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>Season 8, Episode 1, ‘Winterfell’ On Sunday, we finally returned to an era-defining show, gone for years, that captivated the world with its high-stakes melodrama woven from familiar human fallibility. That show was “Downton Abbey.” Because in the long-awaited Season 8 premiere of “Game of Thrones,” from the grand royal arrival onward, Winterfell resembled nothing so much as that great Edwardian manse of swollen emotion. Charged reunions, new conflicts and old grudges played themselves out upstairs and downstairs, inside and out, between siblings and exes, old friends and in-laws, much of it rippling outward from a haughty noblewoman no one liked all that much. Granted, I don’t recall Lady Mary ever incinerating anyone’s brother, as Daenerys did to poor Dickon Tarly last season. And instead of the dowager countess’s bon mots, we got Bran, just sitting there creeping everybody out. Overall it was a somewhat soapy but generally very satisfying setup for the final run of “Game of Thrones,” as the sides coalesced for the wars to come. Jon and Dany’s coalition of the living currently includes nearly everyone not named or sleeping with Cersei. She heads up the King’s Landing faction, and this week welcomed a mysterious new man — Capt. Strickland, leader of the Golden Company — onto the team and Euron into her bed, while inviting more speculation about her purported pregnancy with the departed Jaime.<doc-sep>Game of Thrones Season 8 is finally here. Episode 1 brought us back to Winterfell in an episode fittingly called, “Winterfell.” Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) brought their newly combined forces to a frosty Winterfell to prepare for the oncoming battle against the White Walkers and the Army of the Dead. The episode was full of fan service, meaning we finally got to see Jon and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) reunite, as well as — GASP — Jon Snow riding a dragon. However, since this is Game of Thrones, there were tons of smaller moments hidden in plain sight that could mean everything. I’m talking about that awkward look Bran gives Tyrion, or the meaning behind the White Walkers’ spirographs symbols, or even a hidden connection to It’s Always Sunny in Pennsylvania. You’re smart enough to watch the post-credits explainer, and to pick up on the fact that Cersei has hired Bronn to kill Jaime and Tyrion with the same crossbow Tyrion used to slay their father Tywin. You get that there’s a whole new opening credits sequence. But what did you miss? Here are the five things you MIGHT have missed in Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 1, “Winterfell.” (Note: we know you’re clever, like Sansa, so you just MIGHT have missed them.) 1 Why Is Bran Staring At Tyrion Like That?? In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) highlighted the importance of one of our favorite characters. What I’m saying is he stared at Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) uncomfortably. Right after Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) gives her ex-husband Tyrion the rundown on why he’s dumb to trust his sister, Cersei (Lena Headey), the camera makes sure to give us a quick look at Bran Stark sitting sort of serenely in Winterfell’s yard, staring at Tyrion. At this point, there’s no room to dawdle when it comes to storytelling, so everything means something. What does this moment mean? We’re not the Three-Eyed Raven so we don’t really know. That said, the final scene suggests that Bran has a tiny bit of precognition going on, so he might be seeing that Tyrion has an important role in the events to come. Or he’s just a weirdo who stares too much. I’m inclined to think the former, but we’ll have to wait and see. In any event, Sansa is on to something: Tyrion is not as clever as he likes to think he is. 2 The White Walker Symbols Mean...Something Towards the end of last night’s episode, we saw what became of poor, little Ned Umber. He was murdered by the Army of the Dead and his body was left behind in the middle of a spiral symbol we’ve seen before. The visual impact of this hits home that the White Walkers’ penchant for arranging dead objects into fancy designs actually might mean…something. We know from Jon and Dany’s trip to the caves of Dragonstone that these symbols originated with the Children of the Forest, but we have yet to get a translation. In any event, it seems that the key to defeating the White Walkers might be tied up in understanding how they communicate. Good thing Sam brought those books from the Citadel, eh? PS: Here is an EXHAUSTIVE look at these symbols and their history within the show. 3 Alys Karstark Lives Color me surprised. I’ve been predicting for ages that Jon Snow’s noble act of restoring young Ned Umber and young Alys Karstark’s family lands to them would actually doom them both. (Remember? In Season 7, Episode 1, Jon goes against Sansa’s advice to take the castles away from the children of traitors and absolves the kids of their fathers’ mistakes.) You’ll have gathered that the Umber stronghold, The Last Hearth, was the Night King’s first stop on his grand tour towards Winterfell, but the Karhold is also en route. It would seem that the Alys Karstark managed to get herself and her people to Winterfell before it was too late. That’s nice. Nevertheless, she may be doomed. 4 Rob McElhenney and Martin Starr are Ironborn Game of Thrones is a popular show and over the years a number of famous fans have popped up in unconventional ways. (We’re still not over that Ed Sheeran cameo!!!) Last night was no different. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Rob McElhenney and Silicon Valley‘s Martin Starr were just two of the nameless Ironborn that Theon and his cronies sliced through to save Yara. View this post on Instagram Don’t blink. #gameofthrones A post shared by RobMcElhenney (@robmcelhenney) on Apr 14, 2019 at 8:02pm PDT Who were they? What were their names? We’ll never know…because Euron Greyjoy took the tongues out of his sailors and that’s why he wanted to keep Yara around as a conversational companion.<doc-sep>
Stunning landscapes and long-awaited meetups set up the chessboard with excruciating deliberation. [Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers from the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 premiere.] Well, that was fun. “Game of Thrones,” long known for taking its viewers by surprise, returned for its final season premiere Sunday night with a shocking twist: jokes! The one-hour episode was surprisingly lighthearted, and full of witty moments, which will no doubt anger the more bloodthirsty fans who want sword-fighting and dragon-fire now. Considering how the most recent season ended with everyone on the move, it makes sense that this episode — written by Dave Hill and directed by David Nutter — takes time to once again set up the chessboard. Plus, with so many puzzle pieces to service all coming together after seasons of teasing these meetups, it’s necessary to address the history that has passed and how they know each other. However, it makes for a static episode where scene after scene is glorified exposition peppered with wry jabs. Politics is at the forefront of this talkiness, and it all boils down to how the Northerners are rightfully upset that their elected leader Jon Snow (Kit Harington) has thrown his and his people’s fealty to a scary, peroxide blonde stranger. Sure, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) has two armies and two dragons to swell their ranks, but she’s also descended from a crazy king, doesn’t understand Westerosi ways, and has even set those who refuse to accept her as queen on fire. It’s this last detail that is one of the most interesting notes of the episode. Set up last season, when Dany literally had Drogon flame Randyll and Dickon Tarly (James Faulkner, Tom Hopper) to death, the price for that hotheaded action is paid in the premiere when Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) learns of his father and brother’s fate. His horrified and stunned reaction is a moment of authenticity in an episode where everyone treats murder cavalierly, and in some cases as if it were a punchline. HBO The biggest strength of “Game of Thrones” has always been that the world George R.R. Martin created isn’t safe. Heroes die. There are real stakes. Although viewers had little reason to love Sam’s family, it’s his reaction to their loss that is creating the stakes. Daenerys’ power-mad decision may have cowed others on the battlefield to bend the knee, but it has cemented her reputation as a crazed despot for Sam. And Sam — one of the gentlest and useful characters on the show — has the ear of Jon Snow, whose leadership the Northerners crave and whose birthright happens to supersede Dany’s claim for the Iron Throne. Let the incestuous lovers stew on that tangle. While that’s perhaps the most important takeaway from the premiere, the episode has several enjoyable moments to recommend it: Hearing Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey) speak her piece about Jon’s disappointing job performance, seeing Arya (Maisie Williams) and Gendry (Joe Dempsie) bantering after so many seasons apart, soaking in the stunning Northern landscape as Jon Snow takes his thrilling first (and probably not last!) dragon ride, and cheering for Theon (Alfie Allen) when he finally owns up to his responsibility to his sister and his adoptive Stark family. However, the best moment wouldn’t exactly be called “enjoyable.” In fact, it’s downright gruesome, but that’s exactly what viewers have signed up for. When the very much alive Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion (Kristofer Hivju, Richard Dormer) encounter their old pal Edd (Ben Crompton), they begin to discuss the Night King and the dire state the world is in. And then they’re interrupted by a bloodcurdling, eldritch scream from the corpse of the young Lord Umber (Harry Grasby) on the wall surrounded by disembodied arms. Nightmares. The episode might be full of laughs and warm reunions, but this atrocity, this eerie undead fate, is what all of these characters are facing. It’s a good reminder of what is at stake, and frankly, the episode could have used more of these weighty moments and heightened tension. White Walkers have breached The Wall, and yet, everyone is speaking to each other civilly. Under moments of great duress and danger, people’s basest natures come out. How did any of these reunions not end in shouting or a dagger being brandished? How has no strategy been broached at all except for calling people back to the stronghold of Winterfell?