WARNING: Contains Pure Spoilers For Game of Thrones Season 7 Finale!
Last night season 7 of Game of Thrones came to a dramatic end and it seems the world of Westeros won’t be far behind it with the wall crumbling and the Long Night finally beginning.
It was a dramatic episode that balanced the best of Thrones; clever political discussions broken up by white knuckle set pieces, people teleporting about like they’re in an episode of Star Trek and characters acting in awfully confusing ways.
Despite this, it was a great episode which set up the final season next year and confirmed once and for all that the true enemy is and always had been, the Army of the Dead.
The episode began in King’s Landing with Jaime and Bronn gazing at Daenerys’ pants-shittingly huge CGI army before the rest of the Dragon Queen’s court, including Jon Snow, arrive to negotiate an alliance to take on the Night King.
We get a few nice reunions between Bronn, Podrick and Tyrion along with Jaime and Brienne as our heroes make their way to the Dragonpit, the arena where the ancient Targaryens kept their dragons and where Cersei intends to meet with Dany and Jon.
Once everyone’s arrived Dany makes a dramatic entrance on Drogon and the two queens plus their retinues begin negotiations which basically boil down to Dany asking for a ceasefire while they deal with the undead legion.
Cersei says no but then they release the Wight they captured last episode and the Lannister queen agrees to help them while also doing her best not to shit her pants. Unfortunately in exchange for her help Cersei wants Jon to become a neutral power.
Jon’s inability to bend the knee bites him in the arse once again and he refuses, proclaiming loud and proud to Cersei that he’s Dany’s loyal man to the moans and groans of everyone there who remembers that decisions like this are what got Ned Stark killed.
Understandably annoyed at Jon’s stubborn attitude Cersei refuses to help and storms off until Tyrion, during unseen negotiations, manages to convince her protecting the world from an unstoppable undead horde is in her interests.
Cersei agrees to call her bannermen so Dany and Jon head back up to Dragonstone to strategise. While there Jon finally cofronts Theon about his dickish behaviour in season 2, forgiving him and telling him he needs to understand that he’s a Stark as well as a Greyjoy.
Theon then manages to use his hard earned skills as a punching bag to take on the Iron Island captain who fished him out of the sea, eventually knocking him out and forcing his men to abandon their plan of sailing east and waiting for all of this to blow over to instead rescue Yara.
Heading back North, Littlefinger’s convoluted and ineffectual schemes come to a rather sticky end after those pesky Stark kids finally figure out you can’t trust a man with a moustache that creepy who leers after young girls.
It’s all over very quickly for poor Peter Baelish who gets his throat slit by his own knife and bleeds to death on the cold floor of Winterfell, allowing us to concentrate on the far more pressing issue of an undead army.
Speaking of which, we then cut back to King’s Landing where Jaime and Cersei are preparing for the war with the undead, and by that I mean Cersei’s picked up the idiot ball again and is plotting to abandon Dany and Jon in the North in the hope they get themselves – or at least the dragons – killed.
When Jaime points out the obvious problems in this plan (the Night King would then have three dragons) Cersei goes full mad queen, monologuing to herself until Jaime finally has enough and seemingly abandons her.
Then winter finally arrives just as Sam gets to Winterfell, just in time for he and Bran to put together that Jon isn’t a northern bastard, he’s in fact a Targaryen; Aegon Targaryen to be specific, the true heir to the Iron Throne.
Unfortunately this revelation confirms the theory that he and Dany are in fact nephew and aunt which makes their sex scene on the boat more than a little awkward.
Not as awkward as Tyrion standing outside seemingly listening in on the incestuous shenanigans, but awkward none the less.
Finally we head to the Wall where Tormund and Beric watch helplessly as the army of the dead arrive and the Night King rides in on the reanimated Viserion bulldozing the Wall with the dragon’s fiery blue breath before at long last marching south to take on the armies of men.
And there you have it, the final episode of season 7. Where will things go next? Well there’s still a few dangling plot threads beyond the threat of Long Night to deal with before we reach the finish line.
We’ve got the prophecy of the valonqar, Cercei’s schemes with Euron, Jon learning of his true heritage plus I’m interested in seeing what Tyrion had to offer his sister to get her support, could he have betrayed Dany?
And of course we have to see who will finally win the Game of Thrones but more importantly, where the fuck is Cleganebowl!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.