Lord of Light, I know you effed off back to nowhere now that a small assassin child defeated the Night King for you, but please, please lend me the strength to deal with Daenerys Targaryen and her mentally deficient nephew lover Jon Snow. These idiots. These absolute buffoons. Game of Thrones‘ third-to-final episode, “The Last of the Starks”, featured the Mother of Singular Dragon looking Sansa Stark dead-ass in the face and saying “this is a six-episode season, Sansa, we need to move on King’s Landing now,” despite the fact her entire army is either dead, exhausted from fighting the dead, or hungover af because they survived the dead. Thus began the hour-and-a-half long whoopsie-doodle fest from Dany and her compatriots, which ended with Rhaegal shot out of the sky by Euron Greyjoy—who discovered, after millennia of mystery and magic, that a dragon’s greatest weakness is “just a big fuckin’ harpoon”—half the Kingdom sharing the hot goss about Dany’s “rightful” claim to the throne, and poor Missandei of Naath dying on King’s Landing’s doorstep because, as it turns out, Cersei Lannister isn’t down to negotiate. If only there was some evidence this might happen. Perhaps under all this rubble where the Sept of Baelor used to be?
Ah, nevertheless. At least Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth finally got. it. on. (Before Jaime remembered the person lying next to him wasn’t a blood relative and bolted out of there.) Between Jaime/Brienne and Arya/Gendry, the North is turning into the place where ships go to land. Someone needs to transport Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes to Winterfell so they can kiss, stat. Of all the mysteries this final Game of Thrones season is unraveling, I’m happy to finally know why the banner above those walls says “Winter is Coming.”
Anywho. I have questions. You have questions. Let’s get into it.
Did Missandei Deserve Better?
I mean yeah, almost definitely. As a white dude, it’s not exactly my place to comment on Game of Thrones brutally beheading its one (1) woman of color character. That’s like a German Shepherd commenting on a flat tire. Like, even a German Shepherd would think “well that doesn’t feel right” and he’s technically correct but what the fuck does he actually know, you know? He’s a dog. He doesn’t drive.
So just on a character-level, Missandei’s death did feel like another rousing example of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss focusing on capital-m Moments instead of coherent storytelling. Because really, what was Cersei’s goal here? Take one, single person prisoner, a person you couldn’t possibly know has a close connection to Daenerys, hold her in chains until Daenerys shows up on your doorstep, then make a whole Thing out of murdering that one person instead of…using that entire fleet of Super Bows to kill all your enemies, who are just standing there, right there, like idiots. Yes, watching Grey Worm get emotional tugged at my heart-strings, and yes, seeing Daenerys’ rage-face built up the proper level of “oh lawd here we go” heading into next week’s penultimate episode. But woo boy, the road to get there was so sloppy and convoluted Jon wants to use it as a battle plan.
Oh yeah. It appears that, almost more than anything, “The Last of the Starks” operated as a breather between battles. Next week’s episode is an hour-and-20-minutes long, just two minutes shorter than “The Long Night”, so it really does appear that the battle for King’s Landing, with the fate of the Iron Throne and all Seven Kingdoms hanging in the balance, is set for Game of Thrones‘ penultimate episode. Thank the gods it takes place during the daytime.
I am legitimately overjoyed to see that the people behind the Siege of King’s Landing are the tactical geniuses that brought you both The Battle of the Bastards—in which Jon Snow charged an entire army by himself—and The Long Night, the skirmish that was primarily won through screaming, crying, and a well-timed orchestral string arrangement. It’s a shame there’s no more Dothraki around so Daenerys can blindfold them for absolutely no reason. I want Jon Snow to stare at the walls of King’s Landing for an uninterrupted five minutes before saying unironically “What if we ran straight into that?” I hope they cut to Bran at least once, just sitting in a hill above King’s Landing making squirrels arm-wrestle or some shit.
Anyway, Emilia Clarke already said episode 5 is “bigger” than episode 3. It’s once again directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who did admittedly make a strange choice when he decided to make “The Long Night” the first-ever episode of television lit entirely by antimatter. But the dude’s a hell of a director; “Battle of the Bastards” was one extended mud-caked panic attack put to film and “Hardhome”—gods, remember “Hardhome”?—is truly a top-tier holy shit ending over all of Game of Thrones‘ run.
(Expect to never see Davos Seaworth even once during the battle. Also expect Davos Seaworth to survive the battle.)
Should Sansa Have Kept Jon's Secret?
In short: No. No! With all due respect to you, stranger on the internet, if you’re mad that Sansa spilled those hot incestual beans all over Winterfell then you are wrong. She should have told more people. She should have told everyone. Sansa Stark should’ve commissioned a neon-lit billboard above the walls of Winterfell that shows a shirtless Jon surrounded by both ice and fire with a slogan like, “He Got Claim.” I don’t know. There’s not a lot of time. We’ll workshop it.
“But she swore an oath in front of the Spooky Face Tree!” you may be yelling. Tough turkeys. The Spooky Face Tree doesn’t put bowls of brown on my peasant-hut table. The person who is sitting on the Iron Throne does, and Sansa sees a chance to not bend the knee to the low-key bordering high-key insane dragon lady who made it extremely passively-aggressively clear that the North will submit or else.
You know why Sansa is still out here vying for the title of Top Stark? No, it’s not, as this episode’s script might have you believe, all thanks to those rascals Ramsay Bolton and Petyr Baelish. It’s because she’s seen so. much. shit. that she decidedly did not inherit Ned Stark’s cellular-level inability to defile his honor. Ned was great. Ned was kind. Ned most likely helped many an elderly woman cross the Flea Bottom streets. But Ned’s dead, baby, and Sansa Stark isn’t going to uphold a promise if it means another possibly Mad Monarch sits the throne.
Quick, important note: This is not me advocating for Jon on the Iron Throne. Jon is capable of running Seven Kingdoms the same way Bran is capable of running seven miles. Jon doesn’t even want the throne, but look at it from Sansa’s perspective; keep her mouth shut forever to protect a brother who is so blinded by his loyalty boner that he’s going to get everyone killed, or tell the truth to Tyrion, who is known to be pretty clever about these things? Or, well, he used to be.
Tyrion, Baby, What Is You Doing?
With two episodes left, I truly no longer know what purpose Tyrion Lannister serves outside of Peter Dinklage‘s obvious talent, and even that is going to tragic waste. He’s not clever. He’s not really helpful. He’s not even particularly funny anymore. He’s like Bran Stark without the meme potential. He’s the least useful Hand on the show, and that’s including Jaime’s. I’m pretty sure the last notable moment Tyrion Lannister had was that time he rolled out of a crate and immediately vomited, because that at least, to me, was relatable.
“The Last of the Starks” was a particularly depressing point for a character who was once a favorite to sit on the Iron Throne. Look at that conversation with Varys right before they reach Dragonstone. The talks between these two used to be a highlight of the show, an evenly-matched tennis game of wits between two master-schemers. Now it’s just Varys whacking Tyrion repeatedly in the face with his racket like, “I. Am. Going. To. Assassinate. Daenerys.” and Tyrion’s just like, “I honestly wish you wouldn’t but okay??”
And yeah, it’s obvious why Tyrion’s still alive and in the game; every single person left with the last name Lannister has a destined date at the end of this story, in King’s Landing, together. Depending on which prophecy/subreddit you subscribe to, some sandy-haired sibling is going to kill another. But you can’t just bench an MVP player in the second quarter because he might be helpful during double overtime. It just says a lot that when Tyrion was approaching the walls of King’s Landing in “The Last of the Starks” and Cersei nearly gave the order for her archers to fire, I was mostly thinking about how Cersei 100% would not have been able to hear what he was saying from that distance, instead of, you know, the momentous character death that was about to happen.