Game of Thrones Season 8 Premiere Review: 'Winterfell'

(Photo Credit: HBO)

Game of Thrones

Season 8 Premiere

By Garrett Yoshitomi

@garrettweets

By the end of its run, Game of Thrones will have spanned eight seasons and seventy-three episodes. Those seventy-three episodes have earned (as of now) ten Emmys, one Golden Globe, six Guinness World Records, and the love and devotion of tens of millions of fans worldwide. Over the past eight years, these tens of millions of fans have experienced: Seven Kingdoms, nine Great Houses, a War of the Five Kings, one Red Wedding, one Purple Wedding, six Hands of the King, four Lord Commanders, a one-eyed man, a Three-Eyed Raven, Old Gods, New Gods, one Mountain, one Hound, over 51 major characters deaths (yes, I counted), and of course, three dragons. All these elements and more helped shape Game of Thrones into the show it is today. And the final season will surely add to this rich lore even further.

And, while the high fantasy, epic battles, and subtle political maneuvering will likely be what Thrones is remembered for when it's all said and done, it's really the characters and the relationships between them that are the driving force behind a series that will eventually go down as one of the best dramas in television history. In line with this, 'Winterfell,' the first episode of season eight and Game of Thrones' last season premiere ever, forgoes the spectacle of a major White Walker skirmish in favor of setting the table for the season to come by reuniting characters far and wide, reestablishing not only their relationships, but where each character is at in their own individual arc. 

(Photo Credit: HBO)

Longtime fans, especially those who have been following the show since its debut, have been waiting years for characters like Jon Snow and Arya Stark to finally cross paths again. And, although these long overdue reunions feel short compared to the amount of time these characters have spent apart, each scene ends up hitting all the right notes, with carefully laid references to characters’ previous interactions and shared histories. Because there isn’t enough time for each character to recap everything they’ve been through over the past seven seasons (There’s only five episodes of Game of Thrones left for crying out loud!), the episode instead uses the juxtaposition of the way these characters interact now, with how they interacted before, to convey just how far they’ve come in their literal and figurative journeys. The conversation between Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister is a good example of this. These two spent much of the earlier seasons within the same King’s Landing sphere and were even married in season three. A lot has changed for both characters, which is made abundantly clear when Sansa, a once meek and naive teenager turned poised political leader, mocks Tyrion for thinking he could ever legitimately trust his sister, Cersei.

Fortunately, not every reunion we get in this episode is characterized by someone’s new found hardened exterior. There are plenty of tender character moments that help balance out the steelier interactions, especially for Arya, who still manages to share her warmer side with Jon and Gendry, despite all the trials and horrors she’s faced over the past several years. Couple that with the soaring, tumbling, freewheeling of Jon and Daenerys’ magic dragon ride, and you’re left with an episode of Game of Thrones that’s surprisingly pleasant. Moments of levity are certainly few and far between in Game of Thrones, and it’s interesting that on the precipice of The Great War, we get an episode full of them. Veteran Thrones fans don’t need to be told twice when they’re being lulled into a false sense of security, and it seems likely that these will be the lightest scenes we get for the rest of the season.

(Photo Credit: HBO)

So, with doom and gloom in the Westerosi forecast, where is this season headed exactly? Obviously, you can bank on an apocalyptic battle between the living and the dead, but ultimately, the final season of Game of Thrones will be determined by its characters and the relationships between them. And there’s no relationship that will matter more than the one between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. With Jon finally learning the truth about his parentage, he’ll need to decide whether or not he wants to act on his claim to The Iron Throne. Knowing Jon, a natural leader who’s reluctant to lead, it wouldn’t be surprising if he continues to defer to Daenerys, at least initially. But Daenerys is in a precarious position. With very few Northern allies, Dany’s power over The North seems tepid, at best. Jon could get pressed into reclaiming his title of King of the North, if it meant bringing the kind of stability to the region that Dany is incapable of providing. Is this an outcome that the Mother of Dragons would go along with, though?

Despite being one of the show’s primary protagonists, Daenerys has always been relentless in her pursuit of power, and as benevolent as she is towards her followers, she’s proven just as wicked to those who oppose her. This approach served her well while she methodically consolidated power in Essos. But, unlike with the slavers in Meereen, Dany can’t just light the entire North on fire. Already, her ruthless tactics have proven problematic in her pursuit of fealty, when she reveals to Samwell Tarly that she executed his father and brother in cold blood. During her time in Essos, Dany did prove capable of compromise, but too often she’s resorted to brute force in her decisions, when a softer, more diplomatic approach would have served her better. Plus, Dany’s only ever compromised with how she ruled, not whether or not she would rule. As Sam knowingly asks Jon, in what could end up being the quote of the season: “You gave up your crown to save your people. Would she do the same?”

(Photo Credit: HBO)

It might not have been the most exciting episode, but with so many characters reuniting after such long periods of time, the final season premiere of Game of Thrones needed to take a slower approach, and properly lay the groundwork for several overarching plot points that are finally marching towards their inevitable conclusions. It isn’t one of Thrones’ finest episodes, and for fans expecting a breakneck-paced final season, I could see how ‘Winterfell’ might feel like a disappointment. But, the eighth season premiere is a solid enough episode, with no real noticeable lows (except for the Cersei-Euron subplot, arguably), and a lot of enjoyable, character-driven highs. I am left wondering, though, if there is enough runway left for the show to deliver a satisfying end to all the lingering plot threads hanging around. According to Entertainment Weekly, after next week’s episode, the remaining four episodes of Game of Thrones all have a runtime of at least one hour and eighteen minutes, meaning that we’ll basically get an extra episode and a half worth of content when it’s all said and done. To be fair, though, when it comes to one of the best shows to ever grace our televisions, even extended run times don’t seem like they’ll be enough to fully capture what’s been a truly amazing ride.