After all this time — after white walkers and dragons and everything else — we finally get to see Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen in the same room: Jon, heading south to ask for permission to mine Dragon Glass (the one thing that can kill White Walkers), and Daenerys expecting him to bend the knee.
It’s hard to ignore the sharp personality differences between the two. Jon is humble, loyal to the North and only worried about the safety of his people — whereas Daenerys lists her accomplishments, refers to herself in the third person, demands loyalty while offering nothing aside from the honor of her presence. More on that later…
Meanwhile in Winterfell, Bran returns home to reunite with Sansa. While this was another long-awaited reunion, Bran’s Three-Eyed-Raven creepy factor was at an all-time high and cast a small shadow over the fact that there are, once again, two Starks in Winterfell.
In King’s Landing, Cersei receives her gift from Euron Greyjoy: Ellaria Sand and her daughter Tyene. Both were responsible for the death of Cersei’s daughter, Myrcella, when they poisoned her, leaving her to die in her father’s arms. Cersei chains both Ellaria and Tyene in the dungeon and goes on to describe all the ways she has fantasized about killing them.
Real talk: I closed my eyes. I was prepared for Cersei to take out an eye or a tongue at any moment. However, Cersei chose to poison Tyene in the same way Myrcella was poisoned, leaving her to die as her mother (Ellaria) watches helplessly. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I thought this was a rather elegant punishment. Ellaria and Tyene are far from innocent and Cersei kills Tyene with the exact same poison used on Myrcella. As far as revenge killings go, I think this one was fair game.
Daenery finally concedes to Jon’s request (with a little help from Tyrion) but ultimately ends the episode at a disadvantage because while the Unsullied army was storming Casterly Rock, most of the Lannister army was taking Highgarden. On the opposite coast, along with most of Daenery’s supplies, Highgarden was the real prize, while Casterly Rock was something the Lannisters were willing to part with. Although this is a blow to Team Daenerys, I’m all for it because it brings us to the MVP of the episode: Olenna Tyrell.
Olenna Tyrell has been a player in the game for a while, mostly counseling her granddaughter Margaery (the former queen, blown up in the Sept at the end of last season by Cersei). However, she has proven to be quite a force on her own, navigating between men stumbling in and out of power. We find this feisty matriarch, cornered after Jamie and the Lannister army take her home.
Now, Olenna knows that Jaime Lannister isn’t going to let her walk out of that room alive. As he sits and pours them each a glass of wine, she knows it’s her last. Olenna never falters, but stares right down the barrel of the gun and doesn’t blink once. When she asks how she’s going to die, Jaime pours a vial of poison into her wine and explains that he’s sparing her from the crueler options Cersei had in mind.
That’s when homegirl goes full badass. After drinking the wine, she asks if her death will be painful, and Jaime looks at her softly and reassures her she’ll die peacefully. Only then does Olenna not only admit to being the one behind Joffrey’s death, but goes on to describe, in detail, how much pain he felt as he died. In her final moments on screen she says, “Tell Cersei — I want her to know it was me.” Drop. The. Mic. She stole the power from Jaime as he was literally killing her.
One of the best things about HBO setting an end date for the show is that the pace of the story is moving faster than ever before and this has become the most exciting season yet. While I can’t be sure, I feel as though by the end of this season we will see even more favorite characters in the same room — and I’m here for it.
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 3, 2017.