Game of Thrones - 'Dragonstone'

'Sup.

Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy season.

Spoilers ahoy

We're going back to Westeros, and winter is here as we begin the first episode of seven in Season 7 of Game of Thrones with what I think is only the second cold open in the show's history. The last revealed that the Hound was still alive; this one that Walder Frey is surprisingly vertical and upbeat, gathering his leather-capped kinfolk for a feast to thank them for the murder of the Starks at the Red Wedding with a rousing toast and a generous cup of hemlock before ripping off his face a la the late Martin Landau to reveal the cherubic features and sinister smile of my daughter's namesake: Arya Stark. Leaving a message with a Frey woman (daughter, wife; it's hard to tell with Walder's household) that 'the North remembers,' she then heads south, where she runs into singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

Now, this cameo has aroused considerable ire, presumably from people who dislike Sheeran on principle, because while nothing especially noteworthy, it isn't inherently offensive to my eyes, as someone whose life has yet to be impacted by the artiste's music. He's an okay actor, and mostly is required to sing(1) a song about ladies and hands of gold in a scene which seems intended to open Arya's eyes to the possibility that the Lannister troops may not be her enemies, even if Cersei is. She tells them she's going to King's Landing – which they describe basically as 'worse than Detroit' – to kill the Queen. They all have a good laugh, none of them try to rape her and no-one gets murdered. It's all rather sweet and it's perhaps disturbing that we've reached the point that I'm kind of moved that no-one commits a major felony over dinner.

In King's Landing, Cersei is redecorating, but her floor map mostly proves that she's short on actual kingdoms under her rule. Surrounded by foes, she nevertheless intends to overcome through sheer spite, and dismisses Tommen's suicide as a betrayal. Even Jaime seems to be working out that she is batshit insane at this point. Nonetheless, she is able to hold her own in negotiations with Euron Greyjoy, who offers her his part of the Iron Fleet in exchange for marriage. When she refuses, on the grounds that he's a dodgy bastard, he offers to return with a great gift, and I'm thinking he's planning to kidnap Tyrion.

Conscience.

In the North, the Brotherhood – still accompanied by the Hound – stop at an abandoned farmhouse, where the owner and his daughter have died. Of course, this is the family that Sandor Clegane robbed while travelling with Arya, but now his pragmatic douchebaggery seems to be crumbling under the weight of guilt and fire-born revelations of the approaching Army of the Dead, and Thoros finds him digging a grave for the family in the bitter cold of the night.

Jon decides that women are going to train to fight the White Walkers – with a storming endorsement from Lady Lyanna 'Don't Fuck with Me' Mormont – and then once more defies Sansa's advice and restores the Umbers and the Karstarks to their castles under the command of their spotty, teenaged lords. Sansa is livid that he doesn't use those lands to pay off loyal northerners, and I think that Jon missed a trick in not pointing out to her that, in addition to not winding up the houses with more executions – which is what got Robb betrayed – he's placing them back in control of, as they have just discussed, ground zero of an impending White Walker invasion. He receives a raven from Cersei telling him to come to King's Landing and bend the knee or face destruction, but his eyes are on the north. Sansa is watching his back so far, and giving Littlefinger the coldest shoulder she feels she can get away with, delivering a sick burn that you couldn't have imagined from the Sansa of even a couple of seasons ago when she tells him not to bother trying to get the last word. "I'll just assume it was something clever."

Up at the Wall, Meera Reed brings Bran to the gates, where they are admitted after Bran is all uncanny at Jon's buddies. Further north still, the army of the dead – now including giant wights, because that was necessary – advances.

In Oldtown, Sam is doing drudgework, mostly involving shit, and damn little Sam is growing fast. Sam asks his Archmaester – Jim Broadbent getting his Dumbledore on – for access to the Library's restricted section. The Archmaester believes that he has seen the Army of the Dead, and explains that the Maesters of the Citadel are the memory of the Seven Kingdoms; the wisdom and the foresight that keeps men from acting like animals. He assures Sam that the Wall will always stand, but maybe it's just me, but I'm sure that talk about foresight was a kind of nod for Sam to do what he does, which is to break into the restricted section and make a few withdrawals. Back at his lodgings, Gilly finds reference to the mountain of dragon glass on Dragonstone which Stannis mentioned, and he sends word to Jon. Then he is accosted by Jorah Mormont, currently resident in a leper cell in the Citadel, who asks if the Queen has come yet.

In Westeros, black - or at least dark - is the new black.

Down at Dragonstone, the Queen indeed arrives, sweeping into the abandoned fortress of Stannis Baratheon to reclaim her birthplace and ask her advisers rhetorically: "Shall we begin?"

Yes. Let us begin, if not the beginning, then the beginning of the end. It feels as if the dummies are played out now, and the real players all revealed. Cersei, Jon and Danaerys; Sansa, Littlefinger and Tyrion; Euron and Yara; the Mountain and the Hound. Events are moving towards a conclusion, even if not a definite one, although I am trying to brace myself for some devastating reversal in episode 7.7 where everyone dies but a few babies and Season 8 is Little Sam and Lady Mormont in Game of Thrones: The Next Generation.

Next week(2): plans, plots, girl-on-girl action and the return of the direwolf in 'Stormborn'.

(1) Perhaps in a slightly modern style.

(2) By the short preview.