CALLING ALL FANS: As you are well aware by now, the first episode of GOT’s final season aired last Sunday. My friends and I sat huddled in a dorm with a laptop connected to a TV, surrounded by snacks and homemade cupcakes with the house signs decorated in frosting. As the scene opened, and we saw each of the characters we loved appear on the screen for the first time in two years, we all clutched one another and SCREAMED. I would be lying if I said I didn’t shed a couple tears. If you love this show as much as I do, or want to hear any of my opinions on the first episode, keep reading.
My overall thought is that this first episode was a little static. It felt like a classic premiere; we became acquainted with the characters and the storylines again, and we got the reunions that we have been waiting for for so long. I have to say, I have been excited for the reunion between Arya and Jon for ACTUAL years now, and when it finally happened, I was a little disappointed. I mean, can we not even get some tears? The reunion between Jon and Sansa was more emotional, and they didn’t even like each other.
Daenerys is a different story, and I have to say that this episode was the first time that I found her character genuinely annoying. I am still rooting for her, as always, but in this episode she seemed arrogant and a little power-hungry. I wasn’t the biggest fan of her interaction with Sansa for the first time, and her having to tell Samwell about his family just made me want to cry. Also, that little dragon joy ride between her and Jon was… something else. This whole cheesy/almost too romantic aspect in the show is just so strange to me, because nothing like that has really happened before. The entirety of season 7 was a build up to some sort of relationship between the two, and it is hard to believe that an entire season of work results in the scene that we got. And can I just say, everyone seemed a little too happy go lucky (or as happy as you CAN be in Game of Thrones) when there are bigger issues at hand…. like the Night King and his army destroying the Wall and heading south? Oh yeah. That.
What I found to the most pressing issue with this episode is that it really had no sense of urgency. Things are a lot different now than how it has been on previous seasons, because mostly everyone is in one place now, instead of spread all over Westeros. Scenes are in coherent order, mostly in the same place, and that’s new for us. What I am saying is, as intense as last season ended, the beginning of this season seemed too much like an episode of Full House. I’m not disappointed, because as sentimental as I am, a part of me really enjoyed not being anxiously on the edge of my seat for one episode. However, with as few episodes as there are in this season, I have a feelings things will escalate pretty soon. So maybe the first episode was a nice breather, but the rest of this season better be anything but that.