Last week’s episode penultimate of Game of Thrones with Jon Snow leading a band of merry men north of the wall in the hopes of kidnapping a wight to show off to everyone at King’s Landing full with balls to the wall action as they faced off against hordes of the undead. They got a last minute save by Danny as she showed up with her dragons. However, the Night King, the expert javelin thrower he is, threw an ice spear at Viserion, killing one of Danny’s dragons. Afterwards, the Night King resurrected the dragon as a wight. How could Game of Thrones top last week’s episode? By having an 80+ minute finale helping wrap things up, but also set up stuff for the next and final season.
Here are a few highlights from this week’s season finale “The Dragon and the Wolf.”
Kings Landing:
Jon knows that all these wars are worth nothing when the White Walkers and their undead armies will be coming to kill everyone. As a result, everyone met up in King’s Landing for a meeting to discuss options. Because no one south of the wall really thinks the undead is even real, they needed to show proof. The summit also serves to reunite a bunch of people who haven’t seen each other in a long time: Tyrion and Bronn, Jamie and Brianne, The Hound and Brianne, The Hound and The Mountain (even though he’s another form of undead). After everyone gets settled for the meeting to begin, Danny makes her grand entrance on top of her dragon Drogon. She made sure to show her full strength as she brought her Unsullied and Dothraki armies, as well as her dragons.
As the meeting starts, Cersei is skeptical of everything and Jon decides to show her just what they really should be worried about. The Hound empties the crate holding the wight and it immediately sprints towards Cersei and tries to kill her. She’s lucky The Hound was able to reign it in at the last minute. The ice-cold Cersei had a genuine moment of fear as a result. As Jon is explaining the danger (as well as dumbly telling her how to kill it), he and Danny propose a truce so that they can deal with the threat of the dead. Cersei will only allow a cease fire if Jon doesn’t get involved with her war against Danny. Jon may be a Targaryen by blood, but he’s definitely Ned Stark’s son as he chooses honor over politics and tells her he’s already bent the knee for Danny. Tyrion even tells him to at least try and lie. The deal’s off.
Tyrion tried to talk with Cersei one on one to appeal to her. Both Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey deliver some great dialogue as the two go toe to toe in a war of words. Cersei blames Tyrion for everything bad that has happened to their family is a result of him killing their father. Tyrion even admits to his part of their troubles and invites her to kill him if that’s the case. Cersei surprisingly doesn’t go through with it, because she doesn’t want to kill a family member, even though she’s tried to kill him before. Cersei then decides to send her armies north with Jon and Danny’s and form an alliance to take on the dead.
Of course, it was all a lie. She confides in her brother Jamie that she has no care for helping them and will not send their armies north. If they beat the dead, cool. If the dead beat them, cool. Jamie already hates the title of Oathbreaker already, believes in honor and thinks they should head north. This causes, even more, friction with his sister who he has been drifting away from ever since she became queen. She warns him that if he goes north in defiance of his queen he will be committing treason. She also threatens him with death by Mountain the same way she did Tyrion. Just like with Tyrion, she doesn’t go through with it. Jamie heads north to fulfill his promise, now being at odds with his sister. Just as he’s leaving snow is falling in King’s Landing. Winter has officially come south as well.
Dragonstone:
Jon and Theon finally have a brief chat about being raised in Winterfell together. Jon reminds Theron that Ned Stark was a better father than his real one was, and he still betrayed him. Theon acknowledges that he’s a coward. Jon tells him that he’s both a Greyjoy and a Stark. This will probably foreshadow that Jon will say the same thing about himself being a Targaryen and a Stark using the same type of logic. Theon decides that he has to man up and save his sister.
Of course, his fellow Ironborn soldiers just want to go somewhere safe away from the dead like Euron did. One challenges Theon’s leadership and starts to thoroughly beat him down. Theon, inspired by Jon, will not back down, no matter how many times he gets punches in the face and headbutted by his former soldier. The soldier then knees Theon in the groin, not knowing Theon doesn’t have a groin anymore. Theon uses this to his advantage and then beats the soldier, once again establishing dominance in the leadership of his soldiers. He orders them to go and rescue Yara and they are off to find his sister.
Winterfell:
Littlefinger continues to whisper sweet nothings in Sansa’s ear to turn her against her sister Arya. He plants the bug in her ear that Arya wants to kill her sister so that she can become the Lady of Winterfell. Sansa should have known better as he sister never expressed anything but wanting to be a soldier.
Turns out Sansa did know better. After summoning Arya to the Great Hall for what looked to be a trial for Arya committing treason, she turned the tables around and charged Littlefinger. Thanks to her brother Bran who is now a walking Wikipedia, she knows all the dirty deeds that he did. He killed Jon Arryn and blamed the Lannisters, setting off all the events on the show that followed. Littlefinger lost the respect of his men who wouldn’t support him afterward. Defeated, he pleaded with Sansa, but he couldn’t weasel his way out of this. Arya walked right up to him and slit his throat, finally ending him.
Jon Snow’s True History (And Hooking Up With Danny):
Sam arrives at Winterfell in the hopes of meeting back up with Jon to help him against the dead and runs into Bran. Bran reveals to him that Jon’s really the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Jon Snow is not Ned Starks bastard, but instead their bastard. Instead of having the surname of “Snow” it should be “Sand” as he was born in Dorne. Sam then drops his own truthbomb to Bran. He knows about the secret marriage between Rhaegar and Lyanna in Dorne. Bran then flashed back to it and Jon’s birth where he discovers that Jon’s real name is “Aegon Targaryen.” Lyanna was not kidnapped and raped as many thought but ran away from Robert with her true love and got secretly married. Not only is Robert’s Rebellion a lie, but Jon is the true heir to the Iron Throne.
While on Danny’s ship, Jon comes to her quarters where the two finally hook up. They don’t know they’re related (even though a raven from Sam or Bran could have been used to clear this all up), so from their perspective, it’s all good. They’ll find out soon enough that she’s his aunt as well as her competition for the throne. Things will get weird after that.
Eastwatch:
At the wall, Tormund, Beric, and countless Wildlings and members of the Night’s Watch are manning the wall. Just then, a White Walker emerges from the forest. Soon afterward, thousands of wights show up. As bad as that is, it’s not terrible as the wall is still up, right?
Nope! The Night King rides an undead Viserion (complete with rotting wings) who is now breathing ice flame which causes the wall to come down. Tormund and Beric manage to vacate the top of the wall before it comes crumbling down, but now the wall is broken and the dead are free to enter the world of the living! Next season will be the true war between the living and the dead and looks to be epic!
