Ethan Smith, News Editor

Well, for those of you who watched the season premiere of the final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”, which should have been a national holiday, the first episode was a lot to take in and answered some pressing questions many viewers have begged to be answered.

With that said, I am here to recap the episode, give my input and ask for your input. Let’s get started shall we?

The episode begins with the Unsullied army along with the Dothraki marching into Winterfell with Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen at the lead of said army.

We knew tensions would be high between the people of the North and Daenerys because, as many say throughout the episode, they are not very welcome to outsiders.

The Queen of Dragons meets Sansa Stark for the first time as Sansa gifts her control of Winterfell, something we saw in trailers leading up to the season.

The pure size of the army Daenerys and company have constructed is amazing but Sansa does pose the threat of hunger as feeding that many soldiers and two full-grown dragons does cause a pretty big issue.

The show shifts to King’s Landing where Cersei Lannister invites Euron Greyjoy into her chambers.

As Euron is in King’s Landing, Theon Greyjoy attacks a Golden Company ship to come to the aid of his sister Yara Greyjoy, who was Euron’s prisoner.

Yara insists that Theon join the fight against the White Walkers in the North because she can sense that he wants to and it should be a pleasant surprise to Jon Snow and others if he indeed travels North to join that fight.

Again the gears shift to Bronn, who is still in King’s Landing after the epic battle from season 7. He is approached by Qyburn, Cersei’s hand while he has three women with him.

Qyburn says that Cersei wants someone dead but it is never specified as to who he would be hunting even though he is offered multiple chests of gold and a really nifty crossbow. Qyburn basically threatens Bronn by telling him to take the order because he would be an enemy of Cersei if he chooses to decline, which is pretty amazing in my opinion.

In arguably the most interesting scene of the episode, Varys, Sir Davos Seaworth and Tyrion Lannister have a conversation regarding Daenerys and Jon’s relationship.

Tyrion insists that Daenerys follows the wise opinions of older men, but Varys begins kind of an angry grandpa about the youth not truly listening to the wise.

Varys’ main quote that came out of this conversation that excited me but left me wondering for the future was, “Nothing lasts”, which he calls an unpleasant truth. I’ll get back to that.

The fan service portion of the episode features Daenerys and Jon riding her dragons through the winter sky.

Was it cool? Of course.

Did it need to happen, sure, but it was basically a foreshadowment to the most important scene of the episode.

In this scene, which might as well be two scenes, Daenerys and Jorah Mormont approach Samwell Tarly, who is in King’s Landing after stealing books from The Citadel. Daenerys tells Samwell that his father and brother refused to bend the knee, thus leading to their execution.

Obviously Sam takes this hard and runs outside sobbing where he locks eyes with Bran, who says, “I am waiting for an old friend.” Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.

Bran exclaims that the time is right for Sam to tell Jon that he is Aegon Targaryen, the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen as seen from Bran’s vision in season 7.

Jon’s reaction hits pretty hard as he comes to find he is technically the rightful heir to the throne and that his “father” Ned Stark hid this truth from him to protect him.

This is huge that Jon knows this so early on in the season.

It will likely be teased by Daenerys that she may not notice that she is having sexual relations with her nephew but seeing if Jon decides to tell her sooner rather than later will play a huge role in how their relationship, both physically and mentally plays out.

Tormund is alive and well! That’s all I cared about when I saw him knowing he was already alive from trailers, but more importantly, Tormund and company appear to be hunting White Walkers but find the Umber boy pinned to the wall with body parts on the wall in a very interesting pattern.

The boy wakes as a White Walker and is immediately burned alive which allows Tormund and his men to know it is a message from the Night King.

By the way, who knew the Night King loved interior design so much.

Back to the wink, wink, wink, wink, Jaime freaking Lannister finally arrives in Winterfell in his effort to fight for the living against the dead.

After removing his cloak, he turns around and sees Bran, who has a stalker problem by the way, and immediately reacts in the way anyone who pushed a little boy out of a tower would.

His face had “How the hell are you alive?” written all over it

This. Was. Huge. Jaime and Bran have not seen each other since that moment. Bran and Jaime have also completely changed since then with Bran becoming the Three-Eyed Raven and Jaime becoming a much better guy than he used to be.

The implications of Jaime arriving in Winterfell span even farther than Bran. The last time he saw Daenerys, she was trying to kill him with a dragon.

The Lannister’s also have a rough history with the Stark family and the North, so hopefully their meeting is as smooth as possible.

This episode added to the already unlimited amount of hype for the rest of this season.

The reunions from various characters and the lack thereof for others who did not appear, including Brienne of Tarth, the next episode will have even more to tell ahead of the major battle at Winterfell.

Did I like this episode? Hell yeah, there was so much that happened that it was almost hard to handle.

The next five episodes promise even more and I am nothing less than excited.

Thoughts on the episode? Leave them below and let me know what you think.