GOT Season 8 Episode 2 Thoughts

Published April 22, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Guys,

This is my first email to you all. In fact, this is my first email to any podcast. I guess there’s a first time for everything and Big D is probably tired of all my text messages. Last night’s episode ranks as one of my favorites. I recognize that some of those feelings are the result of immediacy and the two years of build up before this season, so I may be over stating the episode a bit, but we recognize our biases and move on.

The main reason this episode was so good, was because it was full of relatable moments. At it’s core, this episode was about wrestling with mortality. You had all of these characters that we’ve invested in for years all coming to grips with the same thing: tonight might very well be my last night alive. We get a chance to see how the different characters try to come to process this notion. The show does a great job of showing us a range of responses, from reflection to optimism. You see the stoicism of Brien break when she’s given the one thing she’s wanted. You see Aria’s desire to experience life before it’s gone. Tyrion’s optimism, Sam’s melancholy reflection, Jaime and Theon’s attempts at redemption, and even a bit of denial from Sansa are all raw responses to their mortality.

Coming to terms with our own mortality is something that we see today. It’s the aging parent transitioning to hospice care. It’s the mother of two being told she has cancer. These same moments happen in our world now and the responses are the same thing we saw last night. This was the first episode where I felt that the entire episode elicited those emotions. It was easy to put myself in the shoes of Greyworm as I tried to give hope to person I loved or Theon as I tried to sacrifice myself to ease a heavy conscience. There wasn’t magic or dragons or anything else to pull me away from those emotions, they let us sit in these feelings for the entire hour and just like the characters we had to make peace with the fact that tomorrow everything will change.

In my humble opinion, that’s what made last night so emotionally rewarding and one of the stronger episodes in the series. As for the next episode, I’m interested to see what happens in the crypts. I feel like they’ve commented about them being the safest place a number of times and I can’t help but think that’s a build-up to something else. If you combine that with the line from next week’ preview that ‘the dead are already here’ it makes me wonder if the army of the dead doesn’t have another way into Winterfell and maybe it has something to do with the dead that are already in the crypts. I could be way off on that, but who knows.

Thanks for the continued commentary guys.

—
Dallas Wilkes, PhD

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