If you can’t tell from the glut of content flooding every website, Game of Thrones is back. But I can’t just stay out of the fray during the biggest television series finale ever.

I have reactions too! For now, I’m just going to get my own notes on the season 8 premier on proverbial paper.

Beware… Here be spoilers!

• Overall strong episode. Each scene was deliberate and set up the main characters’ moods and motivations–and tensions–from the jump. Unlike a lot of season openers, this one felt more significant. They didn’t just yadda-yadda each characters’place in the episodes to come. Every introduction or reunion resonated emotionally, and not always happily, and were treated with greater care than just a 60-minute prologue.
• Loved the mirror image of this episode to the pilot in season 1. Dany and Jon’s march into Winterfell was just as solemn as that of King Robert’s way back when. And the reunions of all of these characters were layered with conflict and understated feelings. In the pilot, Robert’s and the Lannister’s introduction to Ned and the Starks were heavy with years of personal history between these people yet to be understood by the viewer. This time, the viewer knows damn well what Dany and Jon’s arrival portends, and how it may shape the character drama to come.
• The dragons look amazing.

• None of the Starks really understand each other, which makes for some intriguing character drama. Arya has come through hell as a faceless one, and no one really knows who she is and what she’s capable of. (See: the Freys in season 7.) Sansa could be Queen of the North if she so desired. She, too, has come through hell, but she is now a cunning, intelligent, and dangerous leader for her people. Jon barely knows who he is at this point–how will he even take the news that he is Aegon Targaryen VI? And Bran is barely human, and no one else really understands what it means for him to be the Three-Eyed Raven. Will any of these characters ever truly understand each other? I’m betting no.
• Dany needs to temper her expectations for the Northerners. She received a less-than welcome, but these are a people she doesn’t know, who have never been known for simply bowing to a southern lord.
• Gendry + Arya. That is all.
• Tyrion may be in over his head; none of the northerners except Jon seems to trust him. I have a feeling that Jaime’s surprise arrival will not help Tyrion’s case with those who loathe the Lannister name.
• Super stoked for episode two already. This season seems like it will be much better written and more cohesive than last season.

That’s it for now. More notes to come, I’m sure.

What did you think of Game of Thrones’s season 8 premier?

Steve D