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Eastwatch.
The remote location at the edge of civilization in Westeros is where all eyes are turned now. A motley crew of familiar faces have banded together around a zany plan to unite the Seven Kingdoms: kidnap a White Walker.
SEE ALSO:The ‘Game of Thrones’ cast reveals what songs would be on their character’s iPodWhat could go wrong?
We won't find out until next week's penultimate episode of Season 7, "Death is the Enemy." But the latest episode's journey to Eastwatch, and the all various machinations happening around it, brought back long-lost characters, raised loads of new questions, and hinted at more armed conflict to come.
That's how Game of Thronesrolls. Here's what the experts are saying.
Mashable's own Josh Dickey noticed some inescapable -- and jarringly prescient -- parallels between Game of Thronesand the planet Earth in 2017. He pointed directly to a certain inept leader's IRL comments about "many sides" and wondered aloud at HBO's timing.
Come on, HBO. Are you people just looking into the future to torment us? If we can all agree that Nazis and White Walkers are distillations of pure evil, and that all living creatures — even the President — should fall on one particular side of that argument without equivocating, then what the hell? How did you know?
That's how the episode ended. On the opposite side of HBO's hour in Westeros, well before the bubbling Ocean's Eleven-esque caper started to take shape in Eastwatch, Queen Dany decided to play with fire. Dragonfire, to be specific, when she commanded Drogon to roast two Tarlys in a single puff.
Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post isn't so sure that's a good look for a descendant of the Mad King as she embarks on a quest to unitethe commonfolk of Westeros.
Dany may insist that “all I want to destroy is the wheel that has rolled over rich and poor to the benefit to no one but the Cersei Lannisters of the world.” But until she has a way to make concrete her vision of what would turn the world into a “better place,” she’s left relying on brute military strength. “Sometimes strength is terrible,” she acknowledges to Jon after she returns to Dragonstone and finds Drogon surprisingly curious about the King in the North. I’m not yet sure she understands that exerting terrible strength can turn your alliance into quicksand rather than forging it into Valyrian steel.
Elsewhere, The Hollywood Reporter's Josh Wigler hailed the comradely patter between Jon Snow and Gendry Baratheon. It might all go sideways if Jon learns that his bio-dad died at the hands of Gendry's bio-dad, but for now there's much to enjoy in this rare show of seemingly genuine friendship on Game of Thrones.
More than that: it's built to last. In a series where beloved characters are murdered all the damn time, Wigler sees a safe bet in Jon and Gendry -- at the very least -- returning safely from their sojourn beyond the wall.
Why reintroduce Gendry into the action this late in the game, with so much rich potential between himself and Jon (not to mention the possibility of a better Baratheon than the ones who came before him restoring honor to his family name), and an obvious ability to turn dragonglass into weapons against the White Walkers, just to kill him off after only two episodes back in circulation? Other than Jon (and perhaps the Hound, who still has a Mountain match in his future), nobody passing beyond the Wall is safer in the short term than Gendry.
Over at The Atlantic, Lenika Cruz raised a series of questions that poke holes in the latest episode's course of events. It was an hour of entertainingtelevision, sure... but it didn't always make sense.
Is Drogon hurt at all? How did Jaime and Bronn get away from the loot train attack so easily? How did Jaime and Tyrion meet so easily in King’s Landing, with Tyrion not even bothering to toss so much as a scarf on his head for a disguise? Why doesn’t the plan to drag a lone wight before Cersei come under a little more scrutiny? Why does it immediately seem like a good enough idea for an entire band of fighters to volunteer to wander straight into the path of the Army of the Dead in hopes of snagging one ice zombie? How does one even transport an ice zombie?
Dead-on assessment there. Season 7 is starting to feel a little rushed as dangling threads spread across Westeros start braiding together. These are questions the show shouldbe answering.
That said, Game of Thronesis still filled with nuggets of detail for super-fans to chew on. One such detail, spotted by Mashablesuperhero Angie Han, could have hugerepercussions as this story reaches its zenith.
I won't spoil it for you. Read Angie's breakdown. All you need to know going in: that seemingly for-comic-relief-only scene featuring Sam and Gilly may have dropped a nuke on this story.
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