Season 8, Episode 2 Recap: Old can be New and New is Good
Hail Tormund.
This is a long one, but once again my goal for you plebs is to provide information that is not easily found in any other recap. I live to serve.
To Episode 2! And for real, this episode was a dog until Tormund showed up on screen. His introduction and accosting of Jon should have came with a “record-scratch” where they start over with the theme song and title credits from the top.
The issue is that for twenty-or-so minutes the show runners exposed themselves as having no more tricks in the bag except for direct callbacks to previous episodes in the series (for a second episode in a row). This diegetic storytelling is appropriate in the season opener as a thematic mirror to “where it all began” but only barely excusable then as it comes with the implied expectation that the table is being set for “something” to actually happen.
The appeal of Game of Thrones is that Westeros is a fully realized world, the characters are not paper-thin and are motivated by a lifetime of experiences in this world, and this “fully constructed” stage allows the narrative to naturally subvert most High-Fantasy tropes (Prince Charming = Good, Damsel = She’s In Distress etc.) Having characters limited to only recalling things that happened on screen previously that the viewer has witnessed directly undercuts the believable-enough reality the show puts forward.
The best example of this crappy storytelling is Tyrion and Jamie reciting the “…Whore’s mouth on my cock line” from Season 1. When what we are supposed to believe is that Tyrion and Jamie are beloved siblings who have a literal lifetime of memories to share and recall, not just the 2 hours or so of shared screen time we have seen so far in the series.
If you forgot what this looks like, I beg you all to remember Orson the Beetleslayer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAOzMs9HbWg
That’s good GOT, and that’s what the brothers Jamie and Tyrion are supposed to act like when one or both of them think they are going to die.
So put in the dumpster everything before Tormund showing up, the Jamie Defense was thin and hackneyed, Jamie and Bran not much better, and so-on.
The “new and interesting” starts after the Umber search party arrives, that is when they receive the news that the Army of the Dead gets here come morning, and everyone goes about acting like they are going to die in a couple of hours.
Things I liked:
- New is good, it’s fine that Arya did a sex scene (although weird she is 11–12 in the books). I like that Podrick can sing, Jamie still cares about being a Knight and the religion of the Seven seems to still carry some gravitas in the knighting ceremony. I like that the Night’s Watch still talks merciless shit to each other/Sam and that yes Tywin would be rolling in his grave if he knew his sons were going to die defending Winterfell. And damn straight Tormund suckled the teet of a giantess for three months. All of these are examples of how uniting beloved characters and reunions can still feature new deeper layers of characterization without repeating previous events in the series. Even Davos getting shook by seeing the little girl scarred with Greyscale was hokey but, once again, it’s plumbing the depths of these characters (Davos in the book is very much scarred by losing four of his Sons in Stannis’ fleet during the battle of the Black Water, in the show they sub in guilt over Shireen dying).
- “Making right” by Valyrian steel is a great quick plot device. The way this work is Sam gives Jorah Mormont his families Valyrian steel sword Heartsbane (I don’t think his brother and father will be needing it…), because Jorah’s father Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch was a (better) father figure to him. BUT, this leaves out the other-half of the coin, which was that Jeor Mormont gave the Mormont Valyrian steel sword Longclaw to Jon Snow because he was like a son to him, and because his heir and actual son (Jorah) was banished to Essos by Ned Stark for being a slaver………. straight forward right?
- … WHILE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SWORDS, This also totally ignores the round about way that Ice, the Stark ancestral Valyrian greatsword, has now been returned to Winterfell for the first time since season one, albeit in two pieces. If you remember, After Ned’s execution the Lannisters melted down and split Ice into two crappier named smaller blades Widow’s Wail (thanks Joffrey), and Oathkeeper. Oathkeeper has been with Brienne since Jamie sent her to find Sansa, and Widow’s Wail has been with Jamie since the siege of High Garden.
Kind of disappointing that someone had the good idea to think deeper about swords, but not to use that during Jamie’s piss-poor “inquisition” WHEN THEY WERE LITERALLY TALKING ABOUT BRIENNE AND JAMIE KEEPING THEIR OATHS TO THE STARKS WHILE HOLDING THE REMAINS OF THE STARK GREATSWORD BETWEEN THEM.
- Any episode with Ghost is a good episode
- I would like to pat myself on the back for calling that the Godswood will play a central part in the War against the Dead with Bran acting as Night King bait in said Godswood, as well as the reminder that Berric is still “unaccounted for” on Arya’s list, which was briefly addressed in her scene with the Hound.
- I liked very much that Jon Snow just “got on with it” with telling Dany the real deal. Jon thinks they are going to lose and they are all going to die so why the hell not?
Things that matter:
Once again, my powers are limited at this point in the game and any insight is born more from traditional TV editing and writing analysis than from source material.
So what did we learn this episode? The dead are coming?(knew that) Friends and family members care about each other? (knew that) Dany really wants the Iron Throne and all of this is just a detour? (knew that) Sansa is smart and formidable now? (yes we have been told already)
The only wrinkle presented in this episode (with the seed planted in the episode 1) is maybe Tyrion isn’t smart after all?
So how does this work from a writing analysis standpoint? A very easy writing tool to remember is the rule of three, which is Setup, Reminder, Payoff. If you want to express any point that registers with the viewer, you want to follow this instead of just directly inserting the idea into exposition.
So is Tyrion smart?
Setup: Sansa questions his intelligence in episode one for trusting Cersei, Dany questions his intelligence for trusting Cersei once Jamie arrives
Reminder: Dany brings up Tyrion’s intelligence in talks with Sansa and others, Jorah councils Dany that, “Yes, Tyrion is very smart and the right man to be the hand.”
Payoff: Tyrion does a smart thing!… you hope. Or you can subvert this writing trick with a result that is the opposite of the setup (see Oberyn’s fight with The Mountain)
So what was the smart thing Tyrion did? To me, it seemed that him saddling up with Bran after the war conference to “learn more” is a very smart Tyrion like thing to do that will immediately payoff, except that the show cut away and denied the viewer the payoff….
…Which is fine, but I question the Scene-to-Scene and temporal editing decisions made afterward. Which is, if we are to believe this is all occurring in one night, and that the dead arrive in the morning to kill everyone, that means Tyrion went from having a deep dive with Bran (our payoff for everyone asserting that yes he is smart)… to immediately drinking and carousing with Jamie and crew?
So I have to ask myself, are the showrunners just stupid?
Maybe they are, but, if you rewatch the fireplace scene Tyrion seems initially fatalistic for the outcome of Jamie and himself, but when Brienne shares that “At least we will die with honor” Tyrion replies with:
“I think we might live”
Must have been some conversation the only smart person had with the only person who can see the future
Stay tuned next week where they all die (or maybe not!)
Also, what the hell was Gilly doing there?