I cherish each episode’s 20 seconds of Lyanna Mormont: Teenage Truth-Teller more than I could ever get a charge out of a CG dragon. I’d rather watch Sansa and Tyrion tiptoe around each other for two minutes, remembering fully when they last shared the screen, than watch people in armor hacking at each other on the battlefield.
#Game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date full#
It is not, of course, just the Arya show - though her Daria-style animated series spoofed in last week’s SNL was the only one of those fake spinoffs that I’d actually watch - and the premiere was full of satisfying exchanges with other characters as well. In many ways, I’m less sure about what Williams’ post- Game of Thrones career looks like than some of her fellow castmates, but she’s secured my vote as the cast’s MVP no matter how close she ends up to the Iron Throne in the end. Probably a bit too much of the premiere was dedicated to dialogue exchanges that Hill must’ve thought felt like witty banter - and some of them are - when Williams can have a witty rejoinder with no words and a half-smirk, when she can create an emotional swell just with a smile at a remembered kindness from three seasons ago. She expresses so much while doing so little and she’s a screenwriter’s best friend, with Dave Hill as the primary beneficiary here.
![game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date](https://i1.wp.com/whatismyip.network/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/got-8-sezon.jpg)
![game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date](https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/jumpstartpure/image?url=https://cf-images.us-east-1.prod.boltdns.net/v1/static/219646971/895c6a9d-674b-454f-81e7-16851689e8b4/042d5011-4287-40ac-88ec-45f7616df926/1280x720/match/image.jpg)
Who needs an extended “Previously on Game of Thrones …” recap when you can watch Maisie Williams’ abnormally expressive eyes take in each passing character, using her as the filter to remember where we left every character and what their relationship to Arya was when we last saw them. Want to know the kind of Game of Thrones action sequence I most enjoy? I loved the steady stream of characters entering Winterfell on horseback, each passing by Arya, hidden unnoticed in the crowd. I’m being coy, but in an episode with very little to spoil, that’s as close as the premiere comes to being spoilable and that, again, is something that some fans will be displeased by. Several characters learned things that I feared might take multiple weeks to play out and I was glad at the expeditious approach the writers took and the emotional corners they didn’t cut in letting those scenes unfold. If you want answers or revelations, the premiere had several of those as well. None of this is the same as a prolonged battle scene, but I get the sense that we’ll have plenty of that as the season progresses. The second half of the episode, which I’m taking pains not to spoil here, had one scene of extended suspense. The marching battalions streaming into Winterfell seemed to go on forever, and we also got what was probably our most sustained stretch of dragon footage to date. The dead are marching and they’re vicious.Įven with a fully reasonable running time of under an hour, the premiere wasn’t without scenes that captured the epic scope of what we all expect will be a berserk final season. The only summary that matters: Armies are configuring. Plot summaries for Game of Thrones are, at this point, silly. 'Game of Thrones': Who Will Die in the Final Season?
#Game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date plus#
Given time, the premiere reveals the whereabouts of characters including Theon (Alfie Allen), Yara (Gemma Whelan), plus Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) and Beric (Richard Dormer) and several of the figures who were at The Wall when the zombie dragon came in the last finale. It’s a vast army now amassed at Winterfell and the characters present at this location include (but surely aren’t limited to) Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), The Hound (Rory McCann), Sam (John Bradley), Gendry (Joe Dempsie), various aligned outside families and, perhaps not clear on her place in this whole situation, Arya (Maisie Williams).ĭown in King’s Landing, then, we have Cersei (Lena Headey), current occupant of the throne, pregnant with her brother’s baby and generally uninterested in threats to and from insurgents in The North, waiting for Euron (Pilou Asbaek) to arrive with a mercenary navy to support her reign. So we have Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his incestuous, dragon-toting queen Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) arriving at Winterfell, stoking Sansa’s (Sophie Turner) insecurity.
![game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SEC_62383975.jpg)
Basically, after having spent the better part of six or seven seasons with the characters spread out across the Seven Kingdoms, last season was primarily spent consolidating.
![game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date game of thrones season 8 episode 1 date](https://www.cnet.com/a/img/4QqUTaadJ5s3TW9-2S2INcwqk-Q=/940x0/2019/05/20/a76098e9-335b-47f7-9857-33bf4e03f63f/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-6-jon-daenerys-dead.jpg)
Reviews normally include some plot summary, and that’s both irrelevant and pointless when it comes to Game of Thrones. That’s how I’d describe my response to Sunday’s premiere: reasonably satisfied. You give me 50+ minutes of Arya reacting to things and I’m reasonably satisfied. Despite having read all the books and watched the series with general-but-not-rabid enthusiasm, I have no investment in who ends up on the Iron Throne or what gadget play or deus ex machina gizmo will enable the end of zombie encroachment. I’m not a destination-driven Game of Thrones viewer.