Season Eight, Episode Two - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

NB: I've also seen several reviews claiming the title of this episode was "The Things We Do For Love" so I genuinely have no idea which is correct. Sorry.

Anyway, hi and welcome to another review of Game of Thrones. Spoiler alert: I didn't enjoy this week's episode. What else is new?
As always my twitter is@noneedtomoan and, if you want to remind yourself what happened in Season Seven, here are my previous rants: E1, E2 , E3, E4, E5, E6 and E7 and last week's episode is here: S8E1.

And, as always, I am salty af after episode two so let's just get cracking.

We open on an apparent trial of Jaime Lannister. Dany is not happy, no ma'am, but Jaime promises he will "fight for the living". Tyrion tries to stick up for his brother but the queen doesn't like that and it appears our catty girls from last week have found some common ground here: both Sansa and Dany do not trust Jaime.

The reaction Bran expected

Then, because the girls are being a bit boring, we get an epic mic drop moment:

Jaime: Everything I did, I did for my house and for my family and I'll do it again.
Bran: The things we do for love.

....Except nothing happens. Jaime registers it. And the conversation moves on. What a waste of a S1 callback, eh Bran?

Then, because Jaime cannot speak for himself, Brienne gets involved and sticks up for him. This moves Sansa to change sides to once again oppose Dany (gasp no way said no one) then Dany leaves the decision to Jon for some reason and he sides with Sansa. Then I think we're meant to feel tension and Dany is mad at Jon and Tyrion. She tells Tyrion she will find another hand if she can't trust him and I think we're meant to feel sorry for him but honestly idc.

Meanwhile, outside, where Arya is taking no interest in the trial of one of the men responsible for killing her father (seriously what is she doing while all this is going on? Does she just wander around WF being creepy?) and instead is flirting with Gendry about the White Walkers and the weapon he should be making for her and how she 'knows death', which she proves by being a mean shot with dragonglass.

Cut to Bran, who is back outside where he belongs and chatting with Jaime about pushing him out of the window. He's cool with it because it made him the Three Eyed Raven and I can't even tell if Jaime and others accept this at this point. They all just kind of stare at him until he shuts up again. Then leave him outside in his chair.

By this part of the episode, I'm not going to lie, I expected a lot more:

But, seriously, no one is bothered at all. It's weird how all eight seasons have been building up to this moment and now it's just like, HEY, SLOW DOWN, let's have a chat about our feelings and shit.

One-handed Jaime did ok in Dorne

Anyway, next on the list for the catch-up-on-our-emotions-about-each-other chat are Jaime and Tyrion, who talk about Cersei (who IS pregnant guys, stop thinking she's lying) and the fact that Tyrion can make mistakes (gasp no way said no one ever).

They then look out from the top of Winterfell and see Brienne training Pod. Jaime goes down to see her and he asks to be under her command of the left flank, despite not being as good of a fighter as he used to be back when he had two hands and she accepts his offer.

Shocking news: WE HAVE MORE UNNECESSARY CONVERSATIONS TO AVOID THE BATTLE THIS EPISODE

Jorah is bitching to Dany about not being hand for some reason and says Tyrion should be forgiven for... Being annoying and speaking up for everyone at every opportunity despite never being asked to? Being a terrible hand? Believing Cersei? One of them.

Sansa and Dany have a chat to put those non-existent problems behind them and be gal pals instead. They both talk about how great Tyrion is for a while.

Saint Tyrion chats make me mad

Then, once they're over how wonderful and smart and great Tyrion is, Sansa says they have Jon in common but "men tend to do stupid things for love" but Dany argues it is she who is being taken advantage of here: she is only in Winterfell because she loves Jon.

The ONLY reason Dany is fighting the war against the undead is Jon, apparently. Let's break that down.

She doesn't care that the White Walkers are through the Wall? Even though she went to Cersei to ask her to put aside the arguments over the throne to focus on saving the world? She's now forgotten this and is all about the throne again?

This is what I was talking about last week: the show has forgotten that the main battle is meant to be ice vs fire, dead vs living. 

Sorry - book talk for a hot minute: The series of books is called A Song of Ice and Fire but the TV show has focused on the first book's title alone, A Game of Thrones. Back in book one, the only thing anyone cared about was who was on the Iron Throne. Fair. We didn't know about the army of the undead. But now, now we are beyond the books and the UNDEAD ARE BEYOND THE WALL. Does the king/queen matter? Who wants to rule over a kingdom full of undead White Walkers? That's meaningless.

Take the books out of it: all these super scary undead zombies are here and they will kill everyone. Why would who is king or queen matter? What sort of tyrant is Dany if this is all she cares about? Are we meant to start hating her now? Or are we meant to be rooting for her to get that crown, biatch. You get what's owed to you hun.

Is Dany bothered by this? Lol nope.

But, okay, let's pretend I can put all of this aside for a second.

Let's just think about Dany. Daenerys Targaryen: what's the most important thing in her life? Besides Jon. Besides the throne.

Her three dragons were always referred to as her children. One of them was murdered last season by the Night's King.

You genuinely expect me to believe that Dany doesn't care that the Night's King killed one of her CHILDREN? She doesn't even want vengeance for that? Nope.

In her own words, she's ONLY in Winterfell, fighting the war of the living vs the dead, because she loves Jon. He's the only thing that convinced her to be there.

In summary: I call BULLSHIT.

Whatever.

The conversation continues in a light hearted girls-having-some-girl-banter manner until Sansa asks what will happen to the North after the war against the undead is won. Dany says she will take the Iron Throne and they are back to being FROSTY with one another once Sansa reveals that the North does not want to relinquish their title as they've lost it before and are not willing to lose it again.

#awks

Theon arrives and is... best friends with Sansa now? Idk I don't feel much about this tbh.

Because of Jeyne Poole in the books, I feel like this is all bullshit anyway so I kind of zone out of Theon scenes.

There's some weird scene with Gilly telling women and children to head to the crypts for saftey and Davos showing us all that he was always the good guy with Shireen and he wants to look after the little ones.

Edd, Tormund and co. show up.

They 'had to go around' the Army of the Undead.

AROUND THEM

ALL THIS LOT

JUST NIPPED AROUND THEM

I despair.

Right, next, we're all having a little chat about the Night's King and what he wants, which Bran is convinced is him (he's so self-involved this guy). Bran comes up with a plan for him to, shock horror, wait outside in the godswood and lure the Night's King to him.

Missandei and Grey Worm agree to go to Naath after all this funny war business is over.

Ghost blink twice if you're being held against your will

Next, we head up to see Jon and Sam talking about the revelation from last week with Ghost just chillin in the background.

Sigh. The fact that Ghost is just stuck in behind them with no comment is an absolute joke. We've had no reunion moment, so they obviously want us to believe he's been here the entire time, just out of shot. Ghost was a huge part of Jon's resurrection and crucial to his story. He's the only direwolf left with its original Stark (Nymeria is off with a new pack somewhere and the others are all dead) and it's a VERY big deal that Jon still has him. The way they've written him out of the show is infuriating, especially as we all know it's just so that the dragons can have more airtime. That How To Train Your Dragon sequence from last week? That CGI was deemed more important than Ghost.

Whatever. Jon tells Sam he can't tell Dany he's the true heir yet. He then tells him to go down to the crypts to be safe and Sam reminds Jon and Edd how brave he's been and he doesn't need to hide. Then they all think about the Night's Watch together and we can't help but wonder why Jon and Sam haven't been punished for abandoning their posts.

Hey remember when Bran said this last episode? Seemed like we were in a real rush, didn't it?
But nope. We're just going to have some fun first.

Jaime, Tyrion, Brienne, Pod, Davos and Tormund all have a drink and talk about life and giants and fun times and how they're probably going to die.
Arya and Sandor share some wine and have a chat that comes to nothing really (I miss Sansa and Sandor) oh and Beric is there too.

Winterfell rn

Okay now it's the big Arya scene. She has sex with Gendry because she wants to feel what it's like before she dies.

Now, full disclosure: I'd seen this coming a mile off because HBO UK very thoughtfully got out ahead of it and told us in no uncertain terms on Twitter that Arya was 18 (see below).

So... Arya is 18. 
Let's consider this with the following facts:
- Arya was 11 in Season One
- Baby Sam (now a toddler) was born in Season Three
- Cersei's hair was cut at the end of Season Five and it still hasn't grown back
- Winter was so bad in Season Five that Stannis and his army were stuck in the snow outside Winterfell and were forced to slaughter their horses to have food to eat

With these things in mind, has enough time passed to accept that Arya is 18? No. The answer is undoubtedly no.

Does this matter?  Probably not.

But just remember that Dany's wedding night with Drogo was adapted to make it non-consensual as Dany was underage (in the books, it can be read as 'consensual' sex, but still a grey area due to the fact that Dany was a child at the time so how much 'consent' can be given?) 

Consider why the producers felt it necessary to REALLY highlight that Arya was 18, so that she can enjoy this moment with Gendry as consensual. Fine. Cool.

 Except that timelines don't work that way. You don't get to just change the age of someone so you can see them having sex-

Never mind.

Basically, if you're going to not give a fuck about timelines and are just going to jump forward, as @HNHughson so greatly put it on Twitter, I can accept it "if it affects everyone in Westeros equally, not just the young girls [and boys] they're writing sex scenes for".

Also I'm mildly upset that Arya is getting to have consensual sex rn and Sansa has been through everything she's been through and is now forced to hang out with Theon just because they want to punish her for being 'catty' (aka right to worry about food supplies) and celebrate Arya for being 'badass' (aka inexplicably surviving impossible situations and wearing faces ok cool).
Gutted for her.

Meanwhile, back by the wine and fire, the gang's still getting lit.
Tyrion is so clever and remembers what irony is: they've all fought against the Starks before and now, here they all are, protecting the Seven Kingdoms just Winterfell apparently for them.
Brienne says at least they'll die with honour and Jaime knights her. This scene is sweet and I get that but I honestly can't appreciate it rn. There should be so much more HAPPENING in this episode. There are only FOUR left now. What happened to those 'feature-length' episodes we were promised?

Sigh.

Back outside, Jorah tells Lyanna Sassypants to go down to the crypts but she wants to fight and Sam gives Jorah Heartsbane because apparently he's changed his mind about the crypts now and isn't brave Sam who was the first man to kill a wight and defeated a Thenn. Jorah is very touched and happily accepts this Valyrian steel sword unlike his own father's Valyrian steel sword that Jon tried to give him last season and he refused to take (Lyanna should definitely have the Mormont family sword and not Jon, just saying).

And, nearly there, don't worry, we have a musical montage as Pod sings Jenny's Song and they show some clips over the top of it.

Okay: Jenny's Song. This is a whole load of book stuff now but, just remember, I didn't start it - the show did.
This references a song featured in an Arya chapter of A Storm of Swords. The book never actually reveals any of the lyrics but it does feature a whole load of prophecy and references to a character called Jenny of Oldstones. Now, I, as we have established, am a die hard bookfan. It took me a hot minute to get the reference and, even then, I wasn't hyped about it...

Of all the book things to focus on, why Jenny's song? Yes it has links to prophecies and Targaryen secrets but... Why?
Don't pander to the book nerd in me, Cogman. And if you're going to, make it Ghost or Lady Stoneheart, k?

Anyway, we see Grey Worm and Missandei say goodbye, Sansa and Theon just hangin' out eating soup, Sam, Gilly and Baby Toddler Sam down in the crypts and Arya looking completely emotionless as Gendry has a post-coital nap over the top of the song.

Then, finally, Jon decides the time is right, just before they go to the battle of their lives, to tell Dany.
He is stood in front of Lyanna's statue as he explains and Dany is majorly peeved that he's the true heir to the throne. She's not mithered in the SLIGHTEST that she's shagged her nephew but hey, Targaryens right?
Before they can chat anymore about their lovely incest, they hear a horn sound and head out to the battlements, where Tyrion is stood (wasn't he sent to the crypts, wtf Tyrion?)
Jon and Dany run off to go battle and dragons and fire and ice and shit and we are left with the most important character of all, Tyrion. We zoom out from his shocked face to see....

*squints*

Okay so I think it's safe to say the White Walkers have arrived.... a little while away from Winterfell just yet. No Night's King by the looks of it, just like Bran said. Presumably he was away having a nap with his dragon and the giants and mammoths and that and they were just going to catch them up later because they're a bit faster.

Right. It's over.

Another tricky one today as I feel like we zoomed all over Winterfell and saw lots of different conversations but nothing actually happened to move the story forwards.

I've had a tiff or two with some showfans on Twitter and essentially their argument as to why episode two was good is that it was tying up everyone's storyarchs before the big battle kills a load of them. Erm. No. That was never the point of Game of Thrones as a show, was it? Weren't some of the best seasons the ones where you didn't know who was going to die? Didn't you used to live for those moments that a character was about to rightfully get justice and BOOM DEAD lolz.

I hate that Game of Thrones has become a fanservice soap opera and that they care more about arming their favourites with as much plot armour as possible than actually moving the story along.

Honestly: think for a second.

If episode two had never happened, what difference would it make to the story?

Exactly.

Nothing is happening.

Highlights

• Brienne being knighted? I guess it was cute.
• That bit when I saw Ghost for a sec

Lowlights

• The fact that nothing actually happened and this was just a filler episode until we get to the battle

Summative comment:

Seriously, this battle next week better be worth it.

I sense not, though.