Jon riding Rhaegal, while a soaring moment in terms of visuals and score, does have a bit of cringe to it. It’s telling that two of the most anticipated, most theorized plot points come true in a span of minutes as not only does Jon learn of his true lineage, but he finally rides Rhaegal the Dragon to the Waterfall where he made out with Yggritte. Where older seasons took their time in rewarding viewers with the payoff so that the payoff, when it came, mattered and resonated big time, we’re now just being thrown revelation after revelation to get on with it and move on to the next thing. Having shortened the season’s run to a mere six episodes (with one dedicated to a big battle), there just isn’t enough time to let the interactions and plot machinations play out a natural course. It would probably take a few episodes worth of convincing to realistically have them put aside their differences and fight and it would’ve been a great few additional hours, had we gotten any.Īnd that’s where the cracks in the episode start showing up. Jon tries his best to get everyone to think rationally about the real threat and how titles and houses and lordships do not matter anymore, but the older houses won’t listen. Naturally, they do not take it well, with some (House Glover?) withdrawing support, preferring to wither out their winter in the confines of their homes. In fact, that’s the other challenge the writers have – to get everyone to accept that their King in the North Jon Snow has sworn allegiance to the Targaryen Queen Daenerys. In a small but important moment, he ignores Arya when riding toward Winterfell, which she takes for Jon ignoring the Stark house now that he’s on the dragon-queen’s side. With Arya, his reunion goes somewhat as expected although there’s an undercurrent of tension seeping through when Arya sees that Jon has bent the knee to a Targaryen. With Sansa, it’s a second reunion since he departed for Dragonstone in the Season 7 episode Stormborn and goes about as you’d anticipate, with Sansa being wary of the new Queen.
With Bran, he kisses him dearly on his forehead echoing their Season 1 interaction yet again, but is a bit taken aback when he fails to get any reaction from the now reticent Bran (Sansa and Arya would know they got used to it last season). While not a shot for shot recreation, the entire sequence has the Season 1 feels, and even uses the exact same lifting score Djawadi composed back then for the situation.Īmong the more heartwarming reunions are the ones that Jon shares with each of the siblings. Arya’s enthusiasm back then has transformed into a stoic stance with subtle displays of excitement, hatred and then again excitement upon seeing the dragons, her childlike demeanor taken over instead by a small farmboy who climbs atop houses to catch a look at the oncoming cavalry. They begin right from the first scene when the new King and Queen (self-proclaimed for now) march toward Winterfell along the Kingsroad that echoes the Season 1 opener where Robert Baratheon marched to Winterfell to recruit Ned Stark as his new Hand. The callbacks to earlier seasons are well done and should give fans a bit of nostalgia to meme around with. Primarily though, the episode centers around reunions, particularly those of the Starks, and it’s a profound moment for not since the Season 1 premiere Winter is Coming have all of them been together. It helps that with characters reduced and consolidated, we’re left with just two locations to hope around, a fact reflected in the updated intro that takes us to the interiors of these locations rather than covering areas around the world that don’t matter now. At around 54 minutes, which is the standard length of a Game of Thrones episode, Winterfell (until yesterday, the episode didn’t have a name) packs in quite a lot given that it has to deal with the fallout of Season 7’s seismic narrative shifts.
It abounds in callbacks to prior seasons and catches us up on what the status quo is in the North (which is where all the action is now). Then again, the mere feels of watching a new Game of Thrones episode that’s not a rewatch of anything you’ve seen before ignites a new thrill, making us a bit biased as both viewers and reviewers when evaluating the episode on its merits. In that sense, they often tend to be a bit underwhelming in that no significant plot developments or revelations occur. Season openers tend to catch viewers up with what’s gone down thus far and how the relationship dynamics have shifted or solidified. Game of Thrones season premieres are always a mixed bag to watch and review.