An Idiot's Recap of the Game of Thrones Premiere

As commenters on this site often agree, I am an idiot. But I’m particularly an idiot about the legacy TV fantasy show The Game of Thrones, in part because I jumped into the season eight premiere last night despite only being a few episodes into season two of my Thrones journey.

This went fine, especially since because I was informed of all the Big Spoilers ahead of time. (I don’t care about spoilers and find spoiler culture dumb as hell, please don’t fight me on this). So, shockingly, some things in the premiere didn’t quite land for me, a person who has not yet watched these characters grow, change, and be castrated over the preceding several seasons.

Explain things to me in the comments, or don’t! I’m not your Khaleesi!! But here are my sundry thoughts about that EXPLOSIVE (not really) first episode of the final season. (SPOILERS OFC)

WE FIND OUR HEROES, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, riding through a village of the North. This episode is titled “Winterfell,” the name of the Stark estate, which tells us that we’re gonna be in the North for basically this whole episode.

Why are they together?? Well, first of all, they’re fuckin. I’m quite pleased to hear this—they’re both characters that I like!—until I’m informed of the big revelation of the season seven finale: Dani is Jon’s aunt! They’re blood relatives, doing sex!! This show absolutely LOVES incest.

Anyway, they’re receiving a pretty icy—ha ha get it, it’s quite cold in The North—greeting by these peasant villagers. They’re not big fans of Daenerys, they’re miffed that Jon Snow “bended the knee” and left the North for a time. We’re going to hear the phrase “bend the knee” many times this episode, so I’m sure this is important, but did not care to investigate further.

As they ride their horses, Daenerys is wearing an amazing, full-length fur coat-suit. Arya Stark, whom I’m told has become a badass assassin in the intervening time, looks on, and we see a small villager boy straining to get a view of the action. This is an obvious callback to season one—which I have a fair-to-good knowledge of currently—to when Arya is straining to see her father’s execution (luckily, she does not).

I kept waiting for things between Daenerys and Jon to get sexy, but they did not—although the duo did ride dragons. Other sites were upset this scene was either too short or too long, so I’ll stake my claim on it being just right, although I really didn’t grasp the gravity of the moment. Dragons: They’re dangerous?? Did Jon Snow always want to mount one of the great fantastical beasts? Is this a sex metaphor?? There are some questions which have no answers.

A few other things happened—this episode was Important, but not very plot-heavy! I’m told Jon’s arrival back at Winterfell marked the first time the Stark clan’s been back together since the very beginning, he gets a great big hug from Arya and Sansa is….the way she is. Also, whoa, Tyrion is on Team Stark now! And also whoa, he married Sansa??? Can’t wait to reverse engineer how we got here, but here I (we) are!

Then we flash back to how things are going in King’s Landing. Cersei is queen now (duh!!!) and has a pixie cut, which is definitely a plot point from last season which involves her being paraded through the streets, naked. This show LOVES a girlboss. There’s no sign of her shithead (incest) son Joffrey, which makes me optimistic for what’s to come. Cersei gets it on with a fast-talking knight-seeming guy, and then makes him go away immediately after. Again: boss mode.

Finally: Things seem pretty bad with respect to the zombie situation!! There’s a big old hole in the wall (COUGH, COUGH, IT’S POLITICS) and the zombies/White Walkers are on the march. One sign things are quite bad: some knight-type-guys are moving through a castle-type-place where shit clearly went down, and they come across some murdered kid art. Spooky DIY!!!!

FINALLY, the episode draws to a close with one last reunion: Jaime Lannister arrives and looks Bran Stark, rendered wheelchair-bound by Jaime’s hand, in the face. There’s an absolute moment of recognition; luckily I have seen enough of the show to understand its weight. Jaime also has brown hair now! He’s looking old and haggard, so clearly he’s been through some serious shit that I’ll certainly be abreast of, eventually.

Some lingering questions and stray observations:

• It only took 25 minutes into the episode to see boobs. Trust me, I was keeping track.
• Why’s Bran doing that weird staring thing so much? Your big bro is home, crack a smile sweetie!
• Wow the joke about the guy with naturally blue eyes was bad. “Humor” is not this show’s strength.
• Is it winter?? Has the winter finally “come”?? Jury still out.
• Jon Snow, petty bitch!! His best friend is all “your queen torched my family” and the conversation immediately becomes about him. Will he keep fucking his aunt now that he knows she’s his aunt? I can’t wait to find out!!