‘Game Of Thrones’ Recap: “Winterfell” (Season 8, Episode 1)

And so, after nearly two long, arduous, theory-filled years, the beginning of the end has finally come for Game of Thrones. The most popular TV show of the decade premiered last night with a million different questions on its viewers’ lips. When would Jon and Daenerys finally hear of Jon’s true parentage? Which reunions would be the spiciest? Would Jon finally ride a dragon? Which one would we be treated to first?

Instead, we got a boy running through the snow.

Well, before that, we got what is probably the funniest opening credits of the show’s 68 episodes to date. Each credits sequence maps out the episode’s locations, of course. There was no deviating from the formula last night, either. It just so happens that there were only three locations. We were afforded the opportunity to plumb the depths of Winterfell and King’s Landing, with the Stark crypts and Qyburn’s subterranean lair taking pride of place. After years of hopscotching continents and across seas, this epic has now boiled down to its essential elements.

Back to the boy. Rarely are we given a moment onscreen without one of our multitudinous lead characters guiding us through the action. This break from the norm seems to serve two functions. For one, it allows for the sheer scope of Daenerys’s armies to register; a common farm boy from a village just outside of Winterfell is never treated to such spectacle. He understands its implications, too. He runs through the crowd, darting every which way to get a better view, until he climbs a tree and sees phalanxes of Unsullied and Dothraki stretching as far as the eye can see. This naturally serves as a nice little echo of Bran’s first climbs in the pilot, marveling at the approach of the royal caravan.

I wonder if these opening shots may serve another function, one far more important to the story’s climax, and one that comes into sharper focus as the episode progresses. What are Jon, Daenerys, and all the rest of them fighting for? They fight for life, certainly. It’s what comes after the fighting that gets sticky. This boy is a simple commoner, somebody who “prays for rain, health, and a summer that never ends,” as Jorah once put it. He and everyone he’s ever known has barely had any agency over their own destinies. Power is an abstract concept used to keep them in their place, no matter how honorable or decent the ones who sit in the castles really are. These shots give us a glimpse into his perspective. It’s true that he is overawed by Daenerys’s display, but his is not necessarily a submissive gaze. It may in fact hint that he and others like him will move into focus by journey’s end.

One hopes, anyway. Daenerys has not lost any of her practically erotic delight in showing off her strength. She, Missandei, and Grey Worm all endure suspicious gazes from the northern peasants. As Jon tells her, “Northerners don’t much trust outsiders.” But then her dragons sweep across the landscape, sending the peasants into a panic. Daenerys merely smirks to herself. More people to cow in fear of her.

It doesn’t stop there. Sansa spills all the tea by asking how she is “meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen…what do dragons eat, anyway?” Daenerys responds with ice in her veins: “Whatever they want.” They are the nuclear weapons that can go wherever and do whatever they please, alliances and diplomatic interests be damned. When Jon and Daenerys speak about Sansa, Dany says “I am her queen. If she can’t respect me…” before the Dothraki interrupt them. The mind shudders at the thought of what was on the back of that sentence. And she was saying it to Sansa’s goddamn half-brother! It takes a certain kind of person to threaten a woman like Sansa to the man who is supposed to be her ally.

Sam catches the real brunt of it, though. She dispatches the news that she executed his father and brother with all the emotional delicacy of a weather report. She’s almost proud to announce it to him. Ever since Yunkai in season four, people from Jorah to Tyrion to Jon have tried to tell her that brutality is not true power. She has continued to refuse to listen. Now, the one person she will listen to–Jon–has just been confronted by his best friend who asks him, “would you have done it?” Will Dany listen to Jon now? Even more seriously, after Sam tells Jon the truth of his parentage: “You gave up your crown to save your people. Would she do the same?”

The theme of power and what it does to people is evergreen in Game of Thrones, but it takes center stage in a quiet, contemplative episode that allows for silence to creep back into its fabric after an exhaustively and repetitively chatty seventh season. We see these glimpses of Dany’s monomania lurking beneath the surface. Sansa, meanwhile, is possessed of a confidence that has finally taken full flower. She is withering to Dany, Tyrion, and Jon, becoming the realist among the idealists. She practically takes on the audience’s thoughts from season seven when she asks whether Jon bent the knee “to save the North, or because you love her?” She’s absolutely right. She sees right through Cersei’s ruse when Tyrion can’t, and devastates him. “I used to think you were the cleverest man alive.” For Sansa, power is knowing men. Cersei and Littlefinger made for…interesting teachers, but their tools in the hands of Sansa meant they could be used to protect people.

Power has corroded the last of Cersei’s heart. The throne room is usually filled with bannermen, lords, knights, and onlookers when the king or queen receives someone of such repute as the king of the Iron Islands. Yet, the only people to greet Euron Greyjoy and Golden Company leader Harry Strickland are Qyburn, the Mountain, and two other guards. Director David Nutter frames this perfectly in an extremely long shot that allows for cavernous space to fill the frame around a few small figures, drowning in the emptiness of their glory.

I mentioned the texture of silence earlier. It is one of the series’ unheralded weapons since its beginning. That is where real emotion gets communicated, in simple gazes, the slightest twitch of facial muscles. Lena Headey gives us two such moments. Euron quite unsubtly begs to fuck her, to which she retorts, “If you want a queen, earn her.” Euron essentially responds by saying that he’s bought a place in her bed for all he’s done for her. You can see Cersei thinking quickly: despite her past, she still recognizes the value of alliances. She needs him. At the same time, she is turned on by his swagger. She hates herself for it. All Headey needs to do is give a flick of the eye and a tightening of the cheekbones. She walks away, then stops in long shot. She keeps her back to camera for one second longer than you expect. It’s everything. She turns, her face now filled with defiance and self loathing.

After they have sex, Euron goes to depart and places the palm of his hand on her (unbeknownst to him) pregnant stomach, declaring that he’s going to “put a prince in your belly.” He departs. Her eyes dart in every direction, fighting back tears. She knows what this means. All love has vanished from her existence. Her children are dead. She has ordered Bronn to assassinate Jaime, who betrayed her. This is her life now–hollow, meaningless. Her baby will know no father but Euron. Cersei is an unrepentant monster, it’s true. But she has also lost everything to that fundamental flaw in her character, that nobody in the world matters but herself, her brother, and her children. Now, only she is left.

Silence gives depth and flavor to many characters who were otherwise caricatures. Euron has been a cartoon up until now, but his moment with Yara, nasty though it is, was oddly sweet. Even he must appreciate what little family he has left. Theon’s redemption story was quickly done with, without speaking a word to each other. A headbutt to the face and an outreached hand was all that was needed.

True colors will out in the end. We are about to discover what Daenerys, Sansa, Theon, Arya, and the rest of this ramshackle gang are really made of, and what power will ultimately look like in Westeros and beyond.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

On our reunion checklist, we have:

• Jon & Bran
• Arya & Jon
• Sansa & Tyrion
• Arya & the Hound
• Arya & Gendry
• Jaime & Bran

That’s a pretty tidy list! My fave? The Hound. “You’re a cold little bitch, aren’t you. I guess that’s why you’re still alive.” That’s basically “I missed you so much” with these two.

• It looks like Theon will be returning to Winterfell. Bran’s social calendar is really filling up with awkward chats, isn’t it?
• It was nice to get the “Jon rides a dragon” bit out of the way early. Now we don’t have to dwell on it. Ditto Jaime and Bran. Bran, ever weird, tells Sam he’s “waiting for an old friend.” So I guess he just sat outside for a couple days before Jaime rode in?
• Jaime has fought off a bear, stared down a dragon, and bore witness to a wight. I’ve never seen him as terrified as when he laid eyes on the boy he once tried to kill.
• Seriously though, how the hell did Beric and Tormund survive the fall of Eastwatch??? My dudes learn how to fly or some nonsense? And also, how are they gonna ride past the White Walkers to get to Winterfell before they do? Details, fam.

Evan Davis is a writer living in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @EvanDavisSports

Stream Game Of Thrones "Winterfell" (S8 E1) on HBO Go