Hello everyone, and welcome to my recap and review for Game Of Thrones Season 8, Episode 1! At long last, after a twenty month hiatus, everyone's favorite show is finally back for it's eighth and final season. This is it, after years of dissecting every little detail, and speculating until the cows come home, the definitive conclusion is now right around the corner. It's been tough waiting for so long to get to this point, not as long as fans of the books have had to wait, but this break in between seasons has gone on long enough. There's a lot of loose ends to tie up, and I wonder if it's even possible for the show to give us fans a satisfying end to this sprawling story, but now that the first episode is in the can I'd love to give you my thoughts on it.
For starters, I really enjoyed the new intro that featured an updated, and more detailed version, of the 3D map that we've all become accustomed to. It was a nice touch that helped me get excited for what's to come. Since the wait was so long for this new season it was a little difficult to remember exactly what point we left off at. Almost like playing a game of chess, then stopping in the middle for twenty months and coming back to it. This episode did a good job of refreshing my memory though, so it wasn't that big a deal. It opened with Jon and Daenerys arriving at Winterfell with their massive army, and of course Dany's two remaining Dragons. For some reason Winterfell felt much more fleshed out to me, giving it a sense of realism that I didn't get from past seasons.
All throughout the episode there were obvious parallels that called back to the first season. I won't go into detail listing each one, but it conveyed to the audience that even though a lot has changed since then everything has kind of come full circle. There were a lot of nice reunions between all the Stark siblings, and the people of Winterfell were introduced to Daenerys and her Dragons. The first third of this episode mainly focused on all the characters of the north and how they need to work together to try and devise a plan for dealing with the major threats they are now facing.
We then jumped down to King's Landing to check in on Cersei, and we find her dealing with Euron Greyjoy. She solidifies their alliance by finally sleeping with him so that he doesn't turn on her, and so she can use his fleet of ships in the upcoming battle. Cersei also gives the order to Bronn to track down Tyrion Lannister and kill him with the crossbow he used to kill their Father. Bronn seems to agree to take the job, but I'm very skeptical that he would actually kill his longtime friend just for a little more gold. I think it's much more likely that this is just a plot device to get Bronn with the rest of the Winterfell crew, basically setting up the pieces for what's to come.
Back at Winterfell we have my favorite sequence of the entire episode where Jon and Dany climb aboard the two Dragons and take them for a ride. They find a secluded area to stop and partake in a little romance. The CGI was very well done for this scene and it helped to flesh out their relationship a bit more as well. In fact, Jon and Dany's chemistry feels much more natural so far this season than it has in the past, making it seem less forced, which is nice.
After that we get a short scene where Arya and The Hound acknowledge each other and exchange some words. I was hoping for something more significant for their reunion, but I imagine all non essential plot points will be cut short for time this season. Arya also asks Gendry to make her a special weapon of some kind. We only get a brief image of what she wants and no further details about it, definitely foreshadowing something that will happen in later episodes.
We finish things off with Sam finally dropping the bombshell on Jon about his true lineage. Now Jon knows the truth about his parents and his relation to Danerys. What impact this will have on their budding romance remains to be seen, but it should make for an interesting season. With only five episodes left there isn't much time to drag things out any further. I was hoping they would hit the ground running, but this first episode was a bit of a letdown. That's not to say is was bad by any means, it's just that there isn't much time left and there's still a lot of ground to cover. There was no update on the army of the dead, no big conflict or battle sequence, and the plot barely moved ahead at all. Now that the ground work is laid I'm sure the remaining five episodes will be epic, and hopefully we will get a satisfying conclusion. I'm going to give Game Of Thrones Season 8, Episode 1 a grade of.............................
B -
Thank you for reading my review of Episode 1 of the final season for Game Of Thrones, I hope you enjoyed it!