Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5 premiered this past Sunday, and it was one of the most important episodes ever. It saw the conclusion of various character arcs (a number of long-time members of the show died) and saw some major developments for others who are still alive--and it's become clear Game of Thrones is about something many didn't expect. Notably, Episode 5 also set new records. Much like the previous episode this season to feature a major battle, Episode 5 has become the show's most-watched episode ever. Looking ahead, there's reason to believe Varys might have been planning to poison Dany in Episode 5, something that could come into play during the finale. Read on for our recap and review of the episode, and then check out some new theories and an Episode 6 preview trailer. Game of Thrones is at its best when bad choices have consequences and effect logically follows cause. The Red Wedding was the result of a string of terrible decisions that ended with devastating tragedy, making for one of the show's most impactful events; compare that with Cersei's destruction of the Sept of Baelor (and an entire city block) with zero repercussions over the show's last couple of seasons, which made Game of Thrones' world feel smaller and less realistic in the end. In a short-lived callback to this show's better seasons, Varys paid the price for his uncharacteristic carelessness in Season 8, Episode 5, "The Bells." Like almost every other character on this season of Game of Thrones, the Master of Whispers made bad decision after bad decision in the last couple of episodes. His scheming was remarkably un-Varys-like; "Hey, I'm thinking about doing some treason. Would you like to hear about it?" When Varys burned toward the start of this episode, it felt like just one more choice for Dany that really was no choice at all. But in retrospect, it stings more than most of the deaths this season because of what we learned by the episode's conclusion: Varys was right. Daenerys Targaryen has lived up to the worst parts of her family legacy, burning King's Landing to the ground, street by street, roasting tens of thousands of innocent people, apparently after the battle was all but won. The show and books foreshadowed this possibility countless times, so it isn't exactly out of nowhere. But by cramming Dany's actual transition from Good Queen to Mad Targaryen into just a handful of episodes, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have done the entire series and all its fans a disservice. Even though we knew this was a possibility, it was easy to root for Dany as she clawed her way up from nothing, overcoming abuse, rape, poverty, and countless other hardships to become the champion of the smallfolk, the freer of slaves--the Mother of Dragons and the Breaker of Chains. The fact that all it took for Dany to break bad was the death of a few friends, the loss of two dragons, and some accidental competition from Jon Snow makes all our years rooting for Khaleesi feel a little bit gross in retrospect. Her madness was not buried as deep as we had wanted to believe; this bloodthirsty rampage was just a hair trigger away. But that doesn't feel like a deliberate choice made for the betterment of the narrative; instead, it's clearly the result of a series of shortcuts necessitated by these last two seasons' shortened lengths. Dany's transformation into the Mad Queen starts to feel better-earned if you imagine it taking gradual shape over a couple of full-length seasons (or books). As it is, her actions in this episode don't really make sense. Why torch every street and pointlessly murder thousands of innocent people when she could fly straight to the Red Keep and melt Cersei, the woman who's actually wronged her? Even her father, the infamous Mad King Aerys, didn't go crazy overnight--his insanity was the end result of years of escalating paranoia and violence. Yeah, we know, every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin--but nobody ever said they flip a switch, and that's what we got this season on Game of Thrones. Technically speaking, "The Bells" was a masterpiece of cinematic fantasy television. The Fall of King's Landing might be the best battle of the entire series--the polar opposite of Episode 3's poorly conceived, sloppily edited, largely nonsensical Battle of Winterfell (the fact that both episodes were written by Benioff and Weiss and directed by Miguel Sapochnik has to make you wonder how exactly "The Long Night" went so bad). Dany finally visited fire and blood upon her enemies--and the innocent, as well--and regardless of how unearned it was, it looked absolutely incredible. The brutality and terror of Dany's attack was immediate and shocking in every shot, whether from Jon's perspective as he tried helplessly to intervene, or Arya's as she simply tried to survive (and help a few others get out along the way). And could anyone have possibly envisioned a better Cleganebowl? The Clegane brothers, Hound and Mountain, clashed in mortal combat (and it looked a lot like Mortal Kombat) with a dragon spewing fire from the sky in the background, high above King's Landing, the Red Keep coming down around their heads. Game of Thrones Season 8 has not been the cathartic flood of pay-offs for series-long arcs, foreshadowing, and predictions that many longtime fans deeply wanted, but the fight between Sandor and Gregor actually lived up to the hype. It was perfect, and much-needed, considering where several other character arcs wound up in the end. Jaime going back to Cersei is, to put it mildly, a disappointment. Many fans are likely wondering what the point of his arc was, if it wasn't overcoming his worst instincts and becoming a better person. Everything Jaime has done, all the things he's been through, were for nothing? He experienced maybe the most significant growth of any character in the series just so he could backslide completely and go skulking back to Cersei to die with her in the end?<doc-sep>Spoilers through Season 8 of 'Game of Thrones' follow. Credit: HBO Sunday night's episode of Game of Thrones was . . . incredible. It's bound to be one of the most controversial episodes of television ever made. I loved it and hated it and I think it could have been the perfect culmination of everything this show ever set out to do, if only they'd earned it. If only HBO had taken the time necessary to get to this insane moment of fire and blood. Update: I've written a follow-up review to this one: The Five Biggest Problems With Last Night's Episode Of Game Of Thrones If only they'd earned this, it would have been perfect. I loved this episode. I was enthralled from the very first frame to the last. And yet . . . the credits rolled and and well . . . I don't know how to feel. The abbreviated edition of Game of Thrones was perfect in every way except for the fact that it felt so . . . . abbreviated. So many stories. So much potential. So many threads on the loom, endlessly weaving. We reach the end without ever quite reaching. This was a magnificent episode of television that never quite earned its magnificence. I'm not quite sure how else to describe it. Like some facsimile of a great story, this was television that had everything perfectly placed, perfectly constructed and blocked out, but never quite deserved the emotional high points. Tonight's episode was far more epic and emotionally poignant than the Battle of Winterfell and the half-baked villain of the Night King. Cersei was, in the end, a weeping mother. As Daenerys Targaryen, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, laid waste to the city of King's Landing, there was never really any question of who would win and who would die. Drogon burned everything in sight. The real question is what it means now that the queen of ashes has taken the Iron Throne. Credit: HBO / Erik Kain I loved this episode and I hated it. Tonight, they had to reload the ballista. Tonight, giant crossbows were no match for dragonfire. Poor Rhaegal, if only he'd survived long enough to face this Ironborn incompetency. This is the problem with Seasons 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones. It's all just too convenient. I was, certainly, left riveted by tonight's episode. I'm actually quite easy to please. Had they simply built up to this point--had they simply earned this moment of bloodshed and victory and defeat all at once, I would be cheering from the sidelines like any other giddy fan. Instead, I'm left wondering why Euron ever had a victory. Why didn't Daenerys burn his fleet to ashes last week? Why did Missandei ever have to die? I won't lie. I loved this episode. I loved every moment. I loved Tyrion's doubt and his betrayal of Varys. I loved that moment when Vary said that he hoped he was wrong. I could feel myself saying the same words, as if Dany was the show, and I was its adviser. I want it to be great. But in the end we all feel like Jon Snow, watching as his queen incinerates the city, a look of stunned betrayal on our faces. I can't think of a single thing about tonight's episode that I didn't love, and yet at the same time every moment was a slap in the face. This isn't how Jaime Lannister should die. Or Cersie. And did we really need a Cleganebowl, no matter how badass it was to watch Sandor leap to his death, carrying his undead brother with him? I'm not against it, but it felt forced. Such is Game of Thrones these days, I'm afraid. I am so utterly conflicted, dear readers. To come to this point after two decades of fandom. To come to this brutal, bittersweet semi-conclusion to such an epic story . . . I'm not sure what to think. It was horrific and exciting and terrible and action-packed and so unsatisfying and so dramatic all at once. I have no words. I have many words. I am at a loss, and lost, and yet . . . I think I have more to say than I realize. I have some pictures, at least. Credit: HBO Tonight's episode was another blockbuster. So much happened it's almost impossible to wrap our brains around it all at once. Once again, this should have been two episodes, not one slightly longer one. It began with Tyrion tattling on Varys, after the Spider tried to recruit Jon Snow to his cause. The Spider should have waited. Had it been book Varys instead of TV Varys, he would have waited. After all, once Jon saw Dany go mad with revenge and bloodlust, he would have joined Varys's coup without flinching. Varys survived many mad kings and queens. Why was he in such a rush now? Because the show is in such a rush. Credit: HBO Daenerys wasn't surprised by the betrayal. She lumped Jon and Tyrion into it, for good measure. Had Jon not told Sansa, she'd never have told Tyrion who would have never told Varys and so on and so forth. Of course, they were all right to doubt her. Credit: HBO Then Tyrion frees Jaime because it turns out Jaime isn't going to kill Cersei, and Tyrion wants them both to live happily ever after which, if I may be so bold, would have been better than their fates in this episode (especially if she'd died in childbirth offscreen). I did really enjoy the Tyrion/Jaime hug quite a lot, however. Credit: HBO From here we get to the battle, or whatever it is this was. Not much of a battle at all, it turns out. I'm not sure why they even bothered to weaken Daenerys--after all, her Unsullied and Dothraki and dragons and all the rest were as powerful as they needed to be, regardless of any setbacks. We didn't need a Night King or a Euron Greyjoy to hamstring Daenerys Targeryen.<doc-sep>Over all, it made for one of the show’s most gruesome episodes. For those irked by the relatively scanty death toll so far this season, well, on Sunday your cup runneth over. Varys was the eunuch in the coal mine, offering an early glimpse of the corner Daenerys had turned — less the fact that she dracarys’d him, her default response to open defiance, than the casual way she got on with it. This was a person for whom human life had ceased to matter as much as it should. Euron discovered that what is dead may never die, unless you put a sword in its guts and twist. Qyburn met the fate of all who play God, and he was dispatched by Mountainstein with its signature smash-and-toss finishing move. And the Hound discovered that what is actually dead may really, really never die, unless you shove it into the hellmaw of a burning city. (Even now I’m not positive a charcoaly Mountain torso isn’t scooting around King’s Landing like half a Terminator.) Then there were the toxic Lannister twins, whose grand fall was symbolized by the fact that they kick-started this whole story by fornicating in a northern tower and ended by dying in a southern crypt. It’s a testament to the dramatic talents of Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau that an incest reunion that took a somewhat galling amount of forced plot mechanics to enact still tugged at my heart strings. Cersei and Jaime were destined to die together, of course, whether he killed her or she killed him or they killed each other. The outcome was less interpersonally violent than most of us probably expected, which is perhaps oddly fitting for what, in the end, was the most enduring romance of this story. I just wish we’d gotten here more gracefully. If there’s anyone who’s been more narratively jerked around than Daenerys this season, it’s Jaime. We talked a few weeks ago about how his villainy was always overblown, and his trajectory since that tower liaison has been mostly about how people can get past the world’s definition of them by doing the hard work of trying to be good. (And if you have a warrior maiden around to help, so much the better.)<doc-sep>Arya isn’t the only person whose moral corruption must be added to the tally of Daenerys’s casualties this week. Back in the third season of the show, Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) told Daenerys that the Unsullied slave soldiers she intended to buy would never commit the kinds of atrocities she found so repulsive when she was living among the Dothraki. But when Cersei’s soldiers lay down their arms and turn to watch Drogon burn the city, it’s Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) who strikes first, killing a man who had clearly surrendered, thus letting lose a torrent of bloodshed. The Dothraki, Unsullied and Northmen may all have been different before Daenerys brought them together, but what unites them now is their joint participation in an unconscionable war crime. Daenerys may have dreamed of breaking the wheel of history and tyranny; instead, she’s built it taller than ever, lit it on fire and used it to crush those smaller than her.<doc-sep>
The penultimate episode of any season of Game of Thrones is often the most explosive, but did the final second-last outing live up to expectation? Spoiler alert for anyone who has not seen Season 8 Episode 5 Yes and no. In terms of season eight, which has suffered greatly with pacing issues and inconsistencies, it is probably the best technically executed episode, but when you take into account the show as a whole it only has glimmers of the greatness we've come to expect. This week's episode, aptly entitled The Bells, is kind of a win in a similar way that The Long Night's Battle of Winterfell was a win; things happened and we got some great character moments. Both episodes centred on a big battle and showed two key moments in defining the future of the Seven Kingdoms; the fight against the Night King and the fight against Cersei, both of whom have now been defeated. Daenerys has gone full Mad Queen Killing the Night King and defeating the army of the dead was necessary to keep the living alive, but the way Cersei was defeated just shows the horrors of war, the corruption of power and how the innocent are the ones to suffer. Those who want to rule don't care about their people and those who care, don't want to rule, and history will just keep on repeating itself. It was more of a massacre than anything. The episode opened strong on Dragonstone as it took its first victim with Varys' execution. His parting words, "I hope I'm wrong" particularly poignant. Daenerys has gone full Mad Queen now and one by one her inner circle comes to realise the extent of this. When she tells Jon, "Now she knows what happens when people find out about you" it's a real worry. She will literally kill whoever she needs to just to keep his parentage a secret and protect her claim to the Iron Throne. Will Jon realise that Varys has a point? I have a problem with this. Over the course of the first seven seasons, Daenerys has wanted to liberate slaves, protect the vulnerable and rule with love. She showed a few moments of potential madness but listened to her counsel and in the end did the right thing, or at least realised where she went wrong and you got the impression she was learning. Now that the people of Westeros have not shown her love, she is happy to rule with fear, and by the end of the episode she essentially burns them all, indiscriminately zigzagging dragon fire through the streets burning everyone and everything in her wake. My problem isn't with her eventual descent into madness; it's the way in which it's been developed. Like everything as the end draws near, it's been rushed, and it seems a bit obvious to have the Targaryen Queen go off the rails like this. I think the obviousness generally of the episode was a problem; there was no big shock. Every great episode of Game of Thrones has a big shock, something you really didn't see coming. Perhaps this week's was supposed to be the moment Daenerys rides Drogon towards the Red Keep as the bells of surrender ring out, but it just didn't hit the mark because she's said so many times that she wants to do it, and she doesn't have Tyrion by her side to talk her down. It would've been more surprising at this stage if she had shown mercy. As the city burned, I did enjoy the puffs of green wildfire popping up across the capital, it was a nice nod to Daenerys' father the Mad King's plan to burn it to the ground, before being stopped by Jaime. Daenerys tells Tyrion "If you fail me again, it will be the last time you fail me" Poor Jaime. The scene with him and Tyrion was a personal favourite of the episode. It was a fitting and emotional goodbye between the brothers. His final scene, too, also very apt, dying together with Cersei – "Nothing else matters, only us". While it was nice that they died together, it was a disappointing exit for two original characters who have provided us with so much drama and intrigue for so long.