Review: Game of Thrones — “The Last of the Starks”
By: Nick John Bleeker
Tags: Game of Thrones, Review, TV

Rarely has an episode of this show been a dud. “The Last of the Starks” is a dud. It’s an episode that featured a lot of pastiches of character interactions but screamed to me like Benioff and Weiss had run out of shit to write. In fact, I’m comfortable with calling this one of the worst episodes the show has produced in a long time. What a disappointing and, frankly, boring episode of Game of Thrones.

This show can be masterful with its putting of people in rooms to talk. In fact, it’s one of my favourite things / tests of skill having people put in a room and making it interesting. It says a lot of the writing that, for the most part, they’ve got characters so rich that putting them in rooms can make for some of the most compelling viewing we can think of.

To the show’s credit, “The Last of the Starks” does have those moments with some of its unique pairings of characters. Varys and Tyrion, Pod, Brienne, Jaime and Tyrion, Sansa and The Hound, Arya and The Hound (as brief as it is), Tyrion and Cersei, all were fun little returns to relationships we’d seen in the past.

However, while the sequence in the feast hall did have some great bits — Gendry becoming Lord of Storm’s End, The Hound murdering food and ignoring the celebrations, the OMG OMG COFFEE CUP AMIRITE, Tormund being the life of the party — it had a very weird energy about it. It’s an energy that feels incredibly unfamiliar and one that I’ve not really noticed in my years watching.

Gendry’s reaction to being named Lord is kind of understandable, and I say that because it’s a huge shift in his life, BUT his choice to go and propose to Arya felt WAY too rushed and speaks volumes into how poor the writing for this episode was. Arya’s reaction was one that spoke to her remaining humanity that, for a moment, she considered — briefly — to go with Gendry, but we all know that she’s still got unfinished business at King’s Landing. If you actually thought Arya was gonna dip and dodge to Storm’s End, you don’t know her well enough — Maisie Williams was great here, though.

Actually, there’s a lot of poor writing in this episode which completely renders it useless. Now, I sit here and criticise from my ivory tower of Doritos, but there’s just some baffling and unclear choices made by characters here that, IF, they were written better some of those emotional beats hit hard and hit better. Much like the show has been so good at in the past.

Think about it, Jaime’s complete heel turn on Brienne makes NO sense with the dialogue that he’s given by Benioff and Weiss. I get that he has a mission to destroy Cersei, but his excuse for doing Brienne dirty is “we’re both hateful lmao”. What is that? It’s bad writing. Even if we got the tiniest semblance of his motivation this moment between them could be so much better.

Especially, after Brienne finally drops her armour and steely demeanour because she’s found a person that respects her (does he now? I wouldn’t know because the writing was bad) but also was willing to defend her on Tyrion’s plot-moving drinking games question of “You’re a virgin.”

Now, Jaime’s decision is made AFTER he finds out that Cersei and Euron somehow bring down one of the dragons because Euron has been spawn camping in Dragonstone for christ knows how long. A sequence as beautiful as it was (and depressing) watching Rhaegal get popped three times by some upgraded mega crossbow bolts was also ruined by some baffling choices…

Like, how the fuck does Dany not see a glut of fucking Greyjoy MEGA SHIPS sleeping in the bays of Dragonstone? No, seriously, I don’t think you can argue that she does NOT see those fucking ships waiting in the bay. Adding to that, how does she not strafe or fucking fly back around and TORCH the mini fleet? Qyburn’s (fuck that old idiot) ballistas are not that quick at heel turning, and Euron, the dumb idiot, can be ripped out root and stem.

Further to the poor writing, let’s have a quick chat about Jon Snow. I’m not going to get into the depths of him not patting Ghost because everyone else has and the meme is old already. However, while that moment with Tormund is nice, Jon abandoning Ghost feels like an omen to him following his true lineage and abandoning his old, but it’s also the show going “lol he probably die.”

I know the rule is “show don’t tell” when it comes to the screen, but this scene needed clarification of Jon’s intentions other than to just ride south. Give us the moment where Jon chooses to let go of his northern heritage because that’s an important, central thing for any character to abandon rather than him giving a passing glance at his fucking direwolf and Winterfell. Again, an emotional beat that’s missed.

And the same could be argued with Jon and his family (lol) when he has a meeting with them in the Godswood. I get that we’ve had these scenes of Jon announcing his parentage over the last few episodes, but announcing it to the actual Starks would have been a scene that, again, like all the others in this episode, would have a tonne of emotional power and tension. Instead, Jon gets to tell them behind the scenes. What a missed opportunity.

Now, I don’t think it’s all bad. The final sequence between Cersei and Dany is a good bit of tension and, obviously, sets us up for the conflict next week which will probably result in some scorched earth.

I’ll be honest, my emotional connection to Missandei has never really been there, but it’s incredibly sad seeing Missandei die at Cersei’s hand, especially when it was still in chains. It’s a poetic full circle arc for her, but also acts as the starter pistol for Greyworm going full Jason Bourne on King’s Landing. Hearing her growling “Dracarys” was a cool moment, but ultimately her purpose in the last few years has been one of longing look-sharing with Greyworm.

It’s also the starter pistol for Dany’s full blown meltdown. The theories of The Mad Queen have been circling for a while now, but Missandei’s execution all but confirms that Dany is probably gonna light everything up. The parallel it runs to Cersei’s arc is really neat, I think, too. Cersei is still a significant threat now that Dany’s forces are depleted, but also her strategies and cutthroat behaviour make it feel like it’ll be her downfall.

I think the shining parts of he episode for me were seeing Varys actually do stuff. His presence has absolutely been missed on the show lately because all he’s done is nod and look a bit scared. Obviously, he can’t offer too much when it comes to combat, but in an advisory sense now that the smoke has subsided this is where he shines.

And he really does. His questioning of Dany’s motives and state of mind become an important seed planted in the minds of others — especially Tyrion — and now that Jorah is dead Dany’s brains trust is thinning. Dany is alienating the closest of her followers and Varys is one that you don’t want to fuck with.

His scene with Tyrion in the throne room is a great one. Varys, at this stage, believes in Dany’s original goal of getting atop the throne, but he also follows her because her power levels were over 9000 all those years ago. Varys’ trust in her and the cause is fading, but, deep down, it’s also because he sees a successor in Jon that he feels will actually do some real damage when it comes to “the last war.” Remember, Varys does love jumping ship when he recognises a true power also he fucking KNOW’S HE’S A TARGAREYN.

So, at least, the Varys stuff actually was written well enough so we could glean that he’s reconsidering the state of affairs, so that’s good. But, at the end of the day, I sit here this morning writing this last paragraph not wanting to rewatch the episode as much as I have the previous few weeks. In fact, I’m just good to leave this one behind just like Jon did to Ghost.

THOUGHTS