to see Gendry shirt-less at the forge again.
• Where’s Brienne? I miss her scowling face and her neverending abuse of Pod the Magic Penis. Did I miss something? Is she on some quest, wandering around the Riverlands and no one told me?
• Tormund and Edd checking out Last Hearth. It looks like a real pigsty there — but they are used to that, of course, because they’ve spent time with the Night’s Watch.
  
   Little zombie boy coming back and screaming is probably the least surprising scene that there has ever been in this show, but that shot was the dead child burning was cool. More of that please.
• Oh, there were other themes: mano-a-mano: this character vs that character….yeah, we get it. Winterfell is a tinderbox waiting to catch fire. Well, that metaphor is maybe too literal, but you know what I mean.

Best lines of dialogue: Dany: We could stay here a thousand years.

                                         Jon: But then we'd be old.

No wonder Arya thinks Sanser is the smartest person she's evah known. It's a pretty low bar.