Game of Thrones recap: Episode 2 delivers a lot of chat, not much action
Remember those teenage house parties when you wound up talking garbage with mates at 3am in the freezing cold, which you couldn’t feel because of 12 Bacardi Breezers? Put that in a castle and you’ve got this episode, writes Mitchell Toy.
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Warning: Spoilers
Like an extended episode of Dr Phil set in a giant freezer, S8 E2 sees complicated family history aired and grievances forgiven just before thousands of corpses are about to smash the North, led by diligent White Walkers who have really had their Weetbix.
If the fight against the army of the dead were a game of billiards, this is 54 minutes showing the balls being put in the triangle and the cues getting chalked up as the participants argue about who killed whose parents.
MORE: WHO WILL SURVIVE THE SHOW’S BRUTAL KILLING SPREE?
EPISODE 1 RECAP: IT’S LIKE HOLIDAYS AT BULLER
WINTERFELL, HOME OF DRAWN-OUT DIALOGUE
Jaime, having single-handedly marched to Winterfell (I guess he does everything single-handedly these days), is hauled in front of Dany, whose dad Jaime killed to earn him the Kingslayer nickname.
The first thing they notice about Jaime is that he’s not 20,000 people, and it’s revealed Cersei lied about marching the Lannister army north and instead is gathering Euron’s navy in the south to launch a sneaky attack.
Brienne of Tarth vouches for Jaime, Dany is dark on Tyrion and, like a group assignment at uni in which the stakes are unimaginably high, everyone has to learn to get along and play their part.
None more so than Bran and Jaime.
Last episode finished with them locking eyes as Jaime arrived at Winterfell and now Bran drops a massive third-eye torpedo while Jaime is defending his killings in the name of his family: “The things we do for love.”
He might as well have said: “I haven’t forgotten you pushed me out a window causing my disfigurement and you did it because you were having sex with your sister and now your sister has lied to us and is gathering a navy to destroy us.”
Life is hectic in Winterfell these days, but the pair still find time for a chat by Bran’s favourite tree, during which it appears he’s forgiven Jaime and still has no sense of humour.
“How do you know there is an afterwards?” says Bran when Jaime asks whether Bran will reveal what happened at some point after the battle.
At this point it’s unclear whether they’re talking about the demise of the living or their acting careers after this series, but Jaime and Bran are reconciled.
Tyrion and Jaime, who have a walk and talk through Winterfell, are also on good terms, despite Tyrion having killed their father and Cersei, their sister and Jaime’s lover, plotting to kill Tyrion.
HOUSE PARTY AT NED’S PLACE
You remember the house parties you went to as a teenager when you wound up talking garbage with friends at 3am on outdoor furniture in the freezing cold, which you couldn’t feel because of 12 Bacardi Breezers.
Put that in a castle and you’ve got this episode.
Tension between Jaime and Brienne comes to a head out in the snowy field and later, during a boozy fireside sesh, ends with Jaime knighting her.
Sansa and Dany peel off to a side chamber for a girl chat to resolve their differences and for a while it looks like Sansa is OK with it, until her question about what might happen to the North after the war against the dead goes unanswered.
Arya and Gendry totally do it, after he makes her a weapon out of dragon glass.
Tyrion gets everyone on the piss and Giantsbane tells a grotesque side story about how he killed a giant when he was 10, then jumped into bed with its sleeping wife only to be suckled at her breast and that’s why he’s so strong, or something.
Poor old Davos Seaworth, the smuggler with a heart of gold and an inexplicable tendency to stay alive, doesn’t know where to look.
Theon arrives from the south and swears loyalty to Winterfell despite betraying it a few seasons ago and Sansa is so pleased to see him she takes him for street food.
In a scene that reminds one of the childhood picture book There’s A Hippopotamus On The Roof Eating Cake, the Hound is on the roof drinking alcohol.
SING US A SONG, POD
In an episode designed almost as if the producers want to remind everyone who all these characters are before they die, montages of battle preparation are shown, the first of which has a voiceover from Jon Snow.
He’s been slinking around trying to avoid his lover Dany because he’s found out they could be going for the same job and she’s his aunt.
While the whole town is spiking up with dragon glass and Valyrian steel, the second montage comes as Podrick sings a sentimental song by the fire and everyone reflects on their busted lives.
Half reminiscent of the scene in Titanic when the Titanic sank and half reminiscent of being in hold to Telstra, the audience is left in absolutely no doubt that everyone’s still in Winterfell and the dead are still coming and Game of Thrones is still going.
The sentimentality of the episode also plays out in a reunion of the Night’s Watch boys who stand on the wall at Winterfell as if it’s the old days and Sam brags about his Walker killings, book theft and sexual prowess.
Perhaps the most important part of the episode happens towards the end when Dany finds Jon in the Stark crypt, the traditional GoT setting for heavy news.
He finally tells her about his genealogy and she doesn’t really believe him, suggesting his brother Bran and friend Sam were making it up.
But, like a couple who are having a huge fight in the car on the way to a dinner party, they soon have to get their game faces on because the dead are finally sidling up to the outskirts of Winterfell and they really don’t care that their horses are literally corpses.
If there isn’t any actual action in the first 10 seconds of the next episode, you will be able to hear the groans of bored fans from here to the Red Keep.
Games of Thrones Season 8 screens on Foxtel and streams on Foxtel Now on Mondays from 11am
Originally published as Game of Thrones recap: Episode 2 delivers a lot of chat, not much action
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