The “Eastwatch” scripting moved fast again, a propulsive-backstory chapter in which plans were laid so they can all be obliterated in the infamous penultimate chapter of any given season of Game of Thrones. But there was one key thread that kept its quick scenes from veering off course: my friends, I’m taumbout dads, daddies, and zaddies.
Leave it to a Targaryen to suck up the air, you know? Rhaegar was the shadow star of the episode, not just because his name was finally invoked right around the time Jon Snow realized his ability to get uncomfortably cozy with Drogon, but because a KEY mystery was solved and we almost missed it because a dude was talking over a woman. It’s unlike Samwell to be so disrespectful of Gilly—work is just so hard nowadays, and women be talking!!!—but he was too pissed off at the maesters gabbing in their ivory tower doing nothing about the coming Undead threat to hear her reading from some dusty old book that Rhaegar’s marriage was ANNULLED. This means, most importantly, that Lyanna Stark was not kidnapped and raped, but married Rhaegar Targaryen willingly after he ditched Elia Martell, and that maybe their son is the freakin’ Prince Who Was Promised. This also means that Jon Snow is not a bastard, which is REALLY gonna fuck him up considering that his entire identity and neuroses are sculpted around his belief that he is one. Someone call in Fuckmaester Freud!!
Weiss and Benioff giveth and Weiss and Benioff taketh away, though, so for these key details to emerge, somebody got to die. That, of course, came in the form of Evil Dad Tarly and hot Dickon “Zaddy 2" Tarly, which was extremely fucked up because we just became accustomed to the idea of seeing him naked. Alas, they got dracarys’d having refused to bend the knee, and the grisly aftermath of the “Spoils of War” battle—which is to say, utter destruction—now has Tyrion wondering whether a) he has the capacity for this gruesome, senseless shit and b) if maybe Mad King DNA manifests itself in the early 20s. (Dany is like 22 now, right?) Daddy is the specter Cersei conjures when telling Jaime they’ll have to be cleverer than Dany to truly fight her, and daddy’s also the reason she invokes for cursing Tyrion’s name yet again.
Which brings us to Zaddy number 3, Jaime Lannister! YOU ARE THE FATHER!!
I recently rewatched an episode of The Office in which Kelly Kapoor tells Ryan she’s pregs to get him to take her out for dinner, so forgive me for my initial skepticism—a “pregnancy” would be the perfect way to keep Jaime in her corner, particularly since he’s a little more reluctant to keep the war going with the Mother of Dragons having watched his entire army be essentially nuked with Drogon-fire. HOWEVER, apparently George “Zaddy Zaddy” Martin is even pettier than I am, because The Internet (the collective, not the band) believes Cersei will simply miscarry and then go even more batshit with vengeance than she already is—the last, archetypal straw before her ascent/descent into Mad Queendom. If true, is this storyline annoying? YES! Given the option I would much rather have her express her cunning by manipulating Jaime with a false preggers storyline, than putting forth another example of how women have no motivation without our precious womb, but I guess both options are regressive, and it does seem fair that she’s already watched three of her kids croak. What is definitely clear is that Lena Headey needs a goddamn award or ten for her performance this season; her quiet seething and snakish delivery is utterly terrifying, some of the best acting since these nonsentimental sadists killed off Olenna Tyrell. (RIP MY SLAY QUEEN!)
Also on the best acting award list: Maisie Williams, whose subtle facial tics convey so much, particularly her disdain for Littlefinger, and also possibly the flights of fancy of her sister Sansa. There’s no way she’s going to murk her sister out just for being a materialistic witch, but Littlefinger’s doing his best to sow discord among the Stark sisters, in his continued efforts to sit on the Iron Throne? Which, frankly, is laughable at this point, considering the formidable and homicidal nature of the warring Queens. I am ready for him to die and I hope Arya slices his throat wearing the face of that Winterfell peasant girl who’s sending ravens for him because she killed her, too. IDC IDC IDC.
Next week’s episode, the second-to-last, pairs Jon, the Hound, Sers Jorah and Davos, Gendry, Tormond, and those fire-worshipping pirate muhfuckers against the Night King north of The Wall due to some cockamamie plan to capture a wight and bring it back to Westeros where they will use it to prove to Cersei who DEFINITELY won’t kill them that the Undead threat is real and therefore she and Dany should practice armistice in order to defeat them in the name of all who is living, because all alive people are on the same side? This is the dumbest idea of all time? Why would any of these people agree to this? This is so fucking dumb!
Until next week!
JON AND DANY FUQ UPDATE: I STILL THINK YES. The Targaryens do incest as a rule, I mean who cares! The Mother of Dragons deserves a Zaddy too. I don’t think it will happen until next season, though, which absolutely blows. LET! THEM! FUQ! LET! THEM! FUQ! LET! THEM! FUQ!
Deaths: Asshole, xenophobic dad Tarly. Bye bitch. Thiccon Tarly; I will burn my panties on a pyre in your mem’ry. Those two hapless guards at King’s Landing that Gendry toasted with his hammer.
Boners: Mine, for Gendry.