By *This article contains spoilers for episode one of Game of Thrones Season 8*
Returning with the emotionally draining spirit of a school reunion, the first episode of the final season of Game Of Thrones reminded us just how many characters had spread across the Seven Kingdoms - and how many truly hate each other.
Though it was an opener with less bloodshed than some might have wanted, it was packed with simmering resentment between supposed allies and foreshadowing of events to come. Here's what you might have missed.
New, and more elaborate, title credits
The first surprise came very early in with the introduction of new title credits. It's the first time the show has radically changed them in eight seasons, and with the animations focusing closer in and on fewer locations. It's another hint that the action is will be take place in a narrower set of lands that usual for the finale.
Already there are theories emerging as to the secrets that may be coded in to the credits. For example, they close in on a red Weirwood tree inside the grounds of Winterfell Tthe mysterious magic of the trees mean they're also to destroy wights, so they play a significant part of the fight against the undead. There's also, for the first time in the opening credits, a shot of the Great Hall in King's Landing and the Iron Throne - a clear sign its occupant will be chosen in this season.
Reminders of the pilot bookended the episode
Opening with a boy scrambling through Winterfell to better see the arrival of Daenerys, Jon Snow and her endless army, the opening scene took us all the way back to the pilot where Bran scaled a tower before being pushed from it. It was a moment of carefree joy before the incoming apocalypse, even if it did make the middle aged man in you want to tell him to 'be careful'.
Another throwback moment came at the end of the episode as we see Jamie Lannister arrive into Winterfell only to immediately lock eyes with a wheelchair-bound Bran Stark who gives him a long and portentous stare. It was one of many mystical glares Bran doled out, but this one felt particularly loaded. Does the Kingslayer have to fear revenge from the Three-Eyed Raven?
Tension at Winterfell
“I’m her family too” Jon Snow tells to Arya after their reunion, to which she replies carefully, “Don’t forget that.” His other sister is also less than amused about the budding romance she's sniffed out between him and Daenerys, asking cooly: “Did you bend the knee to save the north, or because you love her?”
Jon spends much of the episode reminding those who feel he's betrayed them that he's fighting for a bigger cause. It's clearly not the end we'll hear of his friends and family questioning his new Queen and points to the fact he might be forced to make a choice between them at some point.
Cersei is (still) not to be trusted
It would be fairly disappointing if we found Cersei merrily waving off her ships to fight for another woman and spending her afternoons strolling through the gardens of Kings Landing. No, thankfully instead she's still up to her underhand tricks and plotting to have both of her brothers murdered in what one of her henchmen puts down to as her "keen sense of poetic justice".
If she does succeed in having her brother, and the father of her supposed unborn child, harpooned it would certainly have a sense of Shakespearian tragedy to it, though don't hold your breath that the man she's selected for the job, Bronn, will actually fire the bow at his longstanding wingman. Cersei also makes the questionable decision to sleep with Euron Greyjoy after bringing him down a peg or two by saying, "If you want a whore, buy one. If you want a queen, earn her." Some confusing mixed messages there, although her downcast face while they're in the bedroom does hint perhaps she's only after a cover for her pregnancy.
Sansa is not to be underestimated
It's Sansa's Kingdom, and everyone else is just living in it. Or at least that's the impression we're getting from some of the less than subtle lines about the dangers of underestimating her. “Many underestimated you. Most of them are dead now” Tyrion tells her, clearly impressed with her heroic journey and feats of survival.
Later her sister Arya is equally praising while speaking to Jon saying, "She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met”. While Sansa has notionally given over Winterfell to Daenerys, she's perhaps not out of the running to rule just yet.
Tbh, anyone delivering a burn as devastating as, “I used to think you were the cleverest man alive”, deserves to rule the Seven Kingdoms.
The show hasn't lost its sense of humour
Returning for its much hyped swansong with the secret ending guarded more closely than the Mueller report, there was a fear the final season might end up a little stiff, forgetting that what makes the show so scintillating is the entertainment of its backstabbing and bloodshed.
Refreshing then that the first instalment was filled with plenty of laughs, from Arya's withering remark to Gendry that “You don’t know any other rich girls” to Bronn having to extricate himself from a foursome when duty calls, perhaps a humble self-own at the constant stream of nudity once on the show?
Another amusing moment came when Jon Snow's masculinity was shredded after he was forced to admit, “I don’t know how to ride a dragon”, before gingerly climb aboard to as Daenerys watched on a tad scornfully. When they get dropped off at their clandestine waterfall hideaway for a kiss away from prying eyes, the dragons interrupt their moment of romance by watching. Talk about a mood killer.
Fun as the cerebral dialogue and hilarious meme fodder is, don't worry, it looks like the action sequences are heating up in next week's episode.
