S7·E1 — Dragonstone

The hour retold

The premiere opens on an act of housekeeping the previous finale promised and delivers with real relish: Arya Stark, wearing Walder Frey’s own face, toasts the assembled men of House Frey and watches them drink poison meant, in spirit if not letter, for every guest who ever trusted that family’s hospitality — winter came for House Frey, she tells the one woman she spares, and the show lets the line do a season and a half of narrative cleanup in under five minutes. At Winterfell, the new King in the North discovers that ruling is mostly disagreement: Sansa argues for punishing the children of houses that turned against the Starks, Jon refuses on the same principle his father died defending, and Littlefinger watches every private argument from the doorway, cataloguing which sister to work on next.

The hour’s real business, though, is arrival. Euron Greyjoy sails into King’s Landing offering Cersei his fleet and a vague, ominous promise of a gift worth more than ships, while across the narrow sea Daenerys Targaryen finally sets foot on Westerosi soil for the first time in her life, walking the halls of Dragonstone past maps and thrones her family abandoned a hundred and fifty years earlier. Shall we begin, she says to an empty room, and the show underplays the moment on purpose — no crowd, no cheering, just a woman alone in an ancestral home she has never actually lived in, opening the final movement of the war.

What happens

• A feast at the Twins: Walder Frey toasts his men with poisoned wine — worn by Arya Stark.
• Jon rules a wary North; Sansa argues for punishing turncloak houses; he refuses to punish children.
• Euron Greyjoy offers Cersei his fleet and promises a priceless gift.
• Daenerys Targaryen steps ashore at Dragonstone, touches the sand, and says: "Shall we begin?"

The people of the episode

The fallen — spoilers

• The male line of House Frey — Every Frey who mattered, in one toast: 'leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe.'