SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched the Season 8 premiere of “Game of Thrones.” The final season of “Game of Thrones” began with an episode that does much of the table-setting to which fans have become accustomed — “Thrones,” more than most shows, tends to dole out its big moments deeper into its annual run. But it does something new, too: Hitting the accelerator and delivering major plot developments, hurriedly, in its home stretch. The scenes in which, first, Samwell Tarly learns of his father and brother’s death at Daenerys’s hands and, then, confronts Jon Snow with the fact of his true identity are nicely done: They’re well-acted (particularly by John Bradley, who, as Samwell, has delivered an increasingly fine performance over the course of the series). They certainly portend change ahead, as Jon, no matter his loyalty to Daenerys, cannot erase from his mind the fact both of his birthright to rule and of his blood relation to the woman he loves. And, on a show that had historically worked differently, they might seem a bit rushed but necessary to deploy information. “Game of Thrones,” though, had been in its early seasons a show with an elegant ability to, brick by brick, construct stories methodically. The suspense of waiting for moments of chaos, when they inevitably broke out, was part of the joy. Now, perhaps, the conflagration is here — as the Dead march south, there’s not a moment of respite, so perhaps the jarring suddenness of moments towards the end of the season premiere, the inability to let story points breathe or land on their own, makes sense. But it saps the moment of some of its power to have it raced through, and is a reminder of aspects of the show that have fallen away as “Thrones” left behind its published source material, and became something bigger than a hit. “Thrones,” as the biggest show in the world, has certain obligations to its fans now that it didn’t when it was a smaller surprise hit in its first few seasons. Among them are the need to convey the biggest pieces of information as plainly as possible, as with the Jon and Samwell conversation. (That scene’s clear design to move the story forward is both universally legible and a sign, perhaps, that saving quite this much story for the final six episodes might have been a slight miscalculation.) Another obligation is a growing emphasis on wisecracks, to lighten a mood whose oppressiveness is rather the point; further still is the expedited delivery of dragon footage. The two come together as Daenerys takes Jon for a reptilian ride, telling him, first, that nobody knows how to ride a dragon, “until they ride a dragon.” The sequence that follows, with Jon and Dany’s scaly chariots doing midair flips, is dazzling visually, upping the ante yet again for what the show can achieve as spectacle, even if its presence in the episode makes little sense other than as reward for fans before the more difficult material to come. (Love can change people, sure, but if we’ve established that Daenerys’s beasts hate the cold, snowy north and are physically weary, would someone so protective really risk their health by taking them on a joyride? And where’d her newfound sense of humor come from?) The show’s broadening out has taken a toll, as the dual Samwell info-dumps indicate. But it has brought with it rewards, too, for those willing to find them. Lena Headey, always among the very strongest performers on the show, has embraced a sort of Disney-villainess grandeur as her character is written more and more delectably evil. “You might be the most arrogant man I’ve ever met,” she tells Euron after bedding him. “I like that.” It’s a line that clomps with unsubtlety, but it’s also carried across with relish. Similarly, Tyrion’s declaration to Sansa that “many underestimated you; most of them are dead now” is tough to take on the page, but is carried across with a thrumming charge of excitement. Tyrion and Sansa are back together again! That’s an advantage this season of “Thrones,” in its first hour, is capitalizing on amply — even disillusioned fans’ excitement at the prospect of the show clicking into its endgame. If you have been watching this show since 2011, you have a crystalline sense of the ways it’s changed; you’ve also devoted so much time and thought to it that basically any aspect of the endgame will be graded on a bit of a curve by dint of it happening at all. As a viewer who has not always thought the Jon and Daenerys seduction tracked in every particular, I still felt a thrill as the pair rode horses side-by-side in the grand episode-opening procession of what seemed to be hundreds of soldiers, or on their dragon ride. Both sequences existed in part to make the case for the show’s unique ability to make grand visual statements; they achieved that goal. Both, too, help make the case for the relationship currently at the center of the show’s action better than dialogue could. Jon and Daenerys, both, seem (and are) born to power. Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, cast when they were neophytes, have both grown into talented screen performers over the “Thrones” decade, and their progression rhymes with their characters’ learning how to bear themselves with grace and élan. The most pointed moment in the premiere may be Varys’s declaration that the young use “respect” as a mechanism to keep their elders at a remove, “so we don’t remind them of an unpleasant truth: Nothing lasts.” It’s a concept that seems to have more applications than solely to goings-on at Winterfell. Not merely will “Thrones” be ending in five weeks — but various shows it has been before its current, hyper-assured, brisk and brusque mode have already ended, too. “Thrones” is doing absolutely stellar work within the bounds set around its current era: Highly burnished entertainment that lingers on no story point a beat more than strictly necessary to communicate the idea. Dwelling on the shows it once was and no longer is seems perhaps beyond the point. After all, this is a drama that, since those early days when episodes stretched out leisurely and when an end was not in sight, has always been about seismic change. RELATED VIDEO:<doc-sep>(CNN) — The following contains spoilers about the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 premiere. The penultimate season of “Game of Thrones” was largely defined by bringing key characters together – some meeting for the first time, others reunited after having endured harrowing ordeals. The Season 8 kickoff ratcheted up that dynamic in thrilling fashion, as forces marshal for the anticipated battle between the living and the undead legions of the Night King. Of course, forging those alliances won’t come easily, with plenty of suspicion and mistrust sprinkled throughout the hour. But the mantra, repeated by different characters in various ways, was as Tyrian (Peter Dinklage) put it, “We must fight together now, or die.” Similarly, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) sought to defend Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) from his wary countrymen in the north, saying that in the battle to come, “Without her, we don’t stand a chance.” Despite the pair’s way-cute date riding dragons together, the premiere rather boldly made Snow aware of the program’s biggest reveal – namely, that he has a legitimate claim to becoming king of Westeros, a revelation that throws his allegiance to the more ruthless Daenerys into doubt, and that could have major ramifications for who winds up on the Iron Throne. The one character going against the come-together grain, meanwhile, remains Cersei (Lena Headey, at her imperious best), who doesn’t seem to mind seeing much of the world burn as long as she winds up surviving. One of the complaints about the last season was that it moved too fast, that characters managed to traverse the distance between locales in record time. Helen Sloane/HBO Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke in 'Game of Thrones' While that feels like nitpicking (hey, it’s what die-hards do), the show has stepped up its pacing. For the most part, that has been immensely satisfying, yielding crowd-pleasing moments that the and that the series generally avoided in the often-grim journey, especially for the Stark kids, which has led to this point. In the premiere, that included fine scenes for the battle-hardened Arya (Maisie Williams), Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Theon (Alfie Allen), as well as the stunning if awkward meeting of Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright). That last scene, which tantalizingly capped off the episode, dates back to what is essentially the program’s original sin. Caught in a compromising moment, Jaime threw Bran off a castle wall, crippling the boy, whose eerie mental powers are only one of the supernatural elements that have gradually permeated the series. Related: 10 critical ‘GoT’ details to remember during the final season Having moved ahead of author George R.R. Martin’s literary output, TV producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss have piloted the story to its finish, which represents its own significant accomplishment. Novelists don’t have to worry about holding massive casts together, kids growing older or actors chafing to move on to different roles. For all that happened in the opener – and a lot did – there was still a sense that this episode basically set up the pieces, artfully, for what’s to come, with the combination of character beats and epic sweep that viewers have come to expect from the series. “Thrones” is an unwieldy beast, and it’s still possible that the show won’t be able to stick the landing. But if the premiere is any guide, like Jon and Daenerys’ dizzying date, the remaining five episodes promise to be a genuinely wild ride.<doc-sep>
Now: As Jon made like Atreyu on Falkor, audience members may well have made like Bran and screamed at their screen, “We don’t have time for this!” But the best moments of Thrones—see: all the big deaths—have been enabled by the sturdiness of the connections between characters. Focusing on relationships ahead of what’s sure to be a bloody, fiery, snowy, casualty-laden slog is smart. It’s only through caring about these knights and lords as human beings that we might get a jolt when Bronn is told to assassinate his buddies Tyrion and Jaime. We need to believe in Jonerys Snogaryen in order to be wrenched by Jon’s face when he’s informed of his parentage, which is both a complication for his political mission and his romantic life. “Did you bend the knee to save the North, or because you love her?” Sansa asked him, but the answer of course can be Both. Or at least that might be what Jon hopes. I’ll leave you two to unpack the loyalty drama among Jon, Sansa, and the lords of Winterfell. Bonus points for figuring out which zodiac sign or spin-class logo the White Walkers assembled out of arms on that wall. David Sims: I’m all for callbacks as Game of Thrones kicks off its final season. Remember when summer felt eternal in Westeros, and Jaime had a different haircut, two hands, and a propensity for child murder? Bran sure does, and he is ready for a trip down memory lane. But another character who’s ready to relive some classic moments from the pilot episode is the Night King, who assembled that bloody arts-and-crafts project out of the short-lived little lord of House Umber for everyone to see. Of course, this isn’t his first dismemberment tableau. Remember that sojourn beyond the Wall, in the show’s very first scene? It featured a similarly ghastly arrangement of severed limbs. Whatever message the White Walkers are trying to send, it’s the same one they’ve been pressing for a long time. It’s nice to know that even the mute ice zombies of Game of Thrones are ready for the show’s swan song. But to me, this episode’s shocking conclusion spoke to how much Benioff and Weiss have exhausted their bag of narrative tricks. “Winterfell” was, like every season premiere, a fine bit of table-setting that served as a helpful reminder of where every character is, so that the viewers can have their bearings when things start to get chaotic. But the end of the episode was a grim and portentous warning that the White Walkers are … still en route. After eight years, you’d think that memo had been well and fully received. After all, why else would Jon have given up his crown for Daenerys, to the consternation of just about everyone in Winterfell? How else would Cersei be able to keep her grasp on King’s Landing without the armies of the North bearing down on her? Because of the zombies, as Jon kept having to remind everyone who kicked up a fuss with him upon his return. Nothing else matters until the zombies are dealt with. So yes, I did nod when Bran impatiently noted that there’s no time for romantic dragon-back getaways, given that there are just five episodes on the books after this one; Game of Thrones has always enjoyed a healthy windup before the big pitch, but I’m beyond ready for the big showdown.