Sunday, July 23, 2017

Discussing Game of Thrones: Dragonstone

* Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen “Dragonstone.”

Sooooo, yeah—Game of Thrones returned last week, and this recap is . . . a week late. XD Unfortunately, I had to do some major adulting this past week, which prevented me from being able to sit down and rewatch the episode and write this recap until now. But hey—at least it's still posting before Episode 2, hahaha!

Walder Whaaaa???!!!

Season 7 opens with . . . Walder Frey???!!! The last time we saw him, he was bleeding out after Arya slit his throat. But here he is, addressing a bunch of male Freys? Ah, but watch all of those male Freys but Walder drink from their goblets. Hello—poison! Of course it was Arya, wearing Walder’s face!!! I absolutely LOVED her lines at the end of this scene, that the North remembers, and winter came for House Frey. Hell yeah, Arya!

Bran and Meera Arrive Late for the Reunion Party at the Wall

Cut to a creepy ass scene of the White Walkers on the move. Well, as fast as an army of the frosty undead can move. They have White Walker giants! I repeat: white. Walker. Giants!!!! It turns out that Bran was having a vision, and he and Meera have arrived at the Wall, at last, after how many seasons? Dolorous Edd is there to meet them, and he asks for some verification of Bran's identity. Bran replies that Edd was at the Fist of the First Men and Hardhome, and the Night King is coming for everyone. That's enough proof for Edd, and Meera and Bran are granted admittance.

Sibling Squabbling in Public is a No-No

In Winterfell's Great Hall, Jon is talking about dragonglass and how it needs to be mined to make weapons to fight the Night King and his army. Not only that, but everyone aged 10 to 16, male and female, will drill daily with weapons. Lord Glover balks at the idea, which prompts Lady Lyanna Mormont to once again stand up and get sassy. She informs Lord Glover that she isn't planning to knit by the fire while men fight for her. Jon goes on to say that the Wall has to be properly manned and looks to the Wildlings for help. Tormund says he’ll go to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The next item on the agenda is what to do with the Karstark and Umber castles, which would be next in the path of the White Walkers. Sansa argues that the castles should be given to loyal Stark supporters, while Jon declares that he won't strip both families of their ancestral homes. Jon and Sansa start getting into it in front of everyone assembled, much to Littlefinger's delight. Jon puts his foot down and brings both Ned Umber and Alys Karstark forward to swear their loyalty to House Stark. Outside and away from everyone, Jon and Sansa continue quarreling, and a raven arrives for Jon, demanding his presence in King’s Landing to bend the knee. Sansa expresses her concern over the threat from Cersei, while Jon insists that the White Walkers are the more dangerous enemy.

Cersei’s New Hobby: Cartography

Jaime finds Cersei watching an artist draw a giant ass map on the ground. Neither sibling needs a giant ass map to figure out that they're surrounded by enemies, but Jaime seems to be more alarmed than his sister. Not only do they need allies, but the Lannister troops need to eat in order to fight. With House Tyrell and their food stores allied with Daenerys, feeding an army could pose a huge problem. Cersei, meanwhile, is more focused on creating a dynasty and seems to be in her own little world.

How to Rebuild a Fleet in No Time at All

So Cersei’s solution to finding allies is inviting Euron Greyjoy to King’s Landing. Brilliant! Viewers will remember that at the end of last season, Yara and Theon stole a good chunk of the Iron Fleet while their uncle was being crowned King of the Iron Islands. Euron ordered that new ships be built ASAP, and looking at the size of the fleet he rolls into King's Landing with, the Ironborn worked quadruple time to make things happen. Euron is hilariously arrogant in front of Cersei and Jaime and gets in several verbal jabs at Jaime. Euron offers Cersei the Iron Fleet in exchange for her hand in marriage. She immediately rejects it, telling Euron that he's untrustworthy. Undeterred, Euron vows not to return to King's Landing until he has a priceless gift for the Queen to her earn her trust. Tyrion's head? Sansa's head? Both heads?

A Very Gross Day in the Life at the Citadel

All I can say about the scenes of Sam at the Citadel is EWWWWWWWWWW. Like, EWWW to the nth degree. I didn’t mind watching Sam shelve books or serve meals, but I so did NOT need to see him cleaning chamber pots. Or assisting Grand Maester Slughorn with an autopsy. It looks as though all Sam has learned so far is that training to be a maester is pretty, well, shitty when you're first starting out, and despite his best efforts to persuade ol' Sluggy that he needs access to the restricted section of the Citadel's library, Sam has to resort to "borrowing" someone else's keys.

Tell Us What You Want, What You Really, Really Want, Littlefinger

Back at the Winterfell courtyard, Brienne is sparring with Pod, and she knocks him down. Tormund, who has zero subtlety when it comes to getting flirty with Brienne, says that Pod is a lucky man. XD As Sansa watches the sparring going on below, Littlefinger creeps up on her and makes his usual creepy comments. Sansa shows little patience for his bullshit and is spared from further annoyance by Brienne's arrival. After Littlefinger slithers off, Brienne asks Sansa why he's still around, and she replies that they need his men.

Not on Arya’s Kill List: Ed Sheeran

Arya comes across a group of Lannister soldiers, one of whom looks a lot like Ed Sheeran, LOL. The soldiers invite her to share their meager meal with them, and she accepts, although she takes note of where their weapons are. As they talk, she’s surprised at how ordinary, and maybe even human, they are— they’re just men missing their families back home. One asks why she’s headed to King’s Landing, and she replies she’s going to kill the queen. The soldiers break out into laughter, and she joins in, but of course she's 100% serious.

Umm . . . I Don’t Like the Looks of This Place

The Brotherhood Without Banners plus the Hound reach a very familiar-looking farmhouse to the Hound— during his travels with Arya, he'd robbed the farmer, who had a young daughter, telling Arya that the pair were going to starve to death anyway. The Hound tries to deter the others from camping there but fails. It turns out that the farmer took the lives of both his daughter and himself, presumably to avoid the very fate that the Hound had predicted. There's some very witty banter between the Hound, Beric, and Thoros; I really dig this group. The conversation becomes serious when the Hound questions why Beric has been brought back to life so many times; what is his purpose? That's a really good question, since Beric's story line in the books is quite different from where it seems headed here. Thoros asks the Hound to look into the flames, which naturally the latter is loath to do at first, but when he does, he sees the White Walkers. Later, Thoros finds the Hound outside digging graves for the farmer and his daughter and helps him.

Dragonstone = Dragonglass!

After all the shit he's had to deal with thus far (sorry, I can't help making these terrible jokes), Sam finds some extremely useful information in one of the books he nicked from the restricted section of the library, courtesy of the keys he also nicked. According to one tome, there's a mother lode of dragonglass beneath Dragonstone. Sam dispatches a raven to Jon with the news. Hello, Reason-for-Jon-to-Meet-Up-with-Daenerys! Speaking of Daenerys, Sam is back at work doing thankless jobs at the Citadel when a scary-looking hand shoots out from behind a closed door through the slot where food bowls are put. I'd know the mellifluous voice that belongs to that hand anywhere: it's Ser Jorah Mormont behind that door! Oh man, just going by the hand, his greyscale must be horrible. He asks Sam for news of the Dragon Queen, Daenerys Stormborn, which is the perfect segue to the final scenes of this episode.

Well, It’s About Damn Time!

After practically living her entire life in exile, Daenerys Targaryen has returned to Westeros! These scenes of her and her crew making landfall at Dragonstone are incredibly powerful and emotional, even more so for the lack of dialogue until the very end. We see her making her way up to the castle, and it's a really long path; flying one of the dragons up there would've been a lot faster, LOL, but a lot less dramatic. Stannis’s war map is still set up, abandoned, and that's when Daenerys utters the sole line of dialogue in the Dragonstone sequence: “Shall we begin?”

In the Next Episode

Yara proposes striking King's Landing now. Wait—is that a wolf in the preview? IS THAT YOU, NYMERIA???!!!

6 comments:

  1. Ooh I was hoping you'd post about GoT! I'm just gearing up for episode 2 tonight, so this is a good time to read your post. :)

    I loved that beginning w/ Arya too. And yes- white walker giants! Eek. I thought the Jon/ Arya moments were well done. And oh my gosh yes did they build that fleet in a hurry or what lol??

    The Hound/ Thoros moment might have been one of the best of the show. And Dany's arrival at DS was AWESOME!

    Yay for Nymeria!!!

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    1. I almost cried during this week's episode when Arya reunited with Nymeria, and then I REALLY almost cried at how that turned out.... :-(

      White Walker giants are scary! At first I was afraid that one might be Wun Wun but my cousin pointed out that the White Walkers haven't gone past the Wall yet. Although that may be happening soon....

      The speedy rebuilding of Euron's fleet is really bothering me now after watching Episode 2, LOL. It's like he got the souped up versions of the ships that Yara and Theon had. I even kind of laughed at the level of detail on the ships' decorations- they had time to do that?! XD

      The Hound is such a changed man. I wonder if he and Brienne will meet up again and what Brienne's reaction will be!

      The Dragonstone scenes were fantastic! I find the throne there much cooler than the Iron Throne, LOL!

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    2. I like the Dragonstone throne better, frankly! And yeah the Euron fleet thing is ridiculous, just in terms of plausibility. Not to mention in the battle we only see one ship of Euron's, it just happens to hit Yara's ship in the MIDDLE of the fleet lol, and there's not a scratch on it while Yara's whole fleet is wrecked. Hmm...

      Otherwise a fun episode ha ha!

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    3. It was a great season opener! I like the Dragonstone throne better, too; the Iron Throne just looks so menacing, like it's going to impale you, LOL.

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  2. I lost my shit at the preview for next week. My sister called me to ask if I'd seen the preview for next week. I watched on HBO NOW so was a few seconds behind everyone else. At the exact time I saw the wolf and screamed NYMERIA!!!

    They certainly started the show off with a bang this season! Arya's whole first scene gave me my complete and total LIFE! When she told then the North remembers and Winter Had come for House Frey, it gave me chills! They didn't listen Lee!!! Ned been trying to tell these people all these years and they never listened! Now Winter is here and they are gone and I am here for it!

    I wanted to choke Sansa for undermining Jon in public like that, and it past due time for somebody to off Little Finger.

    I find it ironic that the Hound would start seeing things in the flames considering his history with fire. That was a nice, subtle touch. I do wonder where that story line is going though since, as you said, it took quite a different turn in the books.

    Poor Sam! But he will be clutch in this series.

    Daenerys!!! Yes Dany....begin already!!!

    Hope you've been doing well Lee!

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    1. Hope you've been doing well, too, Jade! It's so great to talk GoT/ASoIaF with you again! I'm so glad that you stopped by!

      My cousin and I freaked out when we saw the wolf in the preview and immediately hoped it was Nymeria! But that took a very sad turn in last night's episode. :-(

      Arya getting such thorough revenge on the Freys was a thing of beauty! She could not have had better lines to say during that scene, either. Winter came and demolished House Frey!

      Ughhh, I hate Sansa and Jon's public arguing. His crown is so tenuous, and there she is giving the Northern lords and ladies second thoughts about Jon's plans. Littlefinger has to go; he's so digusting and really, does anyone like him except himself?

      I didn't think that the Hound was going to look into the flames and was really surprised when he did. I can't wait to see how the Brotherhood fits into the big scheme of things in Westeros, especially after that shot of Beric in one of the trailers wielding the flaming sword.

      It does look like Sam is going to be key to saving everybody, LOL! First he finds out about the dragonglass, and now he's trying to save Jorah!

      I'm hoping to see Daenerys's army face off against whoever Cersei manages to cobble together. Daenerys seems unstoppable in theory, but thanks to Euron, Cersei put one up on the scoreboard in her column.

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