Game of Thrones season 7 finale review: Winter is here — and it’s BAD
Well, for a few minutes, it actually appeared as though she was going to agree to it in the makeshift meeting chamber within the walls of the arena. Sandor Clegane, after a brief meeting with his infamous brother, unleashed the White Walker, and proved to Cersei and all of her people that the threat was real. The problem was that she wanted more from Jon Snow than he could offer in return. She wanted him to bend the knee (effectively) and agree to keep his troops in the north. The problem he had was clear: He had already sworn it to Daenerys, and he was not going to bend the knee to two separate queens at the same time.
Brienne tried to convince Jaime to get through to her, and then Tyrion decided to make the craziest move of all: Going to see his murderous sister privately. This was the biggest risk that we’ve seen the character take, and it gave us arguably the best Peter Dinklage performance of the entire series. He realized through his private dialogue with her that she was pregnant; therefore, she had something to fight for. It was with this in mind that he convinced her to not only stop fighting, but to also bring her army north to help in the fight.
For the time being, every major army in Westeros is now preparing for a battle against the White Walkers. Surprisingly, though, there was plenty of political turmoil elsewhere. (Oh, and there’s still a twist to the Cersei story coming.)
Chaos — and awesomeness — in Winterfell
Remember that Littlefinger is arguably the smartest person in almost any room, and using the evidence from the past few weeks, he was able to convince Sansa that Arya Stark came to Winterfell with one purpose: Killing her, and claiming the title for herself. Per his argument, Arya viewed Sansa as a traitor to her people rather than one of the few people left in the world she truly cared about.
Back to strategy, and Theon’s big moment
Daenerys and her team were back in Dragonstone for another strategy session, which included the Mother of Dragons decided to sail to the North alongside Jon and his army. Meanwhile, Jon and Theon Greyjoy had their reconciliation moment that has long been overdue. That was also when Theon decided to do what he needed to do: Fight to save his sister, who he previously left for dead.
Theon then had to convince his men to go through with it, but when one of them refused to do so, what we saw in turn was arguably the most violent moment of the episode — a brawl between two people, and a moment where he finally found the courage he was lacking for so many years. He convinced his men to go through with his plan.
Cersei’s true intentions
While all of this was happening, back in King’s Landing Jaime finally decided that he had it up to here with Cersei and some of her machinations — even with her new deal, she still had more ulterior motives than he would’ve liked. He finally did what we were waiting for him to do for seasons.
Unfortunately, Cersei’s true intentions pretty much negate all of the goodwill we thought she had. She was playing Tyrion more or less all along.
An enormous death — and a theory (finally) confirmed
We thought we were going to see the death of Arya tonight, but in what was one of the most epic plot twists imaginable, Sansa completely tricked Littlefinger into thinking that she was about to try her sister for mother. Bran proved to be very useful in pointing out the reality of who Baelish really was, and a wide array of some of his lewd, terrible acts. His death was remarkable, especially in how Arya did it quickly in front of the subjects.
Following all of the chaos, Bran eventually found himself a new visitor in Samwell Tarly, who finally arrived. While there, the Three-Eyed Raven and Sam pieced together everything that they knew. With that, Bran figured out the truth: Rhaegar Targeryan and Lyanna Stark were actually married. Not only that, but Jon was their child. Not only that, but we learned his name: Aegon Targeryan. Now your now!
Oh, and of course we find this out at the same time that Jon and Daenerys were having sex. Well, that’s a little more awkward now than it would’ve been otherwise.
Oh, this isn’t good at all
Eventually, we headed far to the north in the closing minutes, and while there Tormund and Beric got some bad news: The White Walker army is coming … and fast. Also, they have an Ice Dragon, and the Night Kind basically used that to dismantle the Wall and cause unspeakable chaos.
Now, your season 8 cliffhanger is here. It’s kind of a big deal, especially since we may have lost a few beloeved characters in the crossfire. Is this it for Beric and Tormund?
Overall Take
Amazing. The finale had big twists, huge reveals, and probably the best season-ending cliffhanger in Game of Thrones history. What more could you want? Grade: A.
When could Game of Thrones season 8 premiere?
If you head over to the link here, we do our best to try to answer that question! (Photo: HBO.)