'Game' on for scheme queens
Women rule in wild ‘Thrones’ season premiere
SEASON 7 of “Game of Thrones” kicked off Sunday night with a bloody, crowd-pleasing start as Arya (the impishly wicked Maisie Williams) gleefully poisoned the followers of Walder Frey (David Bradley).
Disguised as Frey, whom she murdered in Season 6, she gathered the faithful for a celebration. After everyone had their wine, she thanked them “because you’re the folks who helped me slaughter the members of The Red Wedding.”
Taking a lethal pause, her tone of voice shifted. “But you didn’t slaughter all of them. This is your mistake.”
As the men began coughing up blood and keeling over, Arya, likee Hannibal Lecter, ripped off the Frey death mask and revealed herself.self. “Tell them winter came foror the House of Frey.”
In a quick succession off punchy scenes, executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss caught us up with the “GoT” charactersrs who are still above groundund while advancing their storylines:lines: Bran Stark (Isaac Hempsteadempstead Wright) finds refuge from The White Walkers at The Wall. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) bicker about military procedure in fighting the Night King (Vladimir Furdik). The divinely demented Cersei (Lena Headey) scolds her bewildered brother/paramour, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), for liberating their brother Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), who is now Daenerys’ (Emilia Clarke) Hand of the Queen and will soon devise a plan to conquer Westeros. Scenes in the middle of the show with Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) cleaning bedpans and serving soup at the Citadel dragged. ItIt would be a disservice if we didn’t comment on the show’s fifirsfirst Velveeta moment: As AArya makes her way across tthe Westeros countryside, sshe comes across a band of soldiers, one of whom can carry a tune. Upon closer llook, we see it’s pop singer EEd Sheeran. The mind reels bacbackward. “GoGoT” doesn’t have to resort to this kindk of stunt casting at this point in its storied history. Who’s going come on next season? Lauren Graham as Cersei’s bestie from her sorority days? Stop the madness now. The show thrills when concentrating on its formidable female characters. Since no woman is an island, Cersei looks for help outside the walls of King’s Landing. In one of the episode’s most intriguing developments, she allows herself to be wooed by the treacherous Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaeck), the Iron Islanderer who mercilessly sent his older brother, Balon (Patrick Malahide), tumbling too his death in Season 6. Cersei wantsts Greyjoy’s ships; Euron wants a queen. ueen.
The other “Throne”” queen — Daenerys — everyone will be clam-clamoring for makes a delayedayed and su-supremely dramatic entrancerance with her fleet at her ancestralal home in Dragonstone. With exteri-exteriors filmed in a remote sectionsection of Spain, producers leaveave us with a gorgeous imagege of Clarke walking the beach against a wall of sheer,, glittering rock that will remindmind you — again — that a con-continuing dramatic series hashas never looked so good. Dragonstone will figure prominently in the season’s six remaining episodes. Its rich deposits of dragon glass are the only element that can dedestroy the White Walkers.ers. There are bitsb of it in the throne Daenerys sits on.o Will she share the dragon glass withw Snow’s army, ordereddered to mine it as soon as possible, or keep it for herselfh ? Having assembledasse her closest allieslies and abandoned others, like gray-scale victim Jorahrah of Mormont (Iain GlGlen), whose afflicted foforearm makes a surpprise appearance in a sscene at the Citadel, she is one determined woman. A question posed to her advisers, the last line of the episode, is the one fans hhave waited more tthan a year to hear: “SShall we begin?”