Season 8 Episode 2 “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” review: A Storm of Reunions

 

My illustrious co-host Sean T. Collins wrote in his terrific review of the first episode that while all the joy coming from the reunions in the season’s first episode lacked a bit of the bitterness that was the trademark of “Game of Thrones” all the time, ending with the knife-sharp conclusion that “poison helps the sugar go down”. It’s a staple by now to point to George R. R. Martin’s rare statement about the endgame of the series that it would be “bittersweet”. This episode showed how this can look in practice.

While I’m certainly not averse to good feelings on TV – “Game of Thrones” especially, after all, tended to wade way too deep into negativity, nihilism and abject horror at times -, the season’s first episode had a few problems, as I pointed out in my review. This episode improved on all of them. The pacing was flawless, the emotional beats all hit where they should and there was some much-needed lightheartedness.

We start were we left off last episode, with Jaime in the Great Hall of Winterfell. Would it surprise you that the reunion isn’t quite as happy as most of those we experienced last episode? The stakes are high, and Tyrion interjecting about how he trusts his brother isn’t exactly helping out in this situation, isn’t it? Sansa has beef, and airs it. Dany has beef, and airs it. Bran has beef, and kinda airs it. Aside from Tyrion, Jaime doesn’t have friends in the room. OR DOES HE? Brienne gets up, and emotions do as well. Sansa is swayed, Jon is swayed, and so, finally, is Dany. But even Tyrion has beef, he just airs it in private (“you knew who Cersei was, and you loved her anyway”).

Not enough with Jaime feels, though. He also finally acknowledges, officially, what Brienne means to him. “I’d be honored to serve under you command”, he says, nearly choking, and so are we. And Brienne, who can’t answer, but has to walk away in order to avoid all those feelings. And then, finally, when they’re all together, contemplating their last hours on earth, Jaime finally knights her. In the name of the Warrior, I judge you to be brave…Brienne is crying, and so are we.

The story comes full circle in other parts as well. Did you ever wonder why Sam stole Heartsbane? I didn’t see that one coming, but boy, did it suddenly tie all of this together. When he’s giving the sword to the son of the man who gave the one he once held to Jon, it’s all just so…carmic, I don’t know. Is there a word for it? Don’t take my word, look in the faces of Sam and Jorah at this moment, the whole story’s there.

Arya also gets much better served this episode. While her true reckoning with the Hound is still out – Beric interrupts it with some righteous crap – she gets on the right footing with Gendry. Most crucial, though, is that she transcends the badassery that defined so much of her promotional material and (too) much of her dialogue. After her first time with Gendry – “Game of Thrones” really can be sexy if it wishes to and puts the stuff in the right context (“I’m not the Red Woman, get off your own damn pants”) – she lays awake, staring in the darkness. She knows death, yes, which is why all the swagger in the world can’t put the fundamental unease to rest. It keeps her human, and that is important in this story. It plants doubt in our hearts.

Doubt is very much what everyone feels in this hour. Do they want to hope? What does it mean that they’re here? When Davos is faced with a girl disfigured by greyscale, the callback to Shireen is obvious. A ghost, dancing on the damp stones.

Doubt is also what Missandei and Grey Worm feel. They don’t belong here. The Unsullied and the Dothraki are here because they followed their dragon queen, no matter what, but this is neither their land nor their people, and they didn’t need to racist girls to remind them of that. It’s good that they have a plan for “afterwards”, as Tyrion frames it, and that it is a place of peace and beaches. When Grey Worm dons his helmet in the final minutes to face the White Walkers, there’s no doubt about one thing: he intends to come back.  

Down in the crypts of the kings who were gone, meanwhile, Jon has doubts. He’s chosen a rather inopportune time to confront Dany with the truth, but let’s face it, there’s considerable doubt if they’ll make it out of this alive, and it needs to get out NOW before they’re dead and no one bears witness anymore.

Doubt is what brings Dany to question her decision of appointing Tyrion as hand, and it takes Jorah to talk her out of ditching him and to finally resolve her issues with Sansa. It’s a discussion fraught with tension, and when they both admit to mistake and weakness, as they so seldom can, there’s a real connection between the two – and then Sansa does exactly what they’re all fighting for, and remembers, and suddenly, the question of Northern Independence and what it all means is back on the agenda. Memory cuts both ways, as Stannis would say, if he were here. I could so see him saying this in “The Winds of Winter”.  

This leads to the thematic core of the episode (not the emotional one, we’ll get to that), when they meet discussing their battle plan. It’s simple, as battle plans go: Hold out until magic stuff happens. A time-tested formula, I dare say. In this case, Bran provides the rationale: The White Walkers are omnicidal. They want not only to kill all living life; they also want to erase all memory. And nowhere is the collective memory more enshrined than in the trees and Bran’s person, as even certified book-worm Sam has to admit. Therefore, Bran offers himself as bait, and in one of those beautiful circles I described earlier, Theon volunteers himself and the remaining Ironborn to die for Bran, after he nearly killed him (and factually killed a surrogate) in season 2. The sense of payback, despair and inevitability that surrounds it all is that bitter-sweetness that was lacking in the first episode.

While we’re on the subject, there are two reasons why this works much better this time around. One is what I’ve been pointing out this whole review; the connections these characters share and highlight this time around are so much more fraught. Yes, Jorah telling Dany that Tyrion is just ever-so-smart is just as stupid as Arya saying the same thing about Sansa, but this time around, it’s centered around a real relationship. It highlights character growth on Jorah’s part that he rejects the temptation of usurping the position as Dany’s hand. He keeps his envy in check and keeps to what he does: fighting. He’s Queensguard, not Hand.

The second thing is the sense of urgency. Edd, Tormund (who’s responsible for practically all jokes this episode and lightening up the darkness with just the right amount of awkwardness. Know your audience, Tormund!) and Beric arrive with the dire news from Last Hearth and the crucial information that the dead are just one night’s march away. As a result, everything is laser-focused, because every character knows that this day could very well be the last. And everyone acts like it. What you’ve got to say, say it now, or it will remain forever unsaid, for better, or worse. Memory cutting both ways, and all that.

And that leads to the emotional core of the episode, when the whole B-Cast sits around the hearth in the Great Hall of Winterfell, drinking and contemplating death. Only here, in their final hours, everyone finally gets to admit that, yes, they’re likely going to die. Only Tyrion serves as a counter-point, and the loneliness of his unanswered congestion that he thinks they’re going to win makes all this even grimmer. And yet, there’s hope.

A lot of reviewers have pointed out that the preparation montage sequences feel all very Lord-of-the-Rings-y. And of course that’s true. Nutter and Cogman don’t dig into that imagery because it’s bad, after all. But you can view that as a compliment. It only works because we care about this place. Winterfell is where the last stand is made, where the fate of humanity will be defended. Did you ever contemplate why the fight for Helm’s Deep was more vivid and compelling than the battle for Minas Tirith? One reason was that we cared a lot more about the people of Helm’s Deep because we spent more time with them throughout the movie. The same effect is reached here in Winterfell.

And now, curtains, to the song. THAT SONG. Yes, it’s a callback to Pippin singing during the sally on Osgiliath. True enough. But that’s not why it drove me to tears and let me to jump to YouTube and listen to it over and over again. This song is the song of Jenny of Oldstones, and if anyone ever says again that D&D don’t care for or understand the books, I’m going to hit them with them. One by one. This is so beautiful, so thematic, so rich in connotations. It really tied the episode together, and its impact is as strong as listening to “The Rains of Castamere” after the Battle of the Blackwater.

So when, finally, the Night King’s undead horse set foot on the field before Winterfell, my heart was full to burst. You may snipe at the narrative convenience of characters talking about stuff when they’re talking about it, in that room, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Fate has brought them together in this moment, for this moment. This is what this story is about, and for the first time in a long time, I feel confident that whatever happens to the books and their publishing schedule, we will get an ending worthy of them.