Last night was the first episode of Game of Throne’s Season 7. Much anticipated and expected to top rating records for the show, there wasn’t a GOT fan out there that wasn’t excited. So how did they do?
As a huge Game of Thrones fan, and have been since around 2013 (just in time to be devastated by the Red Wedding) I was impatient to see what this new season would bring to our screens. The last season ended with Daenerys leaving Essos with her horde of Dothraki and Unsullied soldiers, along with the Targaryen Dream Time, to conquer Westeros and take back the Iron Throne. We had so much to look forward to, what with Olenna Tyrell in Highgarden plotting with the Sand Snakes in Dorne to take down Cersei, and how could I forget, Jon and Sansa in the North gathering their bannermen to prepare for the long Winter. But what appeared in front of me and millions of other people last night at 9 pm was not at all what we were expecting.
The episode started off in true Game of Thrones fashion; Arya taking revenge on the Freys for the murder of her mother, brother and pregnant sister-in-law. Posing as the recently dead Walder Frey – whom she killed – Arya poisoned his entire family. Nice! Roll on the starting credits which had me singing along as I munched into my specially made Game of Thrones cake. Those first three minutes had me lulled into a false sense of security that Season 7 was everything the show makers had promised it to be. Oh, how wrong I was to trust them.
The first couple of scenes post-starting credits showed us Jon and Sansa rallying their troops and bannermen and preparing for the oncoming war against Winter and the Night King. All great stuff. Some excellent lines from Lyanna Mormont, who has quickly become the people’s favourite character in the North, and some true Game of Thrones passive aggressive conversation between Jon Snow and Sansa Stark. We even had a bit of Pod and Brienne thrown into the mix and a bit of creepy ole Petyr Baelish. This was everything that should’ve been in the first episode of this new season, which, we as fans, have already waited over a year for and are filled with the dread of knowing it’s only going to be seven episodes long. To make up for that fact, the show makers promised it would be worth it and that every episode would be as ghastly and gruesome and bloodthirsty as the Battle of Bastards, season 6. Did they prove that to us in the first episode? Nope. Not one bit.
Speeding along through different characters, saying a quick hi to poor Samwell Tarly wading his way through poo and books in Oldtown and getting a glimpse of bitter old Queen Cersei and her brother in King’s Landing, we finally arrived at the scene I, and I’m sure many others, have been dreading. Ed Sheeran.
I’d just like to ask the show makers quickly – what the fuck were you thinking? Have you gone completely mad? And have you forgotten who your target audience is? How could you?
Now the questions are over, I will continue. What the fuck were they thinking? When I heard that Ed Sheeran would have a cameo appearance in Game of Thrones I thought it was a joke. A sick, sick joke spread around to wound and confuse us fans. Nope. No joke. This shit is for real.
Along comes Arya on her horse, coming back from being bad-ass, into a clearing to find Lannister soldiers. One of them is singing. My heart dropped and I wanted to curl up into a ball on the floor and pray this was a bad dream. But I persisted. I trust GOT. Trusted.
For the next five minutes, I, and every other poor bastard had to sit through an awkward, badly written scene that had no story or character progression whatsoever as Ed Sheeran promoted his new album and Maisie Williams ate a rabbit. Nothing happened. The dialogue was dull, limp and poorly acted and although this scene was clearly constructed just for Ed Sheeran, he had one line. ONE LINE:
It’s a new one.
This is a new one. A new moment in GOT history where they completely lost the plot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, not every scene in Game of Thrones has been outstanding, world-class writing and acting but this? This pile of shit might as well been in the slop buckets Sam was clearing out in Oldtown. It was boring, unimaginative and all because the show makers wanted a scene for Ed Sheeran to be in. And why did Ed Sheeran have to be in GOT? Well, dear friends, let’s face it; Game of Thrones is now huge. The season six finale drew in over 5 million viewers overall (this includes those who watched it later that week, on plus channels or had it recorded). But was this enough for the Game of Thrones show makers? Clearly not, as last night’s episode showed. They wanted more.
They weren’t happy with the measly 5 million viewers. They needed to draw in more. And how were they going to do that? As we all know, Game of Thrones can get complicated at times. What with all the names, places and back stories, you have to keep up. The best advice for anyone wanting to start now is to watch it from the very beginning. If you can’t be bothered, personally, you don’t deserve to watch it all. Game of Thrones is a work of art, carefully crafted by George RR Martin and it should be respected like art too. If you can’t put in the time and dedication, go watch Big Bang Theory. There’s something simple for you.
However, the GOT show creators obviously didn’t want to rely on the masses (idiots) having to sit through the last six seasons so instead turned the first episode of season 7 – THE FIRST EPISODE – into a watered down recap of the show’s entire history so that the simple minded masses that usually tune into E4 to watch brainless television can try to understand the complicated, intricate beautiful world of Game of Thrones. And how did they draw in that crowd? Ed Sheeran of course!
Last night’s episode had Jon and Sansa quoting Ned Stark for the first time in several seasons and mentioning the deaths of their family in such a way it felt like a synopsis of previous episodes. For people who have been watching this show since the very beginning or have only just started – but could be bothered to watch the last six seasons – were probably all wondering why this was necessary? It wasn’t – for us. But for the mindless masses that tuned in just to see Ed Sheeran sing a couple of lines and then sit awkwardly for five minutes in a scene that made me want to tear my eyes out with a rusty compass, this was perfect.
The episode entitled Dragonstone was a soft, slow and boring 50 minutes that had no story or character progression asides from Dany finally reaching Westeros (kind of), all because whoever demands more and more views for this show wanted not just loyal fans and other fantasy lovers to tune into GOT – but the Celebrity Love Island and TOWIE simpletons too. Blinded by greed, they only succeeded in getting Ed Sheeran’s Twitter account shut down after all the hate left on his page and pissing off the majority of the Game of Thrones community. How could you, Game of Thrones? How could you?
Though we shouldn’t place all the blame on Ed Sheeran. No one truly knows what he was doing there other than to bring in the views. We should blame the people who hired him and thought it was a good idea to ruin a perfectly good show. The whole episode felt like a summary of the past six seasons or even worse, the first episode of Game of We-Needed-More-Viewers-So-Here’s-Ed-Sheeran. A joke. A betrayal. 50 minutes I will never get back. Trust broken.
Game of Thrones is a world you can escape to. Full of sanity and reason, unlike the world we live in. For most people, myself included, watching Game of Thrones is a way to get away from all the drama and shit in our real lives. It’s immersive and indulgent. There have been cameos in the past – Ian McShane (what a babe) and Jim Broadbent in last night’s episode as the Archmaester. There has even been some you might not have noticed or known about because the show makers slipped them into the background with lineless parts. For instance, Sigur Ros at Joffrey and Margery’s wedding. Of Monsters and Men in Essos as band members for the theatre company, Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody as a soldier and even Coldplay’s Will Champion as a very enthusiastic drummer (always enthusiastic) at the Red Wedding. These are all people who starred in Game of Thrones without the hoo-ha of Ed Sheeran’s wimpy performance last night, which took you right out of the story and back into the real world you were trying to escape from. Well done, GOT. You’ve fucked it.
So now it’s official. GOT has gone mainstream. Cosmo loves it. UNILAD loves it. People can now watch Hollyoaks and Game of Thrones back to back if they want because these people are now the target audience. Forget your loyal fan base. Forget the people who have been following this show for years. Forget the people you’re supposed to please and just make sure that each episode draws in more of the populous, no matter how shit it is. Next we’ll have Beyoncé dancing on top of the Wall, White Walkers played by Made In Chelsea characters; Dany will be wearing a Hype t-shirt and wearing Dr Dre Beats headphones and Jon Snow will be no longer be sending ravens back and forth to Sam, but sending emojis on his iPhone to let him know that Winter Is Here. And so is the new MacBook Pro.
Game of Thrones has gone mainstream and it doesn’t even matter that Jorah Mormont is in Oldtown – the only decent part of last night’s episode – and it doesn’t even matter that Emilia Clarke was looking stunning as always with her Dream Team and her dragons. It’s all over for Game of Thrones unless they write off episode 1 season 7 and have Ed Sheeran’s character die a brutal death like Ian McShane. Then maybe, just maybe, we might be able to forgive them. It all hangs in the next episode.
So GOT show creators. So HBO and Sky. Was 2.83 million viewers really fucking worth it?
Join us next Saturday (instead of Tuesday! Sorry!) for another Review! Also, if you want to check out my home made Game of Thrones cake, head over to my Instagram, Jodimay15! Thanks for reading! #winterishere