GOT Recap Season 8 Episode 3:What is Dead Stays Dead Now

ME TAKING OUT ALL OF THE FAN THEORIES

This is where I sign off?

What can you say about that episode? Trying to comment is going to turn upside down my normal format for these recaps (Trollish general criticism -> Things I liked to try to stay positive -> Things that still could be interesting/merit discussion)

So in honor of opposite day, here is some general praise. That was 80 minutes of some good film making and directing. In specific, the director did a masterful job of “staging” the battle field in previous episodes and setting up clearly understood visual stakes for what was going to unfold over the episode. Winterfell was the battleground, and any season 8 viewer now has a good idea of what Winterfell looks like (empty fields surrounding, outer curtain walls and gates with direwolves on them, an inner keep, a crypt under the keep, an extant walled Godswood.)

The battle, for how many people complained about how dark and murky the action was, advanced in an orderly fashion with those physical features in mind. Winterfell got peeled like an onion, first the outer layers, then the walls, then the keep and on to the crypt and Godswood. The cinematography fed this; as the onion peeled so did Winterfell burn and the palette turn from night blues to blazing orange.

I can challenge anyone to this, but if you jump to any 30 seconds of the battle you can decipher pretty quickly what’s going on.

Oh, everything is looking heavy metal as fuck as it’s raining dead people and fire and Jon Snow is searching around? This must be him entering the courtyard trying to get to Bran and the Night King as the moat-pyre has clearly been lit, the dead are falling from the walls and he has lost his dragon!

This is not easy to do, and combined with the excellent first twenty minutes of tension building (ignoring the strategic stupidity of charging the Dothrakis in blind) I can pretty safely say I don’t think we will ever see a TV show again match this level of epic stakes and delivery.

Now that the general praise is out of the way.

Things that were uh, not great:

• This might break my rule that any episode with a Direwolf is a good episode because WHAT HAPPENED TO GHOST?

• Is Tyrion Smart? The showrunners sure aren’t because what happened to that whole tangent from the previous episode? Did him and Bran just talk about whoring and snarks and grumpkins the night previously? They even addressed this then “buried” it in the crypt (intentional pun alert) and everyone was like “actually nah Tyrion, you are just going to stay down here and do nothing, cause uh that’s the smart thing to do…”(ignoring half-cocked and loaded dead bodies waiting to be utilized in the walls around them)
• I might have blacked out for a second, but when did Game of Thrones start only killing only those who aren’t part of the narrative end game and even let those characters all die in the most valorous and redemptive possible fashion? Seven seasons of Melisande and Berric being enigmatic servants of an enigmatic fire god? Actually they are just fire-Jesus and sacrifice themselves accordingly (Berric even got a gratuitous crucifixion pose to boot) Seven seasons of Jorah pining for redemption as a son of the north and spurned love interest of Daenerys? Let him sacrifice himself gloriously defending both. What about Theon? Same. Edd? Who the fuck is that? Sam and Jon’s Night’s Watch friend. Oh yeah, dies saving Sam, easy ending. What about Sam? Oh, he can’t die yet we will have him save himself literally rolling around on a pile of zombies crying holding dragonglass daggers.

Valar Morghulis; Valar Dohaeris good nerds. Yes everyone dies, but every possible plot tangent, subtext and tangent dies as well, all to serve the showrunners need to get this albatross they lost the reins of seasons ago to an ending.

And that ending is Arya stabbies the Night King.

So what was Bran doing that whole time? It doesn’t matter because Arya stabbies the Night King

Is Arya Azor Ahai? It doesn’t matter because Arya stabbies the Night King

What about the Night King himself? How did the Children of the Forest lose control of their weapon of mass destruction? Why did he hate Bran so much? Why attack now and what was his end game? Look, I’m sure he had complex thoughts and feelings, but he shows up, fucks shit up, says nothing and gets stabbied and that’s that.

Why is this so disappointing?

Ugh. I did my best to cast-out from myself any hopes that the showrunners had more at play than-what-seemed once they ran out of source material. My season 8 version of “intrigue” was “maybe Tyrion will do something smart to save the day?” and that was too much of a diversion from course to ask for.

Ignoring the dumpsters of fan theories left behind (Bran is the Night King, Winterfell is magic, the trees are magic, everyone’s a Targaryen and is also magic etc.) and ignore all the greater fantasy tropes out there (good vs evil, political machinations of the elite in the face of existential doom etc.) and you just stick to a strong and faithful literary analysis of GRRM, two themes are constantly at play in his books and they are:

1. Every character makes mistakes
2. Those mistakes have myriads of consequences and lead to sacrifice, pain and more mistakes

That’s Game of Thrones paint-by-numbers.

So knowing this, and the now conclusion to the Night King menace (stabbied), where are the mistakes in the show version of Arya’s story-line? The “predestination” in play that Melisande became a walking embodiment of is just saying that all paths for Arya and everyone else led to her dropping in from off panel like a ninja turtle for the fatality. That’s it, she trained like karate kid, had a fun rag-tag journey, and saved the day and everyone in her family she could possible save.

I try to avoid jumping into fan -fiction and prognosticating that I could chart this ship better, but working entirely in the constraints of the show and last nights episode, and the conclusion that Arya has to be the one to do the deed, what about an ending for Arya that goes:

• Dead people attack, Arya and Sansa panic and Arya forces Sansa to the crypt, promising to come back for her (essentially as seen in show)
• Shit gets bad, Arya bumps her head and loses her faceless mojo (as seen in show)
• Instead of dicking around doing Walking Dead cosplay, shook Arya breaks for the crypt to save Sansa as she promised.
• Before reaching the crypt, Arya confronts Melisande who redelivers her blue eye prophecy and some old Braavosi motivation, Arya makes the decision to go to Bran instead of the Crypt choosing between being “no one” or Arya Stark.
• The Crypt turns into a bloodbath (as seen in show) Tyrion councils Sansa, as she desperately tries to escape and scream for Arya, that no one is coming, and that Bran told him this is how it has to happen (hence him getting drunk off his gourd since talking to Bran)
• Arya does the stabbying, everyone in the crypt dies
• Fin

Check mark next to a better version of the fulfilled Azor Ahai prophecy, check mark for Arya making a mistake (promising to protect Sansa) and sacrificing for it, Check mark next to Tyrion doing something smart, check mark next to being a more faithful mirroring of Arya’s character journey, and a big check mark next to how GRRM’s twisted literary brain works.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I would write more about what’s next for Cersei but seeing how this is going the good guys probably win the day, Jon and Daenerys smooch in victory in front of the Iron Throne and they will probably even do a wedding episode, here is a leaked scene:

PS Where is Ghost?