Guys, if you had fully recovered from last week’s heartstopping dragon massacre, the season finale of “Game of Thrones” Season 7, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” could possibly assuage our nerves, but also cause a few palpitations. Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, directed by Jeremy Podeswa, this episode is an exercise in both restraint, and also in barfing story points directly onto the screen without any foreplay at all. Like, can a girl get some preparation before we get a popular fan theory legitimized AND two characters roll in the hay?
We spend the first half of this whopping 79 minute episode in a tense Mexican stand-off in King’s Landing, and then in the parlance of the popular meme, when it comes to R+L=J, Bran just…tweeted it out, blurting the popular fan theory out to Sam without any warning that he knew this at all. We should just assume Bran knows all, BUT STILL. Three-eyed raven, some foreshadowing would be nice.
King’s Landing
Though Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) stands at attention like the handsome Barack Obama we’re all waiting to save us from nonsense politicians, we’re sadly denied much of his presence. Even though the Dothraki and Unsullied make quite the show of power for Daenerys, their presence is in name only. All those cock jokes are in vain, Bronn. It’s time for the meeting of the queens.
It’s a veritable All-Star game at this meeting between Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Cersei (Lena Headey). We’ve got Team Dany, made up by Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Varys (Conleth Hill), Jorah (Iain Glen), Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), Davos (Liam Cunningham), and The Hound (Rory McCann) hauling the wight. We’ve got Lannister loyal Bronn (Jerome Flynn), with Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and Pod (Daniel Portman). We’ve got love rivals Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek) and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and for some strange reason, Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen).
It’s such a who’s who of anticipated unions and reunions. All the small talk is “good to see yous,” “I’ll pay you double,” and “who’s protecting her?” But despite the rocky meetings and oaths to kill each other, they’re here to strike a truce.
Held in the Dragon Pits, where dragons were kept, left to shrink and waste away, Dany, the self-styled Abraham Lincoln of the winged reptiles, decides to make a fashionably late entrance on her dragon, really going for it with the demonstrations of force. Cersei, in her inimitable way, remains unbothered, even while Dany’s all, I just flew here from Dragonstone and boy are my arms tired!
Though Euron decides to go rogue on the meeting, bringing up Yara (so not the most urgent point right now, dude), Jon and Tyrion wrestle control back by unleashing the wight upon this civilized meeting, while Jon gives a presentation on how to kill wights in what seems to be the most gruesome episode of “Shark Tank” ever. Cersei’s all “I’M OUT.” She is shook, despite earlier scoffing at this “monster hunt.” Though creepy-ass Qyburn (Anton Lesser) is more than intrigued by the physics of this creature, Jaime and Cersei are like, “OH FUCK NO. TRUCE TRUCE TRUCE,” and Euron’s all, “can these things swim? I’m going back to the Iron Islands, PEACE OUT.”
However, Cersei’s truce is for some reason contingent upon Jon not choosing sides and staying the F in the North and not taking up arms. She hammers home the point that he is “Ned Stark’s son” and should be true to his word (um, Cersei, a word about that). He is true, true to his queen Dany, whom he refuses to refute, because Jon cannot tell a lie and he is pledged to her. So Cersei is out, truce over, and everyone is sooooo mad. Dany’s all, “my dragon died for this, u dumbass!!!!!! Lie for once!!!!!!” So, Tyrion, fully expecting his sister to murder him, goes to talk to her.
After he and Jaime debate who might be more of an idiot to cross their sister, Tyrion broaches Cersei, and their convo is that good good Lannister passive aggression. They re-litigate Tywin’s death, and the death of her kids. Tyrion chugs wine. They threaten murder and and Cersei says she doesn’t care about making the world a better place. It’s a great family therapy sesh and when Cersei says she’s thinking about getting the fuck outta dodge, Tyrion realizes his sister is with child (or at least making him think she is).
The truce is BACK ON! (After Jon and Dany talk about making babies… hmm… foreshadowing?). Cersei even comes out and says that her army will march to the North and fight the Army of the Dead. Well, that seems easier than it should have been.
And of course it is. Later, while Jaime is making battle plans, Cersei tells him that this whole truce is nonsense. Of course, this truce is trap, the longest of cons. She’s sent Euron to go get the Golden Company from Essos (he really sold that misdirection well), an army of mercenaries and elephants she’s bought with the stolen Highgarden gold. But let’s remember that Cersei’s playing checkers while the Night King is playing chess (ice chess).
Jaime, who had been kind of excited to actually do something cool and honorable for a change, is disappointed. Cersei nearly gives the order for the Mountain to off her own brother, lover, and father of her unborn, possibly fake news baby, but Jaime heads out and she lets him go. As he leaves, snow begins to fall on King’s Landing. Guys, winter is so here already. Climate change is real.
