"I Promised To Fight For The Living. I Intend To Keep That Promise..."
With the season premiere out the way and the subsequent week resulting in having to handle the burden of listening to your work colleagues and friends witter on about "how boring the opening episode was", such concerns should immediately be wiped away with one stroke of your sword-wielding hand, with long-term fans of the show being well aware that Game of Thrones is not the type of programme which tends to dive in head first into spectacle without important characterisation and depth coming rightly just before. As with this season's opening hour, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" once again felt comfortable in saving the death and destruction for week three and beyond, a second contemplative episode out of two which successfully blended interesting and emotionally fulfilling character reunions and interactions whilst setting the stage up nicely for a hotly anticipated battle sequence which has pretty much been teased ever since the show's inception. With Jamie returning to Winterfell for the first time since the show's opening hour almost exactly eight years ago, the judgemental glances of pretty much everyone this side of the Northern line in Westeros seemed to emphasise the central predominant theme in this season so far; forgiveness for the sake of the greater good, and whilst it would have been more than satisfactory to see offspring of the Stark clan successfully claim their revenge by murdering the golden-haired Kingslayer back in the early days of the show, Jamie's own journey and development throughout the show has undoubtedly been the most surprising, with the cocky Lannister shifting from being the most hated character on the show to one of the most revered and let's face it, utterly charming.
Whilst in previous seasons characters would have taken several episodes to kiss and make up after their past discrepancies, with Ser Jorah in particular probably wishing he had the writers this season to seek redemption just a tad quicker, the sight of both Dany and Sansa outlining the many different reasons why they found Ser Jamie utterly repulsive didn't exactly last for too long, with Jon and Brienne in particular saving the day by reminding everyone that a much bigger threat awaits just around the corner. In narrative developments elsewhere, the steamiest moment of the episode strangely belonged to the usually cold-hearted, slight stature of Arya, whose relationship with Gendry went, let's just say up a slight notch, whilst with Jon deciding to drop the black hole sized bombshell regarding his heritage on Daenerys just before potentially succumbing to the will of the Night King, such an exchange was greeted with an immediate look of confused disdain from the Dragon Queen, a particularly queer but sort-of-expected reaction from a character who after all these years of torment and war is brought back to a reality where she ultimately is not the destined leader of the Seven Kingdoms after all. With oodles of character interactions both knowing and interesting throughout the episode, Game of Thrones is the type of show which knows die hard fans will crumble at the sight of the slightest and most subtle character developments, with "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" a rather touching, sentimental, and at many particular points, rather hilarious hour of rewarding television aided predominantly by brilliantly written dialogue, and as we head into next week's episode in which we see our beloved heroes seek success against the most unwinnable battle in the show's history, the Lord of the Rings style overhead sing-song to the backdrop of oncoming death means that it's time to buckle up and prepare yourself for what's about to come next.
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