I think they were like "uh, ****, we have to make an animation for the duration of the title music but the entire show only happens in two places now"

That seems very unlikely at this point. A lot of the foreshadowing and earlier plot point has been dropped/ignored.

Decent episode. Nothing really happened though. Lot to fit in in 5 episodes.

Did a rewatch of everything and there's a big decline after S4. 5+6 were really slow but s7 was by far the worst season.

s8e1 was a solid.

How will Danny react to the news that she's not the rightful heir is one of the most fascinating plot lines of the show. If I had to guess I'd say the goes the mad-queen route and Jon has to choose between Starks-Targaryens. The show has been hinting towards that for a while. She burns people who don't bent the knee, repeatedly threatens Tyrion, Varys and other loyal allies and now she's demanding loyalty from Sansa. Plus all the times we've heard of how she's not her father...

Disagree that nothing really happened. Really solid opener, especially compared with s7.1.

Arya threatening Jon was definitely the high spot - very well handled scene.

However, Sansa somehow going from pointless decorative character to the most intelligent person in Westeros was a bit of a stretch - although I guess they had to do something useful with her.

I read today that Ep.3 is set to be 82 mins, which makes sense as that will likely be the battle v The Dead episode, with 4, 5 & 6 resolving all the good stuff.

not after jamie kills the mad queen

I knew exactly who it was when he said it. I just liked the line.

I don't believe Sansa's rapid ascension / growth.

Jon riding the dragon was pretty lol terrible and there's zero chemistry with Dany.

Episode was slooooow. Aren't there only a few left?

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Sick sweat for the gamble pool for first words with about 5 different characters shown before Tyrion won the honours.

Ep 3 is for sure to be the Battle of Winterfell episode where all the blood is going to be shed. Not impossible that Dany chucks the ****s for a bit if/when Jon tells her he is Aegon Targaryen and leaves Winterfell for a bit before coming back to help with the battle.

Thought Euron was a dead man for sure but guy has game.

Liked the fact they hurried up and saved Yara to save time on that sideplot.

Jon riding the dragon was meh, but it's clearly so you don't get lolwtf so jon can ride dragons this show sucks when they battle the dead.

We don't have time for this, I need to hang around in the courtyard for hours until Jaime shows up

Wouldn't be surprised if Jon was all "yea I'm the rightful heir but I don't want it, here you go Dany" and the problem is resolved in one scene

LOL copying Avatar.

Lot of Northies are going to mad if that happens, many references to houses not helping already because they pledged to Jon, and not to some blonde bimbo riding a dragon around. Already causing problems within the Stark family itself.

I'm getting pretty bored of seeing people hug after reuniting. I felt like that was basically what half the episode was..

The Cersei stuff was the best part of the episode. The Umber kid/lord at the end was also pretty good.

YES totally agree. If this were a 10-ep season they'd have spent far more (unnecessary) time on that bit.

That's the thing with such a short season and everyone coming together after all these years. It would be odd if nobody acknowledged it when they see someone they haven't seen in so long.

I'm just glad they used one episode to get it all out of the way.

Solid start imo.

It reminded me of Atreyu riding Falcor.

Jon being able to ride dragons wasn't surprising, what was surprising was Dany randomly encouraging him to try.

Also, this is lifted from r/asoiaf: Why is Sansa whining about feeding armies when the army of the dead is like a couple days' march away? Pretty sure you have bigger things to worry about.

After S7 I'm not going to complain about character moments. Also, in the making-of short, one of the showrunners acknowledged that some meetings mean more to the characters than to us. Like Tyrion and Sansa meeting again is a big deal to them, even if we don't really care. You can't gloss over that, showing that scene makes them feel like real people.

Wonder if some gay dothraki took the time to design fabulous non-loincloth fighting garb to deal with the sub zero cold, and hope they have enough pelts to spare to dress 40,000 dudes.

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If I were to defend it, I would point out that unlike many others in Winterfell right now she has yet to actually lay eyes on a white walker, so she still doesn't get just how much danger they're in. Plus I don't think she was even privy to the dumb plan of bringing a live walker to KL.

But the truth is they're just creating conflict between Sansa and Jon/Dany et al and that's how they're doing it.

Sansa is so ****ing annoying. How will she fight the Night King without Dany? Throw lemon cakes at him?

Otoh, she's now the most intelligent person in Westeros, and so should be able to work this stuff out.

Oh yeah, Arya retconning Sansa as a super smart person was pretty awkward lol. We know more or less their complete history and there's no reason she should think that. And we, as audience members, also do not think that.