TG Life
Eighth and final season of the popular series Game of Thrones just began airing, and its first episode created the kind of waves that were expected. In fact the show was so popular that the people incharge of release themselves streamed the show three hours earlier than scheduled time by mistake. The service accidentally uploaded it four hours before, and that is at 5 pm. Many users also claimed that they received a push notification of the episode's availability before it was taken down.
Anyway, the first episode of the final season did start to bring loose threads together and offered a spree of reunions. That said, this story has some twists too.
As Jon Snow returns to the North with Queen Daenarys Targaryen and her assorted allies, including her Hand, Tyrion Lannister, and spymaster Lord Varys, her arrival sparks fear and mistrust among the Northerners. Especially Jon’s sisters Sansa and Arya, and his best friend Sam Tarly, who learns that Daenarys executed his father and brother during the events of the last season. Most of the episode’s runtime is devoted to Jon and Daenarys’s attempts to deal with this situation, given that the real threat, the undead White Walkers, have recently breached the Wall and are slow-marching their way to Winterfell.
Reunions were a running theme throughout. Gendry and Arya, Sansa and Tyrion, even Yara and Euron Greyjoy receive great little moments in quick succession. It was Jon and Arya’s reunion, however, that fans had waited for the most. Breaking GoT première tradition, somewhat, Winterfell also motors along plot-wise. Jon learns the secret about his true parentage and, ergo, his legitimate claim to the Iron Throne. He and Daenarys also produce the VFX scene of the episode, a breathless dragon joyride, before kissing in front of an icy waterfall. Cersei Lannister strategically beds Euron Greyjoy. The White Walkers send a typically gruesome message to Tormund, Dondarrion and company. Bran, in his newfound seer/Three-Eyed Raven avatar, even rebukes Daenarys, Jon and the Starks at one point for “squabbling over titles”, telling Daenarys bluntly, “There’s no time for this, the Walkers have your dragon. They’ve torn down the wall”. By the end, it was clear that all of the stage-setting had been reserved for Winterfell.
