The Dragon Prince

For identification purposes, this is not a Bulbasaur.

In a world of magic, humans have long been exiled from the magical realm of dragons and elves for their practice of dark magic, which draws power from other creatures, rather than the ‘primal sources’(1). In fear of an attack, King Harrow of Katolis allows his adviser, the mage Viren, to assassinate the Dragon King and his unborn son. Faced with a retributory attack by Moonshadow elf assassins, Harrow seeks to send his sons Callum and Ezran away, but Ezran stumbles on the egg of the Dragon Prince in Viren’s workshop, and the two princes go on the run, along with the Moonshadow elf Rayla, seeking to return the egg to the dragons and prevent the war that Viren is intent on fomenting.

The Dragon Prince clearly shares some DNA with its co-creator’s former work, Avatar, both in its animation style and in its tone(2). The overarching story is serious, the villain of the piece a horror, but there is much humour in the day to day situations and the relationships between the characters, including Viren’s principal henchlings, his children Claudia – a committed dark mage, but viewing it purely as a tool and showing compassion towards other intelligent beings – and Soren – a jock jerk with a decent heart, but a desperate need to prove himself to his father.

The first season of The Dragon Prince is very short – just nine twenty-five-minute episodes – but has a lot to like in it. The characters are fun – a favourite of all my family is the princes’ Aunt Amaya, a deaf-mute general and all around badass, who takes no shit and refuses to be flannelled by Viren, even before he goes full evil – the story simple, but with a lot of appeal. Also, the elves are lairy Scots whose magic is part of their physicality, rather than floaty and ethereal beings, and I appreciate a show that does something a little different with its magical creatures.

(1) Sun, moon, stars, sky, earth and water, if you’re interested.

(2) Also its elemental motifs and cute animal companions.

The Shannara Chronicles - 'Dweller', 'Paranor', 'Crimson', 'Warlock', 'Amberle', 'Wilderun' and 'Blood'

"I am a sexy, shirtless god of war."

Hey! Remember The Shannara Chronicles? I stopped reviewing them because my Sky box done fucked up and missed a bunch of episodes, but now season 2 is on Netflix, so I can catch up ready for oh, it's been cancelled(1).

In 'Dweller', Bandon pops into Leah - where we will see over and over that the security situation is at least as bad as that in Arborlon, which you will remember allowed a random human to come within shivving distance of its princess and last surviving Chosen while on serial killer alert. He reminds Queen Tamlin that she made a deal back in the War of the Races, when the city was surrounded by the Warlock Lord's forces and she offered him access to the kingdom's magical source in exchange for shanking her husband, the King, and leaving the rest of the city unmolested, because apparently the nigh-forgotten War of the Races, the events of which were regarded with some scepticism by the sons of the elf king last season, happened within the adult lifetime of a human in her forties. Not only is the four lands very small, its history is apparently similarly compressed.

Mareth has a strained reunion with his Allanon, not least because he tells her that she isn't his daughter, because the Druid Sleep messes with your junk. So he's all 'nuh-uh, magic radiation!' and she's all 'uh-huh, 'cause magic, yo!' And the whole thing gets very tense and snippy as he starts to suspect shenanigans of a warlock nature. Nonetheless, they and Wil go to some mountainy place that we've never heard of before now to retrieve the Sword of Shannara, which supposedly makes the Elfstones look a bit shit and will let them confront Bandon.

Nope! Nopenopenope!

Bandon tries to convince Flick that people are all shit, and to prove it he takes the human to visit his former home, the farm where his parents locked him in the basement for being a seer. He asks about the previous owners, and when the new owners start talking about how the son of the family was a magic-using abomination who had to be locked in the cellar after telling his parents that they would be murdered by demons, brutally murders their own son, just in case he was starting to feel sympathetic again(2).

Eretria returns to Leah, reconciles with Lyria and gives her blessing to the political marriage. Since she is able to tell Ander that Catania was coming to look for him, they realise that this whole 'she ran away in a jealous strop' thing was bullshit. Thus tipped off, they catch Ander's guard captain Edain smuggling weapons from Leah to the Crimson. Edain fesses up and Ander executes him, Ned Stark style.

Wil, Mareth and Allanon fight a giant spider-thing called a Dweller - so there's your title - in order to get the Sword. It's shiny AF.

"Allanon! I choose you!"

In 'Paranor', Allanon takes Wil and Mareth to the druid fortress of the episode title, where Mareth and Allanon use a dummy skull to trap Bandon in a magical cage (without telling Wil, because he's too easy to mind read, even though I'm pretty sure all you'd get is 'bloobloobloo Amberlebloo.') To sell the trap, Allanon is trapped with him, but Mareth can selectively release people, only wouldn't you know it, Bandon has poisoned Flick with his sword and in a dolorous blow kind fo deal, only the Warlock Blade can remove that poison. He demands the skull in exchange for Flick's life, and despite Allanon and Flick telling Wil that Bandon can fuck right off, Wil agrees and Mareth goes along with it, because being a strong independent woman, of course Mareth has a case of the Blandy-cravings which seem to afflict all sassy brunettes in the Four Lands.

"Check out my post-apocalypse specs!"

Speaking of sassy brunettes, Eretria falls back in with mentor/protector/weird pseudo-kidnapper and not-really-okay visit screener Cogline, who turns out to be a good guy after all; an ex-druid and a past adviser to Queen Tamlin, who is pretty shaken by the idea of the Warlock Lord getting to Heaven's Well, the big magical source place. He tells Eretria that her magic tattoos mark her as a descendant of Armageddon's Children, a group of humans susceptible to demonic corruption, but in theory also of wielding great power over the darkness. Alternatively, I guess, a black metal band misunderstood by history. He takes her to a faraday cage where he has imprisoned a Mord Wraith, to start her training to resist the call of darkness which has always been inside her, but never mentioned nor had any notable effect until now. She does this by commanding the wraith to kneel before her, because that isn't going to lead anywhere bad.

Garet Jax captures Valcaa, a Crimson officer who tries to capture him, and takes him to Ander and Lyria for some extreme questioning, which provides enough information for Lyria to turn the tables on her mother and insist that the political marriage will be on her terms.

Shea Ohmsford really only has intensity going for him, but it's one more
character trait than Wil.

Against all good advice, Wil and Mareth use a magical portal to find the hiding place of the Warlock Lord's skull, which turns out to be somewhere in Shady Vale... In the past! As we move into 'Crimson', they search for the skull in the past, and naturally run into Wil's father, currently a troubled boy and not a mean drunk. As a demon attacks, they have to protect him, and also ensure that he doesn't give up his relationship with Wil's mother to save her the problems of marriage to a half-elf. They find the skull hidden in the Ohmsford scarecrow and take it back, where Flick runs himself through on the Warlock Blade, but Bandon still gets away with the skull after the oh-so-shiny Sword of Shannara shatters against the Warlock Blade and Allanon gets cut with the Blade's poison.

Once more, go Wil!

I've been scathing about Lyria before, but props to her, because she's about to
sword fight in that dress.

Our other heroes set about cracking the Crimson's influence, and Jax kills Valcaa after he escapes. Riga is pissed. Ander and Lyria prepare to wed and the priest approaches, all hooded and WHAT UP? RIGA! Who could have seen this coming, besides anyone who watched the priest pace up all sinister, and anyone who had ever surveyed Leah's security arrangements, because honestly it has more holes in its defences than Star Labs. Witness here, where not only is Riga able to just pace the fuck up to the royal wedding with a broadsword up his cassock, but the palace is suddenly heaving with Crimson, who set about the guards and guests. The heroes seem to be doing okay, but then Riga kills Ander while the rest of the group apparently stand around like pills thanks to either a) pure apathy and long-hidden loathing for Ander, or b) shonky editing.

"What's my motivation?"
"Leave no scenery unchewed, Manu."

This brings us to 'Warlock', and Eretria and Lyria flee to Cogline's Wraith lab, while everyone else is captured. Eretria receives a vision from Amberle/the Ellcrys, warning that some shit is about to go down and that Wil needs to reach the Ellcrys, because he is their last hope. Mareth and Wil bring Allanon to the healer-commune of Storlock, where Mareth uses a ritual to project herself into her father's mind to heal him, after having a bit of awkward and unconvincing tension with Wil. Within the dream, the two meet Allanon's mentor, Bremen, who confirms that she is his daughter, and the next druid. Allanon wakes and agrees to teach Mareth to be his successor.

Leaving Allanon and Mareth at Storlock to bond, Eretria and Wil travel to Arborlon. Meanwhile, Bandon arrives at Graymark and slaughters the Crimson garrison there with magic. Then, he uses an eclipse-related ritual(3) to resurrect the Warlock Lord, who for no adequately explored reason looks a lot like Allanon(4), around his blade, skull and... whatever the third thing was. His heart? His elfstones? I forget, but I'm sure they did say.

When a Warhammer 40K aquila and Wonder Woman's logo love each other very much...

Back in Leah, not knowing what has happened to his garrison, Riga is in hog heaven, and like all successful extremists decides to celebrate what turns out to have been a completely successful coup with a little summary justice. He accuses Tamlin of treason for sheltering magic users, but as a final fuck you, she reclaims some dignity and a measure of redemption, and steps off the execution waterfall just as the smug douchebag is building up a head of steam.

"So, until I'm over my girlfriend becoming a tree, my sword will be forever
short and useless. Well, sure glad it isn't anything symbolic."

In 'Amberle', Wil and Eretria reach Arbolon, only to find that it has been sacked by the Crimson, thus saving the show the cost of more than a handful of extras and proving that Leah still has competition in the woeful domestic security stakes. Eretria rescues the surviving Chosen from the Crimson and leads them back to the hidden catacombs below the Ellcrys, but then she gets possessed by a Mord-Wraith and horribly murders at least one of them. While this is happening, Wil goes into the tree, where the Ellcrys advises him to get the fuck over himself and stop moping over Amberle, like he was doing for all of one episode that one time. When he accepts that there is no bringing her back and that she is in his past, the sword regrows, because... I have no real idea. Because his body and mind were going north and south before? Because the sword of Shannara is as much of a euphemism as the elfstones? Anyway, it's a good thing, because the spirit of Shea Ohmsford tells his son that only the Sword can kill the Warlock Lord.

Well, this is gratuitous.

Bandon asks his master to resurrect Catania, whose corpse he stole from Leah after she was murdered. He does, and she is immediately creeped out by him, on account of having seen him do a murder on a guard, or just because he's looking all grunge and coming on like a freight train when she's just woken up in what could charitably described as 'a crypt' with a clear memory of being stabbed in the gut by a trusted ally. Because he's apparently bored easily, the Warlock Lord puts the 'fluence on her to turn her into a trashy goth with low morals, then macks on her in front of Bandon - again, because apparently the bad teeth, jet black eyes and homicidal tendencies aren't quite enough to be really sure that he's the bad guy - and then forces Bandon to kill her. Amazingly, given these top notch people skills, Bandon is starting to have doubts about his life choices.

"Magic is evil. It makes people do bad things. Now let's burn down this
hospital and get back to doing good!"

Allanon and Mareth are sold out by one of the other patients at Storlock, and captured by Riga and the Crimson. They threaten Mareth to force Allanon to give up the Druid Codex, then sentence them both to burn at the stake, while being all sanctimonious at them. Riga then returns to Graymark, where the Warlock Lord dispatches his guards with contemptuous ease. Riga boasts about his magical immunity, but unlike Allanon, the Warlock Lord doesn't forget that his magic is at least 50% telekinesis, and kills a rather surprised looking Riga with barbed wire and rebar, neither of which he is remotely immune to. He takes the Codex and monologues about independence and seizing power until Bandon tries to magic-kill him, only to turn around and run Bandon through with his Blade.

Alas, poor Bandon; you barely had a consistent characterisation. And alas, poor Sassy Elf. You deserved so much better than reduction to girlfriend, murder and resurrection as a bad-taste sex-toy, as indeed does basically everyone.

Oo. That's not a good sign.

Moving on to 'Wilderun', and Loyalists within Leah spring Jax and the gnomes, who jack the Crimson at Storlock and head to Greymark with Allanon and Mareth. They find the aftermath of the Warlock Lord's rise, including Riga's head, but no the Warlock Lord himself. Using the head, they persuade the Crimson to join forces with the loyalists against the Warlock Lord, for all the good that might do. Eretria admits to Wil that she is a Child of Armageddon - largely I suspect to try to fake out the audience that maybe she'll resist the influence of the Warlock Lord - and they join Allanon, Mareth, Lyria and Cogline at the latter's enclave. Cogline explains that they must guard Lyria and her golden elfstone necklace, which together form the key to Heaven's Well and which they naturally opt to keep together for maximum ease of theft.

"That could have gone better."

The Mord-Wraith possessing Eretria betrays them, drawing in the enemy and overpowering Lyria. Meanwhile, the Warlock Lord whoops Allanon, Cogline and Mareth in a fight, killing Allanon at the start of 'Blood', totally for reals this time.

Jax leads the defence of Leah against the Warlock Lord's armies of... I'm not sure. They seem to have too much truck with walls to all be Mord Wraiths. Eretria is sent to disable the dam on which Leah is built, allowing the Warlock Lord to take Lyria up to a shrine behind the reservoir. He pollutes Heaven's Well with his blood, and with the floodgates open, this will spread his power and influence throughout the Four Lands. Cogline and Jax retake the control room and exorcise the Mord-Wraith from Eretria, while Wil and Mareth defeat the Warlock Lord, and Wil sacrifices himself to cleanse Heaven's Well.

Lyria becomes Queen, and Eretria, Cogline and Mareth go to Paranor. There, Mareth suddenly feels that Wil is still alive, and we cut to Wil waking on a battlefield (in the Forbidding?) surrounded by Furies. 'To be continued,' the screen caption lies.

This is the end...
No, actually, this is the end.

So, there we go. Two seasons of sub-Game of Thrones fantasy heroics, in all its compressed scale, minimalist timelined glory, and now we will never know if Wil gets eaten by demons on the wrong side of the tree. I like to think that he does, because he has been been the consistent weak link in the series. It's not even that he's less talented or pretty than anyone else, but that he's got so little substance. I can't blame the actor, given how little he has to work with. The ladies in the piece aren't much better, but at least they get to be a bit sassy (apart from poor sassy elf Catania, who was done wrong in this season.) The best you can say about Wil is that he's... present, and in retrospect I tend to blank out even that. The standouts tend to be the bit parts, which tend to be filled by solid thesps, and the production design is impeccable, even if the budget sometimes impairs the execution.

I will miss The Shannara Chronicles. If it's never been classic TV, it's been good fun to watch, and absolute classic snarking material.

(1) I can't claim to be surprised. I'm more astonished that it made it to season 2.

(2) Partly because he genuinely has had a shit time of it, and partly because of his big-eyed woobie face, it's easy to forget that he's a world-ending zealot.

(3) Which shows excellent timing on his plan.

(4) He is also played by Manu Bennett.

Chronicles of Shannara – ‘Druid’, ‘Wraith’ and ‘Graymark’

"I cut my hair. And I wear leather now."

Grab you Elfstones and warm up your snarking muscles. It’s been a while – we’ve had two seasons of The Magicians since the end of season 1 – but at last it’s time to return to the Four Lands, for the further adventures of Blandy McWhitebread and the sassy brunettes who find him unaccountably irresistible.

A year has passed since Princess Amberlie became the new Elcrys in order to restore the Forbidding and lock away the demons. In that time, Ander has been holding together an elf kingdom on the verge of implosion, while a group of anti-magical fanatics called the Crimson track down and murder anyone using even the most inoffensive of magics. Traumatised by having his girlfriend dump him to turn into a magical, demon-repelling tree and apparently so over that whole 'looking for his missing friend' thing, Wil has become a healer in a gnomish community. He has devoted himself to the medical arts, eschewing the use of magic in all save the most vital of circumstances, such as conjuring up images of his dead girlfriend for a pity party. 

"Let none call me an informed bisexual. Now, where's Blandy?"

Some might judge Wil harshly for making such a king-sized hash of looking for Eretria, but we soon discover that her rescuers – not trolls, but a bunch of scavenging types in disguise – are led by an old friend who has deliberately led Wil to believe that she was dead, because heaven forfend that anyone Eretria meet not turn out to be a bit of a tool(1). On the other hand, she’s doing a much better job of moving on and has hooked up with fellow scavenger Lyria (who is a decent-seeming person that Eritrea likes, and thus not what she appears, because despite being a quick-witted, nails-hard survivor with the best wilderness skincare regime in the multiverse, our girl just can't catch a break.)

Bandon and his Mord-Wraiths will be wintering in Castle Greyskull.

Allanon goes looking for the missing seer, Bandon, and finds him leading a bunch of cultists who worship the long-dead Warlock King. His plan is to cast a spell to turn his followers into Mord Wraiths, flying death-cloud things that shoot magic beams and are all kinds of horrible. His motivation is vengeance against Allanon for throwing him to the sharks while trying to train him to be a druid, and his goal is to return the Warlock King to power by recovering the vessels of his power, including his sword and his skull. Allanon arrives late and is thoroughly outmatched by Bandon and the Wraiths (not a pop group,) which I’m sorry to say is going to be a bit of a theme for this season.

"No, really; I'm a badass. Look at my coat and haircut."

Wil is rescued from the Crimson’s bounty hunters by Mareth, a feisty half-elf who adds further evidence to the case that, whatever the series itself may believe, Wil Ohmsford is literally the furthest it is possible to be from being the actual protagonist of the series. It's not just that she's a more engaging character and way more of a badass, it's the fact that she has stuff going on from the get-go, whereas Wil is dragging his heels and being all 'let someone else save the world and stuff.' Mareth explains that she is the daughter of Allanon and Amberlie’s Aunt Murderedbyademon (Pyria, but that was literally all she did,) and that she is looking for her father because she’s suddenly come over all magical and has some serious questions to put to dear old dad. She also makes out with Wil, because of course she does, although it is only as part of a ruse.

Rescue entrance!

Eretria learns that her new father figure is as shitty as the last and, following a mystical vision of Amberlie while drowning that tells her Wil is in danger, tells him to do one and heads off with Lyria. They are soon captured, however, because Amberlie’s competence still operates on a sliding scale, and rescued by badas bounty hunter Garet Jax(2). However, Jax proceeds to abduct Lyria himself, because she is actually the daughter of Queen Tamlin of the massively powerful and hiterto completely unmentioned human kingdom of Leah. Ander is attempting to secure a treaty with Tamlin – who is hella into bling and knuckles deep in every pie going – and she has forked out to retrieve her daughter because she wants Lyria to marry Ander, so that she can manoeuvre for a takeover of parts of the elven kingdom.

"This is sickeningly familiar."

Eretria gets into the palace, gets captured, and is offered cash to forget Lyria. While there she reunites with Ander and Allanon, and sets out to rescue Wil. Unfortunately, on the way out the door, Allanon is captured by the Crimson. General Riga, leader of the Crimsno, turns out to be magic proof. Eretria therefore takes the Queen’s purse in order to hire Jax to find Wil, while Catania goes to tell Ander that Allanon was captured, and gets stabbed by the king’s bodyguard, who is an undercover member of the Crimson. I feel I should be sadder at the loss of Sassy Elf, but she’d been recharacterised as kind of a drip (and, not coincidentally) Ander’s new love interest,) so we’d kind of lost her already. To his credit, Ander notices she's missing, but is clearly feeling guilty enough about throwing her over for a political marriage that he buys the story that she ran off in a huff about it.

"You'll never be half as shiny."

Wil and Mareth head to Shady Vale when they realise the Crimson are going after his Uncle Flick. They find him safely hidden, but then the Mord Wraiths show up and Bandon takes Flick hostage, threatening to kill him of Wil doesn’t retrieve the skull of the Warlock King from the Druid fastness of Paranor. At around or about the same time, Riga is menacing Allanon to try to get his grubby mitts on the Codex of Paranor, the Druids’ magic 101 textbook. There is also a bunch of argument about the nature of magic - basically it boils down to a largely irreconcilable back and forth of 'magic is a necessary tool', 'magic is inherently evil' - and the fact that Riga was infected by a Mumbletymumble(4) which attacked his pregnant mother, hence leaving him immune to magic.

"We're on a team."

Eritrea and Jax find Wil and Mareth. There is a reunion and a lot of suspicion and ‘you’ve changeds’, and then they set out to rescue Allanon from the Crimson so that he can take them to Paranor to get the skull to trade with Bandon, which all feels like a frightfully bad idea, but there you are. Wil does have a history of really bad ideas, so at least there is consistency. They goad a rightly skeptical Jax into helping them with some grade school level reverse psychology, and in a rare show of gumption Wil is the one to realise that the bounty hunter actually just plans to hand him over for cash. He doesn’t care because he wants to get inside. 

The Crimson wanted flyers just look so much like some sort of trading cards.

Mareth taunts Jax with her illusions, mostly because the show really needs us to understand that Mareth is hella good at illusions. Then they reach the Crimson fortress of Graymark and Jax takes Wil in as a prisoner. So far, so dumb, but luckily for Wil 'God's own idiot' Ohmsford, one of the Crimson’s officers basically gets all up in Jax’s face about how he has backstory(5). In much the same way as Arion got all up in Allanon's face about not really being a druid in Season 1, he's all 'weapons master my arse', and reminds Jax tells the audience how Jax was the only survivor when his unit in the Border Legions was wiped out be demons during the war before dropping the reward purse in the mud for Jax to pick up. Stung, Jax decides to throw in with our heroes.

"The concept of the suction pump is centuries old..."

Wil stuffs up a rescue attempt, despite breaking out of his cell(6), and Riga has him hooked up to a knock-off of Count Rugen’s Machine, which pumps out his blood into a jar in an attempt to force Allanon to reveal the location of the Codex. He's also savvy enough to order the tunnels under the fortress sealed off as soon as it becomes clear that Wil had what I will charitably call a plan. Wil and Allanon bond over the whole torture thing by yelling at each other about how Allanon doesn't care about anyone and Wil is a whiny brat who managed to be the only member of the first season posse who never learned an important lesson about sacrifice, necessity or the number 4. Actually, that one may not have come up; I basically just insert that dialogue into any scene involving Wil.

Fortunately, the others manage to bust in before the tunnels are sealed off. Mareth locates Allanon’s staff and is able to wield it, lobbing burning coals at Riga when he boasts of his magic immunity. A massive fight ensues and, despite Jax briefly succumbing to PTSD and some false tension as Allanon magics the door open, our heroes escape.

Looking back, I am not 100% convinced that they recovered Wil’s Elfstones. I guess we’ll find out.

The Kingdom of Leah. Hydroelectric, apparently.

So, that was the first three episodes of Season 2, and there’s a lot going on. I’ve skipped over most of the politicking in Leah, because it’s a bit plodding, but the Four Lands remain a minute place where it’s hard to believe it took so long to find Wil since everyone either knows everyone else or lives just down the road from them. Allanon has come over a bit useless, but then that’s kind of required of an active Gandalf, lest he leave the rest of the party in the dust. Wil has had a haircut, taken a level in brooding badass, and is marginally less bland, while Eritrea has ditched the informed part of her informed bisexuality, making the fact that she canonically hooks up with Wil even more depressing since it effectively doubles her alternatives to the Milquetoast Marvel (although of those, Lyria is one of the more tedious, being a pretty stock character(7) with little to mark her out so far.)

Shannara Chronicles continues to be tosh. Good-looking tosh, but tosh nonetheless.

(1) Yes, Wil; including you.

(2) Whose appearance has provoked some dissatisfaction because he’s a cocky, sexy bounty hunter instead of an enigmatic perfectionist driven to become the greatest of all warriors, and probably rather more because OMG Garet Jax isn’t black(3)!

(3) It’s been quite a while, but I think in the book he spends the whole time wrapped in cloth for some reason, so it’s not as if he’s even in passing described as white.

(4) Mwellret; no wonder I couldn’t make it out.

(5) Something which he explicitly denies earlier in the episode, as part of an apparent move towards metatextual humour which may yet prove to be a mistake.

(6) For this part of the plan, Eritrea gives him a tiny bottle of high explosive, warning him to be careful of his ‘precious Elfstones’ when concealing it, so there you go; the euphemism is official.

(7) The wealthy hedonist slumming it and seeking meaning in a down to Earth relationship.

Game of Thrones - 'The Dragon and the Wolf'

Apparently there are six thousand Dothraki in those trees back there.

Let's bring this on home.

Having bagged their wight, the newly unified Team Danaerys rock up to King's Landing for a meeting in the sombre atmosphere of the ruined Dragon Arena, where the Targareans' once-great beasts of mass destruction devolved into the draconic equivalent of scabby battery hens with atrophied wings and club feet(1). The Unsullied and the Dothraki rock up to look impressive, the former having apparently had shit all trouble crossing from Casterley Rock. There's some reunioning between Tyrion and Bronn and Podrick. Cersei sweeps in all imperious, gives Brienne the stink-eye when she catches her exchanging looks with Jaime, and even manages to maintain her sang froid when Dany rocks up with her dragons. Smasher tries to grandstand by demanding Theon surrender to him, but basically everyone including Cersei turns round and says 'shut the fuck up, Smasher; the grown-ups are talking.' The Hound eyeballs the Mountain and then kicks the wight out of its box towards the Lannister party, and if anything is scarier than a zombie getting all up in your face, it's the look on Qyburn's face as he examines its twitching, severed hand.

"Well, this looks nothing like anywhere people have tried to murder us
before."

Smasher Greyjoy asks if the dead can swim and, learning that they can't, drops the mic and heads back to his fleet. Cersei agrees to a ceasefire, but only if the King in the North agrees to remain neutral between Team Dany and Team Cersei. Being the master of intrigue and subtle diplomacy that he is, Jon announces his ironclad allegiance to Danaerys and the whole conference goes south in a real hurry. Tyrion takes a risk to try and talk Cersei back to the table and weathers both death threats and a belly-full of Cersei's self-righteous blame deflecting(2), but seemingly to good effect as she magnificently announces that she will send her troops north to fight the Army of the Dead, and they can get back to killing each other afterwards.

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to Dragonstone you might be interested in buying.

If chaos is a ladder, you just landed on a snake.

In the north, Littlefinger creepily persuades Sansa that she must take action to eliminate the danger presented by Arya. Arya is summoned before the court, but Sansa pulls a bait and switch, putting Littlefinger on what I will, for the sake of argument, call trial. She accuses him of all manner of wrongdoing, and it's a fair cop from start to finish. He claims there's not proof of anything, but Bran presents Greensighted evidence of his betrayal of Ned Stark (inadmissable, but his face,) and Sansa quietly rescinds her evidence acquitting him of Lyssa Arran's death so that the knights of the Vale won't help him. Presumably if pressed she would have claimed 'I was a child, I was scared,' and laughed at him while everyone swooned at her awesome turn of strength. Then Arya cut his throat. It's a big hurrah moment, because it means all that petty sibling rivalry bullshit was a pose – Arya later admits to Sansa that despite all she's been through, she doesn't think she would have survived what Sansa did – and because the audience knows that it's a fair cop, but as trials go it's a bit... swift. Tyrion was less railroaded.

I actually think Theon winning a fight may be one of the signs of the coming
of the Long Night.

On Dragonstone, Team Dany prepare to move out, with Jorah raising the point that travelling through the North might be risky for Danaerys given that the North has a fine tradition of being flame-throwered by conquering Targareans. Jon suggests that travelling together would send a better message, and Dany agrees with him, since he's done such sterling PR work to date. Theon and Jon make their peace, with Jon declaring Theon to be a Greyjoy and a Stark, and then Theon rallies the Ironborn to go after Yara by weathering a beatdown and finally coming back strong when his opponent essentially wears himself out fruitlessly attempting to knee Theon in the balls. It's good to see an Ironborn rallying scene which doesn't end with the defiant one concussed and a smash-cut to everyone else being flayed.

Jaime starts making arrangements to move the Lannister armies north and Cersei cusses him out for a chump. He talks about his word and she counters with 'family' in a way that finally opens his eyes to the fact that Cersei has become a complete monomaniac who would let the entire world burn if she got to raise her last child atop the ash heap. She assures him that they're sorted, because as much as pretty much everyone on the world hates them, they still have Smasher, who has actually gone to fetch the Golden Company to fight for them, thanks to the Iron Bank's money. She has also clocked the meaning of Viserion's absence. Despite this, Jaime leaves, mirroring Tyrion in basically daring her to set the Mountain on her, and rides off alone, sans even the company of Bronn (whom everyone is now worried about, since Cersei certainly wouldn't hesitate to set the Mountain on him if he decides to leave.)

 

"Are you crazy? Is that your problem?"

Sam rocks up at Winterfell and pops in to see Bran. As often happens with Sam, his perpetual state of bafflement leaves him entirely unflapped by the revelation that Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven. Bran tells Sam that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targarean and Lyanna Stark, and that being born in Dorn means he's a Sand not a Snow, but Sam gets to drop a truth bomb on Mr Sees Everything(3) by revealing that Rhaegar's marriage to Ellia Martell was annulled to allow him to be secretly wed to Lyanna, which means that OMG, Jon is Aegon Targarean, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. He is also, at that moment, up to his bobbing arse in his aunt, because that turns out to be a side benefit of travelling together, in deference to the lack of other sex scenes in Season 7, and in continuing defiance of a total lack of visible screen chemistry.

Tyrion apparently spots Jon going into Dany's room and looks unhappy about it, I hope for sane political reasons, rather than because he's subscribed to Jorah's newsletter.

So, a couple of episodes after falling into a James Bond credit sequence, Jaime is heading for a crossroads rendezvous with Bruce Banner, Richard Kimble and the Littlest Hobo, Jon/Aegon inadvisably and somewhat unconvincingly boffs his aunt, Theon finally gets some iron in his spine, and the South is going to all kinds of shit. Anything else?

Right. That.

Season 8 is set to be where it all comes to an end, with the living versus the dead and the final resolution of the battle for the Iron Throne (which I actually hope to see melted to a puddle before the curtain falls.) Based on simple progression, I'm expecting every episode to be leaked before it is shot, and every major plot point to be a meme on Facebook well before the episode airs. Watching in the UK would have been frustrating enough even without the extra delay required by my life as a parent and partner to a shift-working midwife, because as soon as an episode finishes in the States the Facebook explodes with reviews, comments on reviews (which are much, much harder to spoilerproof,) links to YouTube videos discussing 'the six things everyone missed in that episode except me because I'm better than you'(4) or asking 'has Game of Thrones hinted at this thing that might be in its ending?' and memes depicting key plot points with a screen shot and a sassy commentary.

For 'The Dragon and the Wolf' I avoided most spoilers, but was aware going in that 1) Littlefinger was going to be killed, based in part on evidence from Bran's greensight, 2) Jaime was going to leave Cersei, and 3) the Wall was coming down.

 

"I'm sensing a subtle hint that there are still barriers to our rapprochement."

The problem, I suspect(5), is that Game of Thrones has gone from a geek property to the mainest of the mainstream. As a result, the original geeks who 'made' the show with their devotion and miniscule contribution to the viewing figures(6) are circling the wagons and feeling a desperate need to prove that they are more into the show, understand more about the show, and are all told just way, way more into it than any of these Johnny-come-latelys who only like it because it's popular.

Anyway, I suppose I ought to make my predictions for Season 8:

• Beric Dondarion and Tormund will have survived to at least get an onscreen death.
• Jon and Dany will have a huge bust-up when his heritage is revealed and she starts seeing him as a rival.
• Sansa will give Jon an earful for sleeping with Dany. Jon will look like a kicked puppy.
• Cersei's surprise forces will be intercepted by Theon, whom I suspect will give his life to save Yara.
• Jon will ride Rhaegal at some point, possibly in desperate, mortal combat against the Night King. I'm not convinced that Rhaegal will do well out of this.
• Alternatively, Jon will wrest control of Viserion, destroy the Night King and become a White Walker himself in the process.
• Bran will continue to be omniscient, and yet kind of useless.
• Cleganebowl was teased this episode, so it probably has to happen. Part of me hopes to see Sandor get a little religious, overcome his primal fears, and bring a flaming sword to that grudge match. I predict victory on points to the Hound and both end up dead.
• Cersei's pregnancy will turn out to be phantom and she will go completely off the rails.
• Qyburn will make something that murderously turns on him.
• After a series of battles which leaves almost everyone dead, Cersei will either be assassinated by Arya or mauled to death by Nymeria.
• Danaerys will take over what remains of the Seven Kingdoms, move her capital to Dragonstone and attempt to institute a more fair system of government.
• Dorn will either go independent or be colonised by the Dothraki, leading to a horrible apartheid system.
• Sansa will become the Queen in the North.
• Jon will become the immortal King in the Really North.
• Bronn will get his castle; he might even live to enjoy it.
• In ten years' time we'll get a follow-up series called The Westeros Wing, in which Tyrion walks and talks a lot while trying to wrangle the mad idea of Westerosi democracy, while dealing with sanctions against the Dothraki because of their systemic abuse of ethnic Dornish, and the complex arrangements needed to adequately climate control the Really Northern embassy.
• Either that or Direwolves will inherit Westeros.

Right or wrong, I'll see you all for Season 8 next year (or in 2019,) to find out.

(1) Wow; that's a miserable image to start out with.

(2) Seriously, the Dornish didn't murder Mircela because Tywin's death left you vulnerable, they did it because your family routinely employed an enforcer who was barely less than a monster before he was the undead and because your scheming has always been more vicious than well-thought-out. And because the Dorn plot went a bit cray-cray.

(3) A moment which would only be more satisfying if he'd given Gilly props for catching the annulment, but I guess she was just reading aloud to give the audience a head's up.

(4) Yes, I have issues with this style of analysis.

(5) Or a problem, perhaps.

(6) Or a subset of the larger body, at least.

Game of Thrones - 'Beyond the Wall'

Walking and talking.

Welcome, my friends, to the 2017 all-Westeros idiot ball championship.

Jon Snow and his band of heroes head north to do what heroes do in Westeros: Die like chumps. Now, I'll be honest, there are some lovely bits of manly banter as they make their way towards the approaching army of the dead (especially Tomund waxing lyrical to the Hound about Brienne of Tarth,) walking and talking like an arctic version of The West Wing, but this doesn't significantly distract from the fact that what they are doing and who is doing it is patently ridiculous. The Red Wedding is lauded as the ultimate skewering of high fantasy tropes in the gritty world of A Song of Ice and Fire, but this is a fucking quest right here, even if the Hound is too surly to ever admit it, and the King of the North is undertaking it in person, presumably because of some gruff wisdom imparted by Neddy Stark about responsibility and how if a man comes up with a knuckleheaded plan, he ought to incompetently execute the plan himself.

 

"Well, that's just super, Thoros. Now the zombie bear is on fire."

The party first gets fucked up by a zombie bear (zombear?) which, apparently ranging ahead of the main army on the off-chance, mortally wounds Thoros of Myr – he of the evident drunkenness and informed badassery – as well as taking out a few Wildlings whose fate was so staggeringly obvious they should have been showing off their fancy new red shirts before they left. Eventually they find a party of wights and run at them yelling, because intimidation is a big part of combat against ice-blooded revenants. To nobody's great surprise except theirs, a band of half-frozen fighters with four effective anti-wight weapons between them – Longclaw(1), a pair of dragonglass daggers being wielded by Jorah, and Thoros and Beric's flaming swords which, at this point, no-one bats an eye at – are quickly in hella trouble, at least until Jon takes out the leading White Walker. This causes all of the wights to shatter save one, which is doubly lucky since they needed to bring one back.

I'm starting to notice a pattern in Jon Snow's battle strategy...

And then they get spotted, and it's like there's a wight looking at them, and they're hogtying their captive, and it's all awkward for a moment until suddenly there's an army coming at them. Jon sends Gendry to run back to Eastwatch, without his hammer both so that he can run faster and to continue a trend for people handing weapons to one another this episode, with orders to send a raven to Danaerys for help – because that's going to do them any good – while everyone else winds up trapped on an island in the middle of a frozen lake, surrounded by wights and with the Night King and his power posse watching from a ridge. The advance of the dead is halted for a time as the ice gives way. Someone suggests making an end run to take out the Night King, but it's not really on the cards given the thousands of wights and the half-frozen lake in the way

"A Frey tried to test me once. I ate his liver in a pie with a nice ale."

Back at Winterfell, Arya confronts Sansa for apparently cosying up to the Lannisters and her 'beloved Joffrey' after their father was arrested. She's either mad about Ned's death or Sansa's handwriting. There's a lot that is unclear. Littlefinger drops some hints about Brienne being unreliable as she is sworn to both sisters, and seemingly in response to this possibility - or becuase she'll be damned before she walks into a room where Cersei is simultaneously present and breathing - Sansa sends her knight to King's Landing on her behalf. Sansa then searches Arya's room and finds her bag of faces, which is some seriously serial killer shit(2), backed up by Arya discussing how she could be Lady of Winterfell if she took Sansa's face, before handing her the plot dagger and leaving the room.

 

Seriously. No-one at any point is even surprised that people be setting their
swords on fire.

Gendry collapses at the gates of Eastwatch(3) and the garrison sends a raven to Dragonstone, and damn me, but they must have sent the good one. Whereas Castle Black failed to get word to Winterfell ahead of Bran and Meera, Wattoo Wattoo Super Bird is on Dragonstone before anyone but Thoros of Myr has died of exposure – and slow-onset undead bear mauling – on their frozen islet of death. Tyrion counsels caution, pointing out in diplomatic terms that this was a stupid fucking idea at best and sending the queen and figurehead of their opposition to Cersei and three weapons of mass destruction into an icy hellholeis throwing good stupid after bad, but Danaerys scathingly reminds him that his advice has not served her well so far(4). So, she jumps on Drogon and flies north, heading for an island in a lake in the unmapped far north without as much as a postcode to go on.

So, apart from the Night Kng, are these all Craster boys? Also, why don't the
dragons just flame the command ridge on their first pass.

Back on the island, the Hound throws rocks at the dead, inadvertently alerting them to the fact that the ice has refrozen. The band fights a last, desperate resistance, with Tormund almost dragged into the icy water before the Hound appears to rescue him(5). I'd say that I hope to see Tormund having his frostbitten legs amputated, but honestly if any of these heroes have a toe left they'll be lucky.

Then the dragons show up and start napalming the dead, with Drogon making a landing to pick up the survivors while his brothers provide covering fire, by which I mean they cover everything in fire. Jon fights off the wights to allow the others to board, but then the Night King kills Viserion with a giant fucking ice javelin. Danaerys is understandably a bit upset, forcing Jon to cover her for longer, although this doesn't explain why he keeps advancing so that he can't get back to the dragon and has to be left behind.

"Well, that's a bad fucking sign right there."

Now, I'm not so heartless as to feel glad that a dragon died, but you know what? After all the shit people have pulled this season, I am glad to finally see an actual logical consequence to someone's stupid decisions. I'd say the same about Jon falling into the water and drowning, but like Jaime Lannister he crawls out after the remaining dragons have cheesed it, and – managing somehow not to freeze to death – is rescued not by the intercession of Rhaegon(6), but by the sacrifice of mostly-dead Uncle Benjen, who holds off the army while Jon rides back to Eastwatch and takes ship to a conference of Kings which cannot possibly go well, swearing sexy shirtless fealty to Danaerys on the way.

Finally, the Night King raises Viserion as a zombie, as many have predicted.

"I'm blue baba-dee baba-doo."

'Beyond the Wall' is brotastic to the max, with the band of frenemies bonding and battling to a larger understanding of one another. Unfortunately, it is not so up on sisterhood, although with one episode still to watch, I'm holding onto the hope that Sansa and Arya are working together to try to goad Littlefinger into an open enough play that they can get shot of him without sacrificing the Vale as allies, largely because Sansa has explicitly said that the reason she can't get rid of Littlefinger is that they need the Vale so they can't act unless they have some sort of evidence.

Anyway, season finale next week (by which I mean it was on yesterday - the day before in the States - and I hope to watch it today,) so I guess some questions will be answered, others raised, and given the relatively low mortality rate of the last couple of episodes, a whole mess of folk be either killed or presumed dead.

(1) Which at one point Jon tries to return to Jorah, because apparently we needed to be reminded what a stand-up bloke Jon is.

(2) Although as has been noted, so far Arya has been more about the spree killing.

(3) Which is in itself remarkable. In Season one he would have been eaten by foxes or randomly jacked by bandits and then repeatedly slagged off for deserting for the rest of the year.

(4) Probably because Tyrion is very much advising for Season 5 or points backwards, before all this hero shit became de rigeur.

(5) And when Sandor Clegane has decided that it's hero time, you know the show is starting to lose its gritty edge.

(6) I was totally expecting that, I must admit, not least because it would have offered some explanation as to how he managed not to freeze.