S8·E2 — A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

The hour retold

Jaime Lannister’s reception at Winterfell is the trial the show has been building toward since he pushed a boy out a window in its very first hour, and it resolves not through his own testimony but through Brienne of Tarth’s — her word, earned across six seasons of watching him try to become someone worth vouching for, outweighs two queens’ inherited grudges and buys him a place fighting for the family he once helped destroy. The plan for the battle to come is set with grim simplicity: Bran will wait in the godswood as bait for the army that wants him specifically, while everyone else holds the walls around him.

What the hour actually wants to give its characters, though, is one last ordinary night before an extraordinary one. There is wine, and Podrick’s surprisingly lovely singing, and small confessions traded around a fire by people who may not get another chance to make them — and in its quietest, most purely joyful scene, Jaime Lannister does the one knighting that has ever meant anything to him, kneeling to raise Brienne of Tarth to a rank the world has denied her for no reason beyond her sex. In the crypts, Jon finally tells Daenerys the truth Sam gave him — his real name, his better claim — and watches, in real time, a woman he loves start doing the same arithmetic everyone else in the castle has already finished. The horns sound three times before dawn. The bait is set; the night that follows is the one the whole series has been walking toward.

What happens

• Jaime stands trial in Winterfell's hall; Brienne's word outweighs two queens' grudges.
• The plan is set: Bran waits in the godswood as bait, the living hold the walls.
• One last night: songs by the fire, wine, Podrick singing — and Jaime knights Brienne of Tarth.
• Jon tells Daenerys the truth in the crypts as the horns blow three times.

The people of the episode