Tony Black with the top five moments from the third episode of Game of Thrones season seven…
1 – JON MEETS DAENERYS
Ice and fire, at last! It’s been seven years in the making and a million theories have swirled around as to how, but Jon Snow & Daenerys Targaryen finally ended up in the same room this week. It was a fairly muted but pretty epic meeting of houses, powers and minds, but Jon did a really rubbish job telling Dany about all the zombies and that up his way. Still, his old pal Tyrion is on hand to help convince her, Dany does give him something by the end, and after all… they are related, even if they don’t know it. Yet.
2 – OLENNA’S LAST STAND
There may not be many more characters I’ll be sadder to see go from now on than Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns, because she’s been marvellous for five seasons thanks to Dame Diana Rigg’s brilliant delivery; a cutting blast of honest machiavellian femininity in a man’s world. Though her death is quiet and fairly respectful of her position as an old leader of a noble house, Olenna nonetheless gets out a final massive parting shot to her enemy Cersei, via Jaime. Will he listen to her wisdom about his sister? Time will tell. Anyway, here’s to you Olenna. You were wonderful.
3 – BRAN’S CREEPY COMEBACK
Let’s be honest, Bran is a bit freaking creepy now, isn’t he? Lovely as it was to see him return to Winterfell after many many seasons and reunite with an emotional Sansa, he immediately set about being massively different from the sweet, excited young boy she knew all those years ago. Speaking in riddles about ravens and visions, Bran turns down the chance to rule Winterfell and instead decides to remind Sansa about her marriage to Ramsey, confirming his green seeing ability. Sansa quite rightly is left deeply unsettled by her bro – but will he tell her the truth he knows about Jon?
4 – EURON’S FINGER IN THE BUM
Let’s all just pause a minute to enjoy Euron “mad as a box of Kingsmoots” Greyjoy, shall we? He’s immediately this season become a fantastic pantomime villain, just missing an ever-twirling moustache; he delights in parading Yara & the surviving Sand Snakes through King’s Landing before having an utter ball winding up Jaime about the best way to shag his sister. Glorious. This is after, by the way, he rides a horse into the throne room, just like Tywin once did. Man don’t give a fuck and I love him for it.
5 – CERSEI’S POETIC JUSTICE
Much as she’s very much Darth Cersei now, there was some sweet irony in Cersei killing Tyene Sand in exactly the same manner Ellaria Sand killed her daughter Myrcella. I mean, it’s proper dark; she’s going to leave Ellaria to watch her daughter die and then see her corpse rot, but those Sand’s have really only brought it on themselves, let’s be fair. For the most underdeveloped, poorly conceived book characters to be taken out in such a vicious way by a damn good baddie, I can’t say I’m sad.
HONOURABLE MENTION – A WISE MAN ONCE SAID
Tyrion, Daenerys and the deadpan bantz. These two are like brother and sister now and it’s lovely.
Tony Black
Originally published July 31, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
