Game of Thrones Review: Season 7 Episode 1
Guess what's back? Back again. Game of Thrones is back, tell a friend. Guys, the moment we've been waiting for for over a year is here! Game of Thrones is back for the season 7 premiere. This wasn't the most action packed episode of Game of Thrones that there's ever been, put the premieres seldom are. This week we set the stage, moved the characters in to place, and, in general, prepared everything for "the wars to come." So, without furthur ado, let's get into it:
We began this week with one of the best cold opens in television history. When the scene started, and I saw Lord Frey, I was like "wait a minute, Game of Thrones doesn't do flashbacks, what's happening?" Then, I thought it was someone's dream, but then I thought, "who in their right mind would dream about Lord Frey? If anything, they should be dreaming about Jon Snow!" I didn't realize what was going to happen until I saw the wine being poured. And then I was like "oh, no, it's about to get real."
Arya Stark--dressed in the skin of the man she murdered in the previous season--gathered the Frey family together for a feast, at which she toasted her "family" as victorious warriors with sparkling flagons of Arbor Gold. Unfortunately for the Freys, In an act of mass murder worthy of a 20th century cult leader, Arya poisoned theKool-Aid wine and effectively wiped House Frey off the map.
As her enemies gasped and spluttered and drew their last breaths, Arya delivered a speech that confirms my suspicion that she's been writing lyrics for heavy metal anthems in her spare time. "Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe," she informed her dying victims. Turning to the survivors--Frey's wife and serving women--she delivers the best line of the episode: "when they ask what happened here, tell them the north remembers and winter came for house Frey." As she saunters from the hall with a devil-may-care smirk on her face, the eyes of the women follow her in silent wonder and awe, their expressions seeming to say "that's so punk rock," as she exits the room.
Indeed. Arya Stark has proved that revenge is a dish best served with a side of cannibal pie and a tall glass of wine laced with poison.
In other news, Bran--aka the least interest, yet somehow most important, person in Game of Thrones--has finally decided to come south, persumably with the goal of reuniting with his family. He is met at the Wall by comes south and meets Dolorous Edd,who is lookin' pretty stylin' is Jon's clothes; we may have to do a "who wore it better" in a later review. Bran has some cheery news for Edd. The army of the dead is on its way. They're coming for everyone and everything, and, oh, by the way, they have giants. In other words, just a normal Tuesday at the Wall. I get the sense that Edd is not thrilled about his promotion.
A little further south, Jon and Sansa are holding court at Winterfell with all the great lords of the North. Let's have some snaps for the return of Lyanna Mormont, who doesn't plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for her, and boy do I believe her. There's trouble in paradise, however, when Jon and Sansa discover that their "management styles" differ a bit. Jon would like to do the right and "honorable" thing, while Sansa would prefer everyone who ever crossed her to be dead in the ground. Given Jon and Sansa's track record with betrayl, you'll forgive me if I think Sansa has the right idea here. I feel like Jon and Sansa are in a boy band together (let's call it Starks to Wolves), and Jon is the front man, but Sansa is considering leaving the band to release a solo EP (maybe she could remix "Bad Blood"). I really need Jon and Sansa to work together though because (a) we need at least one functional family relationship on the show and (b) they compliment each other really well. Sansa, who graduated summa cum laude from the School of Hard Knocks, is a grade A schemer, and Jon is a natural born leader and one of the toughest warriors around. If Little Finger succedes in driving them apart, as we all know he's trying to do, I'm going to be really, really annoyed.
On the plus side though, Sansa has a new outfit. Last season, we were treated to all sorts of couture creations from Sansa's salon, and it's clear she's not going to disappoint us this season. She's back in black and looking fab. Did anyone notice that all the "queens" in this episode were wearing black? I mean, I know that Sansa is not a queen, but she's the closest thing to a queen that the North has, so I'm going to role with it.
Meanwhile, in King's Landing, another queen--also dressed in black--is watching paint dry instead of preparing for war. Seriously, did it bother anyone else that Cersei's walking on that map before it's finished? It's definately the most agregious thing she's done since blowing up the Sept of Baelor.
In all seriousness though, she's starting to look more and more like a mad queen everyday. I think she's even wigging Jaime out. She thinks Tommen betrayed her by killing himself and has convinced herself that the world is hers for the taking (as Jaime astutely points out, Cersei is queen of three kingdoms at best.) She's also decided to found a dynasty for "us" (aka Cersei and Jaime), which seems to fundamently redefine the word "dynasty" in a way that proveds that Cersei did not study for the vocab section of the SATs.
Cersei has, however, managed to find one ally, which is astounding because I thought she had literally offended or murdered everyone in the Seven Kingdoms. Euron Greyjoy--who has the most EXTRA ship in the world--hasn't been important enough yet to incur the wrath of Cersei, so he's thrown his lot in with the Lannisters. I'm not sure who should mistrust the other person more. On one hand, you should never trust someone who wears more eyeliner than you when you're trying to take over the world, and, on the other hand, if Cersei doesn't like you she might decapitate you or burn you alive. However, the thing that's really worrisome is Euron's fashion sense. Euron looks like he played Captain Hook in a straight to VHS Peter Pan prequel. Seriously, I can't with that V neck. He does redeem himself a bit by promising gifts (book readers know what's up) and delivering quite a few zingers: "here I am with a thousand ships and two good hands."
Meanwhile, down in Old Town, Sam is the star of the most disgusting montage ever. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen so much poo on television, which is probably because poo is not very photogenic and is intensely disgusting. I'm not saying that they weren't clever with mixing the shots of poo with the shots of pouring the soup. All I'm saying is that I hope toGod The Lord of Light that Sam washed his hands really well between doing those two jobs.
I also love that the Citadel's library has a restricted section, just like Hogwarts. I half expected Sam to prowl through the library in his invisibility cloak! I was, however, disappointed that he just pulled a few books off the shelf at random. I don't even think he really looked at the titles! And it was a little too convenient that the first book he opened happened to be the one he needed. But, I know that they had to move the story along, and we didn't look at all that poo for nothing, so I forgive the showrunners for this annoying little plot point.
Sam also gets bonus points in this episode for meeting everyone's favorite terminally ill greyscale patient, Jorah Mormont. I'm hoping that they have a better conversation later in the season.
Next, we head north again, where Tormund has got the hots for Brienne, which he demonstrates with expressive eyebrow movements, which is always the way to a woman's heart.
We also see Sansa shut Littlefinger down for the billionth time in a row. For such a smart person, Littlefinger is pretty bad at flirting. You have to come at Sansa Stark with something better than "I want you to be happy" and "what do you want that you don't already have?" New Sansa--clever strategic Sansa--don't want no scrubs, and she dismisses him with a cold "no need to seize the last word, I'll assume it was something clever."
Next, Westeros is treated to the musical stylings of ACTUAL ED SHEERAN. Can we all take a minute to appreciate how cool it is that Ed Sheeran was on Game of Thrones. Now, I just need Justin Timberlake to make a cameo and I can die happy. Ed and his merry men are way too cheerful and kind to still be alive in season seven of Game of Thrones. Usually, if you're that friendly in Game of Thrones someone murders you in your sleep and steals your boots. The soldier who said "be kind to strangers and they'll be kind to you" was misinformed. In Westeros, the traditional saying is "be kind to strangers and they'll stab you in the kidneys." However, I suppose no one had the heart to cast Ed Sheeran--everyone's favorite soulful, ginger, songster--in the role of a blood thirsty murderer, so he's been granted a reprieve by the GOT gods (well, maybe not, Arya could still kill him and take his shoes).
Next, we check in with the Hound, who is always in a foul mood because of "experience," which you can't blame him for. He's also clearly irritated by top-knots, which just proves that man buns have been annoying people for a long time. However, we get to see the Hound's gentler side when he buries two people that he sentenced to death by starvation in an earlier season. This can perhaps be attributed to his conversion to Lord-of-Light-ism, or whatever it's called, as it seems the Hound has finally got religion. He looks into the fire and sees a vision of the Army of the Dead, marching south to the wall. I find this to be pretty exciting because it suggests that the Brotherhood without Banners might be heading north to the wall, which means that the Hound might meet up with Sansa or Arya again. Or, at the very least, he can kill some White Walkers, which would also be kinda dope.
Finally, we arrive at DRAGONSTONE. I don't know about you, but when I saw Dany step onto the beach, I was just like "finally!" Seriously, it's taken her way too long to get to Westeros, but I'm just glad she's here now. Not to mention that she's looking fabulous in her ruby encrusted, black, I'm-the-dragon-queen outfit. She's always on fleek. I feel like she should go on MTV cribs because, let's be real, Dragonstone is the bomb. You just can't get craftsmanship like that anymore in newer castles. It comes complete with a map room, perfecting for plotting to take over the world.
The only thing that bothered me is that I feel like there should be other people on Dragonstone. If I recall correctly, Dragonstone castle is not the only thing on the island. In the book, I recall there being a town and a harbor and, you know, people. I mean, there sort of have to be other people on Dragonstone because, if not, they'll be eating their own horses before too long. All I'm saying is that the island looked a little too deserted. Come on showrunners, couldn't you find a few people to stand around and look amazed?
In all seriousness though, I thought this was a great start to the season, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes us.
Valar dohaeris
We began this week with one of the best cold opens in television history. When the scene started, and I saw Lord Frey, I was like "wait a minute, Game of Thrones doesn't do flashbacks, what's happening?" Then, I thought it was someone's dream, but then I thought, "who in their right mind would dream about Lord Frey? If anything, they should be dreaming about Jon Snow!" I didn't realize what was going to happen until I saw the wine being poured. And then I was like "oh, no, it's about to get real."
Arya Stark--dressed in the skin of the man she murdered in the previous season--gathered the Frey family together for a feast, at which she toasted her "family" as victorious warriors with sparkling flagons of Arbor Gold. Unfortunately for the Freys, In an act of mass murder worthy of a 20th century cult leader, Arya poisoned the
As her enemies gasped and spluttered and drew their last breaths, Arya delivered a speech that confirms my suspicion that she's been writing lyrics for heavy metal anthems in her spare time. "Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe," she informed her dying victims. Turning to the survivors--Frey's wife and serving women--she delivers the best line of the episode: "when they ask what happened here, tell them the north remembers and winter came for house Frey." As she saunters from the hall with a devil-may-care smirk on her face, the eyes of the women follow her in silent wonder and awe, their expressions seeming to say "that's so punk rock," as she exits the room.Indeed. Arya Stark has proved that revenge is a dish best served with a side of cannibal pie and a tall glass of wine laced with poison.
In other news, Bran--aka the least interest, yet somehow most important, person in Game of Thrones--has finally decided to come south, persumably with the goal of reuniting with his family. He is met at the Wall by comes south and meets Dolorous Edd,who is lookin' pretty stylin' is Jon's clothes; we may have to do a "who wore it better" in a later review. Bran has some cheery news for Edd. The army of the dead is on its way. They're coming for everyone and everything, and, oh, by the way, they have giants. In other words, just a normal Tuesday at the Wall. I get the sense that Edd is not thrilled about his promotion.
A little further south, Jon and Sansa are holding court at Winterfell with all the great lords of the North. Let's have some snaps for the return of Lyanna Mormont, who doesn't plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for her, and boy do I believe her. There's trouble in paradise, however, when Jon and Sansa discover that their "management styles" differ a bit. Jon would like to do the right and "honorable" thing, while Sansa would prefer everyone who ever crossed her to be dead in the ground. Given Jon and Sansa's track record with betrayl, you'll forgive me if I think Sansa has the right idea here. I feel like Jon and Sansa are in a boy band together (let's call it Starks to Wolves), and Jon is the front man, but Sansa is considering leaving the band to release a solo EP (maybe she could remix "Bad Blood"). I really need Jon and Sansa to work together though because (a) we need at least one functional family relationship on the show and (b) they compliment each other really well. Sansa, who graduated summa cum laude from the School of Hard Knocks, is a grade A schemer, and Jon is a natural born leader and one of the toughest warriors around. If Little Finger succedes in driving them apart, as we all know he's trying to do, I'm going to be really, really annoyed.On the plus side though, Sansa has a new outfit. Last season, we were treated to all sorts of couture creations from Sansa's salon, and it's clear she's not going to disappoint us this season. She's back in black and looking fab. Did anyone notice that all the "queens" in this episode were wearing black? I mean, I know that Sansa is not a queen, but she's the closest thing to a queen that the North has, so I'm going to role with it.
Meanwhile, in King's Landing, another queen--also dressed in black--is watching paint dry instead of preparing for war. Seriously, did it bother anyone else that Cersei's walking on that map before it's finished? It's definately the most agregious thing she's done since blowing up the Sept of Baelor.
In all seriousness though, she's starting to look more and more like a mad queen everyday. I think she's even wigging Jaime out. She thinks Tommen betrayed her by killing himself and has convinced herself that the world is hers for the taking (as Jaime astutely points out, Cersei is queen of three kingdoms at best.) She's also decided to found a dynasty for "us" (aka Cersei and Jaime), which seems to fundamently redefine the word "dynasty" in a way that proveds that Cersei did not study for the vocab section of the SATs.
Cersei has, however, managed to find one ally, which is astounding because I thought she had literally offended or murdered everyone in the Seven Kingdoms. Euron Greyjoy--who has the most EXTRA ship in the world--hasn't been important enough yet to incur the wrath of Cersei, so he's thrown his lot in with the Lannisters. I'm not sure who should mistrust the other person more. On one hand, you should never trust someone who wears more eyeliner than you when you're trying to take over the world, and, on the other hand, if Cersei doesn't like you she might decapitate you or burn you alive. However, the thing that's really worrisome is Euron's fashion sense. Euron looks like he played Captain Hook in a straight to VHS Peter Pan prequel. Seriously, I can't with that V neck. He does redeem himself a bit by promising gifts (book readers know what's up) and delivering quite a few zingers: "here I am with a thousand ships and two good hands."Meanwhile, down in Old Town, Sam is the star of the most disgusting montage ever. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen so much poo on television, which is probably because poo is not very photogenic and is intensely disgusting. I'm not saying that they weren't clever with mixing the shots of poo with the shots of pouring the soup. All I'm saying is that I hope to
I also love that the Citadel's library has a restricted section, just like Hogwarts. I half expected Sam to prowl through the library in his invisibility cloak! I was, however, disappointed that he just pulled a few books off the shelf at random. I don't even think he really looked at the titles! And it was a little too convenient that the first book he opened happened to be the one he needed. But, I know that they had to move the story along, and we didn't look at all that poo for nothing, so I forgive the showrunners for this annoying little plot point.
Sam also gets bonus points in this episode for meeting everyone's favorite terminally ill greyscale patient, Jorah Mormont. I'm hoping that they have a better conversation later in the season.
Next, we head north again, where Tormund has got the hots for Brienne, which he demonstrates with expressive eyebrow movements, which is always the way to a woman's heart.
We also see Sansa shut Littlefinger down for the billionth time in a row. For such a smart person, Littlefinger is pretty bad at flirting. You have to come at Sansa Stark with something better than "I want you to be happy" and "what do you want that you don't already have?" New Sansa--clever strategic Sansa--don't want no scrubs, and she dismisses him with a cold "no need to seize the last word, I'll assume it was something clever."
Next, Westeros is treated to the musical stylings of ACTUAL ED SHEERAN. Can we all take a minute to appreciate how cool it is that Ed Sheeran was on Game of Thrones. Now, I just need Justin Timberlake to make a cameo and I can die happy. Ed and his merry men are way too cheerful and kind to still be alive in season seven of Game of Thrones. Usually, if you're that friendly in Game of Thrones someone murders you in your sleep and steals your boots. The soldier who said "be kind to strangers and they'll be kind to you" was misinformed. In Westeros, the traditional saying is "be kind to strangers and they'll stab you in the kidneys." However, I suppose no one had the heart to cast Ed Sheeran--everyone's favorite soulful, ginger, songster--in the role of a blood thirsty murderer, so he's been granted a reprieve by the GOT gods (well, maybe not, Arya could still kill him and take his shoes).
Next, we check in with the Hound, who is always in a foul mood because of "experience," which you can't blame him for. He's also clearly irritated by top-knots, which just proves that man buns have been annoying people for a long time. However, we get to see the Hound's gentler side when he buries two people that he sentenced to death by starvation in an earlier season. This can perhaps be attributed to his conversion to Lord-of-Light-ism, or whatever it's called, as it seems the Hound has finally got religion. He looks into the fire and sees a vision of the Army of the Dead, marching south to the wall. I find this to be pretty exciting because it suggests that the Brotherhood without Banners might be heading north to the wall, which means that the Hound might meet up with Sansa or Arya again. Or, at the very least, he can kill some White Walkers, which would also be kinda dope.
Finally, we arrive at DRAGONSTONE. I don't know about you, but when I saw Dany step onto the beach, I was just like "finally!" Seriously, it's taken her way too long to get to Westeros, but I'm just glad she's here now. Not to mention that she's looking fabulous in her ruby encrusted, black, I'm-the-dragon-queen outfit. She's always on fleek. I feel like she should go on MTV cribs because, let's be real, Dragonstone is the bomb. You just can't get craftsmanship like that anymore in newer castles. It comes complete with a map room, perfecting for plotting to take over the world.
The only thing that bothered me is that I feel like there should be other people on Dragonstone. If I recall correctly, Dragonstone castle is not the only thing on the island. In the book, I recall there being a town and a harbor and, you know, people. I mean, there sort of have to be other people on Dragonstone because, if not, they'll be eating their own horses before too long. All I'm saying is that the island looked a little too deserted. Come on showrunners, couldn't you find a few people to stand around and look amazed?
In all seriousness though, I thought this was a great start to the season, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes us.
Valar dohaeris
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