Who’d have thought the Game of Thrones season 8 Battle of Winterfell episode would be dwarfed by what comes after? But that was pretty much the case with Game of Thrones season 8, episode 5, which delivered a large dose of shocking moments, as well as a death or two to really stoke the fires before the show’s final act. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. Twitter users had their say on some long-awaited lovey-dovey moments, as well as the shortest game of Winterfell whispers in recorded history. Big spoilers follow! Ghost is alive Phew. The last remaining Direwolf, Ghost, ran off into the darkness during the Battle of Winterfell and many fans feared the worst. Little did we know that an even more tragic moment was yet to come. Sure, Ghost is alive and that’s all well and good, but Jon’s blanking of his family pet had many fans feeling upset. I’ve watched a lot of f’d up stuff on Game Of Thrones, but dipping on Ghost like that was by far the most brutal.May 6, 2019 See more atleast ghost is alive. #gameofthronesMay 6, 2019 See more Jon to Tormund: Ghost belongs with you in the north#gameofthrones pic.twitter.com/HaUMqD5TsuMay 6, 2019 See more #DemThrones #Gameofthrones #GameofThrones8x04 Ghost coming back to Jon after he finds out Rhaegal died pic.twitter.com/GPtYY8dsHqMay 6, 2019 See more Gendry's proposal Maybe it’s the Stark’s recent record at weddings, or the fact that Arya really is No One, but she turned down Gendry (the newly-minted lord of Storm’s End) and his proposal in lightning-quick time. Arya: "You'd be a wonderful lord, and any lady would be lucky to have you"Gendry: #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/DhPbFElooHMay 6, 2019 See more Arya turning down marrying Gendry and being his lady because she still has her own goals and shit to do is a BIG MOOD #gameofthrones pic.twitter.com/CqoKzM7o50May 6, 2019 See more Arya loving Gendry but still deciding that she’s not a lady and has unfinished business #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/gHIzXiLJbGMay 6, 2019 See more Jamie and Brienne However, the ‘shippers didn’t have to go home empty handed. After giving Brienne funny looks all night, the Kingslayer, Jaime, finally plucked up the courage to lie beside her. Of course, this being Thrones, he broke her heart in the end. This was a dispiriting 70 minutes, huh? when jaime got on that horse and left brienne fuckin crying in the snow for cersei #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/s1FplMTnCMMay 6, 2019 See more You know who would've never slept with brienne and then left her to be with his sister. #GameofThrones #Tormund pic.twitter.com/xvTSY0V0tOMay 6, 2019 See more Jamie literally took Brienne’s virginity, made her fall head over heels, and then told her that he’ll always be more in love with his sister. The level of fuccboi! #GameofThronesMay 6, 2019 See more i'm confused by the Brienne takes too. it was painful to watch but if you think a super strong amazing woman doesn't also sometimes end up stupidly crying over a dude who doesn't deserve her we've led different lives and i'm not ashamed to admit it.May 6, 2019 See more Podrick realizing he's got to chop off Jaime's other hand because of how he left Ser Brienne #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/GoY15ttuwkMay 6, 2019 See more Bronn strikes a bargain That bloody crossbow. Just when we thought everything was right in the world, Bronn swaggers in with his weapon (no, not that weapon) pointed at the Lannister brothers. He swore to Cersei he’d kill them, but now he’s been promised High Garden by Tyrion. Methinks Bronn has one more barter left in him – and it may be his undoing. You don’t play the Game of Thrones and stack the deck in your favour without your head ending up on a pike at some point. Tyrion: Ayo how was Brienne?Jaime: Bro chill outBronn: pic.twitter.com/ONk3bDmjptMay 6, 2019 See more Bronn pulling up on Winterfell like :“Give me a city and I don’t kill you” pic.twitter.com/Ol5fme3UmBMay 6, 2019 See more Bronn to Jamie and Tyrion pic.twitter.com/DOPFOhQYXkMay 6, 2019 See more the guards at winterfell just letting bronn come in with a crossbow #GameOfThrones #GOT pic.twitter.com/fiBvbTgEqYMay 6, 2019 See more The secret's out Have you heard? Jon Snow’s a Targaryen. Everyone else has too. Jon told Sansa and Arya; Sansa then told Tyrion; Tyrion then told Varys and… you can see where I’m going with this. Treason’s on the mind of Dany’s two biggest (remaining) allies, and it’s all because Jon couldn’t keep his mouth shut. #GameOfThrones Jon tells Arya and Sansa and swore them to secrecy only to let Sansa tell it to Tyrion who told it to Varys. Ned Stark in heaven after keeping the secret for 2 decades: pic.twitter.com/d8efZvvoMGMay 6, 2019 See more Ned took that secret to his grave and Jon’s raggedy ass couldn’t keep it for 4 episodes #DemThronesMay 6, 2019 See more Jon: Can you keep a secret? Sansa: pic.twitter.com/knlBD23gx0May 6, 2019 See more Dany watching Jon telling the secret to the #Starks #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/cN0LuG6BlSMay 6, 2019 See more Two big deaths send a message RIP Rhaegar the dragon and Missandei. Both fell at the hands of Euron and The Mountain respectively this week, though it’s only served to anger Dany and excite fans heading into the final two episodes. The exact moment that crushed my heart into a million pieces. #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/hVuQrk36Z9May 6, 2019 See more Missandei of Naath, trusted advisor + friend of Queen Daenerys Targaryen & Grey Worm’s boo. We’ll never forget you. #GOT pic.twitter.com/G3qhttO7y2May 6, 2019 See more #GameOfThrones Sansa to Daenerys: if you leave now you'll be making a mistake5 minutes later: *rhaegal dies* *missandei gets killed* *daenerys' fleet is destroyed* Sansa: pic.twitter.com/rStIO8cv2ZMay 6, 2019 See more She lost Jorah.She lost the Dothraki.She lost Rhaegal.She lost Missandei.She lost her claim to the throne.She's losing Jon.The Mad Queen is awaken.#GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/ugdqtVITn4May 6, 2019 See more Want more from Thrones? Here are some of our big (unanswered) Game of Thrones season 8, episode 4 questions.<doc-sep>Spoiler alert! The following contains details from “Game of Thrones” Season 8 Episode 4, "The Last of the Starks." Read our recap of Season 8, Episode 3 here. And then there were two. After last week's long, dark and puzzling Battle of Winterfell, Sunday's episode of "Game of Thrones" had a huge job: Pivot the series away from the apocalyptic White Walker story line it has focused on for years and back to the political, thrones-gaming narratives that, while usually strong stuff, now seem almost insignificant after a battle to be alive at all. "The Last of the Starks" tried to get us to a place where who's lord of Storm's End or Riverrun or Highgarden matters and where giant crossbows are more dangerous to dragons than ice zombies, but it soundly failed at that task. It was a clumsy and overlong episode that tried to do far too much with far too little. Dany's quest for the Iron Throne, and the wrench Jon's parentage throws into it, just don't have the same emotional wallop as not just the White Walker battle, but all the other skirmishes for control of the Seven Kingdoms that populated Seasons 1-6. Measured against Ned's desperate attempt to cling to honor in the capital or Olenna's poisoning of Joffrey to save Margaery or even the High Sparrow's beatific smile, Dany's furious face outside the gates of King's Landing just seems like a meme waiting to happen. Don't walk alone with winter coming: All the news, recaps, thoughts and plot analysis right to your inbox As has been the pattern for two seasons now, the episode was filled with lapses in logic that were too irritating to ignore, plus a plague of idiocy on the part of most of its supposed heroes. Just two episodes remain in this series, but it doesn't feel like "Thrones" is heading toward any type of conclusion, let alone a satisfying one. Each episode seems to write the series further into a corner from which it can't escape. With a little over two hours of screen time, one dragon and a few scattered stories left to care about, the series' biggest enemy of all might just end up being itself. Drink and be merry For a series with a ticking clock, "Thrones" took its sweet time at the beginning of this episode. It started with a rare funeral for departed characters from last week's battle that would have seemed less hokey if the writers weren't trying to make us weep over the likes of Dolorous Edd. (Sorry, Edd.) But now that their watch is ended, what's next? Drinking, obviously. "Thrones" spends most of the first half of the episode on a long night of drunken escapades, the source of the only good scenes. First, Dany awkwardly awards Gendry the title Lord of Storm's End (after first making him fear she was going to punish him for being Robert Baratheon's son) – her own attempt at Westerosi politicking. It leads to a hilarious scene in which a dumbfounded and panicky Gendry pulls a dumb guy move and proposes to Arya. She, of course, lets him down gently, one of the few interactions that felt true to its characters. Also getting giddy are Jaime and Brienne, who are playing Tyrion's infamous truth drinking game with him, until Tyrion's gambit that Brienne is a virgin goes too far. Brienne leaves the table, and Jaime follows her. After a few jokes about how warm her room is, the pair end up in bed, which, despite pleasing fans who have rooted for them as a couple, seems far too obvious and corny for a relationship as nuanced as theirs. But both actors do what they can with the scene, which, with Gwendoline Christie and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, is a lot. Drink and be stupid The writers squander what could have been another touching scene when Sansa and the Hound have their reunion. Instead of sharing a moment of tenderness when the Hound notes that he could have saved Sansa from her tormentors, the series has her declare that being tortured and raped made her stronger. After years of criticism over its treatment of sexual violence, “Thrones” had to get one last turn of the knife by having Sansa be thankful for her rapes. Not only is that an incredibly offensive, gross and inaccurate depiction of trauma, it’s also a tired, hacky Hollywood trope (the "strong female character's" backstory is rape!) and has no place in this show. Or maybe it does, because “Thrones” hasn’t proven itself to be particularly well-written over the past four weeks. Elsewhere in the great hall, Tormund loudly and proudly extols the gospel of Jon Snow in front of Dany, who is insecure about her nephew/lover's claim to the Iron Throne. When she and Jon are alone, he recoils and the two fight, not about their incestuous relationship, but about the claim to the throne he doesn't particularly care about. Despite Jon literally bending his knee for her, Dany doesn't trust that his claim will go unsupported, and begs him not to tell anyone his secret. When he protests that he wants to tell Sansa and Arya, Dany gets cold and draws away. Cross my heart and hope to die Once everyone's hangovers have abated, Dany holds a war council to plan "The Last War," only things aren't looking too great. They lost half their forces in the Battle of Winterfell, the dragons are both badly injured and everyone's tired. Oh, and the Golden Company has arrived in King's Landing. Dany, continuing her brilliant (read: horrible) battle strategy, wants a full-court press to the south, even as Tyrion counsels restraint to prevent a bloodbath in King's Landing. But the relationship between Queen and Hand is strained at best. Dany eventually agrees to blockade the city and wait for the people to turn on Cersei. When Sansa interjects that the troops could use rest before marching south, Dany lashes out, and the two are poised for a fight before Jon intervenes. Sansa and Arya (and Bran) have their own meeting with Jon, and Sansa unloads on him. Arya is slightly less aggressive, and agrees with Jon's decision to bend the knee to Dany to help stop the White Walkers, but she still doesn't trust the Dragon Queen. When the sisters lay it on about how the four of them are the last Starks and a family, Jon can't hold his secret any longer. He lets Bran tell them, but only after making them swear they'll keep it quiet. But his big pinky-swear moment is a clear sign that one or both will break that promise. I'll double it The episode returns to Tyrion and Jaime, who are at a tavern discussing Jaime's decision to stay in Winterfell with Brienne, when Bronn strolls into the room with the crossbow aimed at them. Jabbering like he's drugged, Bronn tells them about Cersei's offer of Riverrun, but eventually he accepts Tyrion's "double" offer of Highgarden and walks out, promising to come back for his reward after the war. Wait, what? How did Bronn find Jaime and Tyrion? How did he know they happened to be vulnerable? Why should he trust Tyrion's promise? Why is he betting on Cersei to lose? Just, why? "Thrones" has an annoying habit of arriving at moments without feeling the need to explain how it got there. (Arya stabbing the Night King, for one recent example.) A generous reading is that there isn't much time left, so writers are skipping over some exposition, but I don't think that's what's happening here. I don't think the "why" is important anymore. It seems like writers wanted Bronn to confront the Lannister brothers, and couldn't be bothered to figure out how and why. A series of unfortunate decisions Sansa is the first Stark to spill the big Aegon Targaryen secret: She tells Tyrion, in a bit of intentional troublemaking for Dany. Tyrion, meanwhile, tells Varys, in a bit of unintentional troublemaking. The two barely have time to consider the ramifications of it all when Dany’s fleet is attacked by Euron’s.<doc-sep>Open this photo in gallery Daenerys Targaryen's army makes its way from Winterfell to King’s Landing in record time in Game of Thrones, episode 4. HBO When thinking about the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones – which I’ve been compelled to do a lot of lately, and within time-crunched Sunday-night sessions to boot – one word keeps coming to mind: defeat. There is the defeat that author George R.R. Martin must feel in every hair of his mighty beard, having to witness the adaptation of his creation wrap up while he is still struggling to write the series' sixth novel (out of seven). There is the defeat that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss must feel week after week, as audiences and critics (guilty) attack the show for its various, and lately profound, missteps. There is the defeat that HBO executives must feel in their guts as the network's biggest hit ever prepares to fade away forever (or until the prequel arrives next year). And, naturally, there is the defeat felt far and wide by the characters of Westeros, where any brief victory is immediately overshadowed by another, more pressing threat. Game of Thrones Episode 3 review: Bloody and brutal Battle of Winterfell may not look so good in the harsh light of day Game of Thrones review: Episode 2 plays to the show’s strengths – but also trips on its blunt and eye-rolling dialogue Game of Thrones guide: Catch up on Season 8 episode reviews It is with this air of constant defeat, of inevitable suffering, that we take our first breath in “The Last of the Starks,” the fourth episode of Game of Thrones’ ultimate go-round. In last week’s episode, our merry band of Westerosi – and make no mistake, the extremely “foreign” land of Essos, from which the Dothraki and Unsullied hail, played little to no importance in last week’s Battle of Winterfell – vanquished the series’ gravest threat: the Night King and his army of the dead. But even though that triumphant moment, when Arya twisted her knife and saved the world, felt like a tremendous fist-pumping act of victory, it also felt ... odd. Early? Miscalculated? Certainly strange, and eventually disappointing. Story continues below advertisement From the series’ very first opening scene of the very first episode, Weiss and Benioff have been training their audiences to believe that the real threat in Game of Thrones is not the internecine battles for King’s Landing, but the looming spectre of supernatural destruction that lurked within the Night King’s realm. A deserved ending – one that Martin appears to be building to in his own work, however glacially – might be that an eternal winter is the only thing that the greedy, bloodthirsty people of Westeros deserved. All men, in other words, must die. But last week’s episode “The Long Night” didn’t subscribe to that challenging and somewhat profound philosophy, so now we’re left to trudge on to yet another war between the living. Which just seems very ... small. Insignificant, at least. Benioff and Weiss at least seem aware of the narrative corner they’ve backed themselves into, although they also seem typically cocky about their chances of escaping it. “We may have defeated them,” Tyrion says of the Night King’s forces early in the episode, “but we still have us to contend with.” The show treats this line of dialogue as a thrilling preview of excitement to come. But I fear it will prove itself to be an empty threat. Much of “The Last of the Starks” confirms this worry, as the battle of wills between, say, Sansa and Dany, or Cersei and Dany, or Jon and Dany, or Anyone Else and Dany felt far less significant (both narratively and dramatically speaking) than the battle between the dead and the living. Especially since Weiss and Benioff, who co-wrote this episode, have turned many of their leading characters into unrecognizable caricatures. Dany in particular is getting the short end of the showrunners’ attention, as the once sharp, fascinating, and unlikely hero is now merely acting as a plot device in the series’ desire to get the story moving from Point A to Point B as fast as possible. (And things are moving incredibly, bewilderingly quick in this show’s final stretch, with Dany’s battalion making its way from Winterfell to King’s Landing in record time.) While someone like Jon has always been a drip of a character who existed to serve the story, Dany and even Cersei were once fully realized creations who were so compelling that the story served them. No longer. Although the episode contained a handful of surprises – Dany has now blown her three-dragon lead thanks to Euron, the world’s most annoying pirate not named Jack Sparrow – it engineered the twists in a fashion that felt rushed, preposterous and insulting. (There is an entire other essay to be written about how Missandei, one of the series’ few characters of colour, had to die so two white women could start a war with each other.) The episode’s first half felt like it was written and produced by actual human beings who had knowledge and compassion for Thrones’ characters. Its atmosphere of drunken salaciousness, from Jaime and Brienne finally getting together to Tormund’s cathartic threesome in response, was a nice complement to the last-night-on-this-earth emotions of this season’s second episode. And there were natural dramatic beats that honoured, rather than insulted, beloved characters. (There would have been hell to pay had the independent Arya decided to just run off with Gendry, for instance.) Plus, there will always be room in my heart for the filthy and excitable antics of mercenary Bronn, the closest Game of Thrones has to its very own Boba Fett. Yet at about the episode’s 40-minute mark, when Benioff and Weiss seemed to suddenly realize that they only had two and a half episodes left to wrap this entire endeavour up, “The Last of the Starks” sped things forward at a ludicrous rate, tripping over itself in the process. Which is how we got so very many moments that felt off – from Brienne suddenly weeping over a man to an unusually impulsive Varys. Moments that felt like, essentially, tacit admissions of defeat. Story continues below advertisement “We have won the great war,” Tyrion says at one point to Jaime, but also almost directly to the camera. “But will we win the last war?” Tyrion, my man: It is getting harder to care.<doc-sep>
After last week’s epic battle, the fourth episode of the final season of Game of Thrones features a lot of characters talking, and it feels a bit heavy on the fan service. But all this talking, and watching characters interact, is still more interesting than a single huge battle. Game of Thrones is always better at communicating its goals through words and not violence or action scenes, so this was a much more satisfying episode of the show compared to the dimly lit Battle of Winterfell. All these juicy conversations have left us with many questions, such as ... For real, though, who is in charge? After the dead are burned, the living hold a feast and shoot uncomfortable looks at each other. It’s mostly due to no one knowing who is on top of the food chain. Daenerys turns Gendry into Lord Gendry Baratheon of Storm’s End, which is a very queenly thing to do, but Tormund makes her uneasy by stressing that Jon’s actions are those of a king. Who else can climb onto the back of a dragon and ride it? Well, a Targaryen, but that’s neither here nor there (and it’s still a secret, for now). The Night King is dead, after all. The only thing left to wonder about is who is going to survive the last few battles, and who will sit on the Iron Throne. But things are likely to remain tense until then. Where is Sansa headed? We’re all a product of our damage; without that damage, we wouldn’t be the person we are today, for good or for ill. Sansa understands that, and she tells the Hound as much. We know where she was, and we know the power of what she’s become. But where’s she going? Sansa’s arc is one of the most tragic of the major characters of the show, especially considering she’s still alive and kicking. Everyone else has a decent idea of what they want and what they still have left to do, but Sansa doesn’t have many stated goals left, even though she’s been in charge of Winterfell for some time. The end of Sansa’s story will go a long way in showing whether Game of Thrones knows what it’s doing dramatically, or whether the last seven seasons were spinning their wheels. I can’t wait to find out, but for now it’s a large, unanswered question. Sansa is still giving good practical advice when she tells Daenerys that the men need to rest for a bit — but it doesn’t go over well with the queen. The show significant legwork to portray Daenerys as a bit of a loose cannon, while demonstrating that Sansa knows how to rule. As Tyrion points out, Sansa stands to be the power in the North, but that’s only if Daenerys successfully takes King’s Landing. If not ... what then? How high can Sansa climb, and how high does she want to go? Is Daenerys ever going to address the whole incest thing? I think we’ve all been wondering when Daenerys was going to address the fact that she’s related to Jon, and how she would do so. And now we have the answer: She’s going to try to get into his pants again and then say that they can’t tell anyone else. It will be their little secret, which seems a tad creepy, all things considered. Her attraction is based on many things, but a large part of it has to be the idea that she can control his power and maintain her throne. She’s right that Jon’s life would be much more complicated if people knew about his real lineage, but also ... Doesn’t she care about the incest thing at least a little bit? Are we saying goodbye to all these characters? Tormund, Sam, Gilly, Sam and Gilly’s unborn child, and Ghost. It sure seems like the show is saying goodbye to them all for good. Some of them may turn back up in the last few episodes, but I wouldn’t count on it. What is the worst betrayal in the history of Game of Thrones? Wait, no. This isn’t an unanswered question, and I don’t have to speculate: The worst betrayal of this entire series is Jon sending Ghost away after they were reunited at Winterfell, and Ghost took on the entirety of the undead army with the Dothraki and only lost an ear. Jon, how dare you?