Game of Thrones Review: Dragonstone (Season 7 Episode 1)

After much anticipation, Game of Thrones has finally returned from a longer-than-usual off-season. Unfortunately, every character isn’t killed by White Walkers on Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 1 “Dragonstone,” but there are still twelve more episodes to come.

Fingers crossed, everyone.

Jokes aside, this premiere makes it clear that the series is finally arriving at its endpoint. For six seasons, Game of Thrones has been a bit like a chess board setting pieces and stalling time for the endgame it truly wants and, to a certain extent, we’re still doing that. That’s the way of Game of Thrones premieres, though. They’re boring, establishing characters for the season to come.

Beyond that, however, there’s real forward momentum here.

Jon (Kit Harrington) and Sansa (Sophie Turner) are back at Winterfell and preparing the North for what’s to come; Arya (Maisie Williams) is executing people on her kill-list, finally taking herself back to King’s Landing; Daenerys is finally (now with some feeling: FINALLY)  in Westeros with her armies and allies; Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) is back over the wall.

The pieces are in place for a final clash between characters. A final step or two and we’re actually, finally there.

Perhaps the most impressive thing that “Dragonstone” does is delivering mountains of expositional dialogue in ways that don’t feel at all like exposition. This, if nothing else, is a credit to the writing by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.

The series needed to contextualize all that it was setting up from Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) discussing their history with Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) to Sansa talking about Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) to Brienne (Gwendoline Christie). It’s done masterfully and as organic as expositional dialogue gets.

If the premiere has any stain against it, it’s — again, like most Game of Thrones premieres — a bit dull and boring. Necessarily so, it has to arrange itself in a cohesive way, but a bit plodding nonetheless. It’s hard to imagine that we really need a scene with Ed Sheeran that is as long as what we get here.

Now, there are some characters we have to talk about quickly.

The first is Arya. It’s unclear how much we should be rooting for her. Yes, she wiped out the Freys and it was amazing, but A Girl is going full dark side here and this is not a good thing for her.

We’re possibly witnessing a descent into madness as she focuses so intently on revenge and killing those that need to be killed, that soon it might envelop. It would be fitting for the promise of bittersweet endings, though.

The second is Sansa. Her relationship with Jon right now has the promise of one rife with contention. At the moment, she appears to be playing all sides. It’s unclear where she stands yet, but it’s pretty likely that she’s either playing Jon or Littlefinger — or both. We’re witnessing someone who is quickly becoming a more shrewd, tactful individual that is a bit more King’s Landing than Winterfell.

Season 7 has a lot of places it could go to in its penultimate year.

No matter how it goes, characters that we have followed for multiple seasons are finally going to be taken off the board in favor of the ultimate villain that awaits: the White Walkers. That won’t be the fun part. Getting there will be. That’s what awaits us this season.

Some Stray Thoughts:

• We would get a poop montage for Sam.
• “No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I’ll assume it was something clever.” Sansa is just bringing the snark and shade in this episode.
• I’m kind of hoping that Sansa overthrows Jon just so we can get the War of the Queens between Cersei, Daenerys, and Sansa. For nothing else than that name.
• Daenerys and Euron’s looks have me going up and down the Kinsey Scale here.
• Again, seriously, why was that Ed Sheeran scene so long? Spare me, please.

What did you think of this episode of Game of Thrones? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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