Warning: This post contains multiple spoilers for the fourth episode of Season 8 of Game of Thrones. "The Last of the Starks" may have been much easier to watch than the previous week's "The Long Night" (based on the lighting alone, even), but there are still a few important details you might have missed in Season 8, Episode 4 of Game of Thrones. When you're watching over an hour of thrilling and at times devastating action and plot development, it's bound to happen. Hell, sometimes even the production team misses things, which is probably how that now-infamous coffee cup got left behind in Sunday night's feast scene. With so many characters in each scene (a departure from early seasons where the main characters were strewn all over the Westeros map), it's easy to overlook subtler plot developments, and Sunday's episode had many of them — everything from blink-and-you'll-miss-it character revelations to sly callbacks to earlier seasons to subtle hints at what lies ahead. Before you re-watch the episode, check out this list of things you missed and see if you can spot them yourself on your next viewing. 1. The intro was edited to account for the damage to Winterfell The cracks in Winterfell's walls and interior were shown during the episode's opening credits, which have been updated for each installment this season. 2. There was a modern coffee cup on the feast table HBO If you missed this when the episode aired, you've likely seen it by now thanks to all the memes people have made about it. It's a pretty hilarious goof, and on Monday, the showrunners fessed up to and apologized for the mistake. 3. The showrunners made a cameo during the feast scene HBO According to the "Game Revealed" segment on HBO's YouTube page, showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff appeared in the feast scene dressed as celebratory soldiers. "I was concerned we were going to ruin [the scene], but I don't think we did," Weiss said of their cameo. 4. Podrick drank after Tyrion said, "You're a virgin" HBO Jaime, Pod, Tyrion, and Brienne played a version of "never have I ever" during the feast where they had to drink if someone else made a correct statement about them. When Tyrion told Brienne, "You're a virgin," the focus was on the knight's reaction, but Podrick also drank. That insinuates that he's never had sex, which further backs up the fan theory that first arose in Season 5 that the reason women like Podrick in the bedroom is because he puts female pleasure before his own. 5. Podrick took two women home from the feast HBO Still, the man who has a way with the ladies was seen leaving the feast with two women in the background of the scene with The Hound and Sansa — including one who went for the Hound first. 6. Arya's line about not wanting to be a "lady" was a Season 1 nod When Arya rejected Gendry's proposal to be the lady to his lord, she said, "that's not me." It's a callback to Season 1, when she said the same line to her father. 7. Arya's "unfinished business" line probably meant killing Cersei Now that the White Walker war is over, Arya seems to have resumed her plan to kill Cersei, one of only two names left on Arya's kill list. (The Mountain is the other.) In one scene, Arya and The Hound rode off to King's Landing, both to deal with "unfinished business." The Hound's is likely that he wants to kill his brother, The Mountain. (He threatened as much when the two last saw each other in Season 7.) Arya's, however, probably means that she's gearing up to take Cersei out once and for all, since The Hound will take care of The Mountain. 8. You could hear the moment Missandei got captured HBO If you watch with subtitles on, you'll notice the moment that Missandei hauntingly shouts "No!" as she's taken by Cersei's forces during the attack on the ship. 9. Tyrion knew about the pregnancy when Euron had only just found out HBO Euron only found out that Cersei was pregnant in Season 8, Episode 4. However, Tyrion has known since Season 7, Episode 7. In Sunday's hour, Tyrion tried to use Cersei's pregnancy as a reason why she should surrender, saying that she could save herself and her baby. As far as Euron knows, this is the first time Cersei's spoken to Tyrion since the pregnancy news was revealed to him, so he's got to be wondering how Tyrion knew. Between that and Jaime coming back to King's Landing, Euron could all too soon find out that he's actually not the baby's father. 10. "The Rains of Castamere" made a re-appearance The melodic tune is known as a Lannister victory song, especially after its clever placement in the Red Wedding. In that infamous scene, the song was used as a musical cue for the army to attack the Starks. The Lannisters planned that ambush, and the song has symbolized Lannister power throughout the series. On Sunday night, it played shortly before Missandei's death, when Cersei chose not to surrender. It also played when Cersei told Euron she was pregnant and that "when the war is won, the lion shall rule the land." (The lion is the Lannister house symbol.) But don't count this as proof that Cersei will win. "The Rains of Castamere" also played during Joffrey's wedding, and we all know how that went for him. 11. Daenerys' green eyes shone brighter than ever HBO The focus on Dany's eyes following Missandei's murder has many fans believing the "green eyes" that Arya will shut forever will actually be Dany's, not Cersei's. Arya could become Queenslayer yet. As this episode proved, you should always keep a close eye on anything you see on screen in Game of Thrones. The night is dark and full of easter eggs.<doc-sep>After the Battle of Winterfell in episode 3, the latest installment of Game of Thrones season 8 had a big act to follow. Directed by David Nutter, it delivered over an hour of Westeros woe and left us with plenty of big questions that the series only has two - oh god what are we going to do with our lives - final episodes to answers. Hopefully it goes without saying from here on out, but here it is anyway: Spoilers spoilers spoilers. More spoilers than George R. R. Martin's Gmail account. Game of Thrones ending | Watch Game of Thrones online | Game of Thrones characters | Game of Thrones merchandise | Game of Thrones recap | Game of Thrones facts | Game of Thrones dragons 1. How did that human barbecue not attract the dragons? I don't mean to be flippant - it was super affecting and everything - but every time I go to the kitchen my dog is right there, watching me like Cersei watches the wine supplies. God forbid I'm actually cooking anything. So injured, hungry dragons - remember all that "whatever they want" snark from Daenerys? - are hanging around Winterfell and the smell of roasting flesh doesn't so much as warrant a flyby? I'm no cryptozoologist, but they'd at least be hanging around the edges hoping to steal a leg or an arm when Dany wasn't looking. 2. Can any of us continue to support Jon Snow after *that* Ghost goodbye? Your furry boi has lost an ear fighting the undead hordes for you and you're just going to give him away to a functional alcoholic and not even pet him goodbye? There are a lot of things that are questionable about Jon Snow in season 8 episode 4 - he can't stand up to Dany, he could be on borrowed time given the fact they everyone wants to remind us he came back from the dead - but this flagrant disregard to the best direwolf in Westeros is the shocking twist that none of us needed. I hope Ghost poops in his armor. 3. What's Arya's plan for Cersei? We know that Cersei is 100% on Arya's shit list, and nothing would make me happier than her singlehandedly saving the day at King's Landing, but narratively it just wouldn't work to have the mini assassin take out the Night King and Cersei. Someone else has to do some of the work, to share the hero spotlight, and that worries the mead right out of me. Arya is heading south with one objective, but it feels very very likely she'll fail. She has to survive though, right? RIGHT? 4. Seriously, how was the Euron Greyjoy ambush a surprise? One of the precious flamey babies is dead and I swear to god it is the fault of everyone aboard the Targaryen cruise ship convoy. How are you just going to sail into enemies waters - knowing they have a fleet of Greyjoy ships - and not expect an enemy attack? But there they all are, holding hands and smiling like they're off for two all-inclusive weeks in the Bahamas. The audacity. I'll accept that the giant dragon harpoons were unexpected (although, girl has already lost one dragon to a massive spear so... dragon armor?) but facing down a fleet should have been top of the to do list. Send a smaller ship to do reconnaissance, get Bran to warg into a bloody seagull, use a damn telescope to see the massive black ships coming. 5. Is Daenerys just super pissed off... or showing signs of the Targaryen madness? It was not a good episode for the mother of dragons. Every big scene seemed design to push her to her breaking point, and the strain showed. The merriment and drinking at the beginning of the episode was just the start, highlighting how few truly dedicated allies she has - and making her look like someone's second wife at their high school reunion - and things got much much worse. She lost Rhaegal the dragon, she lost her beloved Missandei, and she lost - *looks to camera* - a part of Jon after it became clear he couldn't get over the whole aunt thing. Her speeches are becoming more bombastic and her choices more reckless, but it could be more than the pressures of ruling that are breaking her. She is, after all, the daughter of King Aerys II Targaryen, the "Mad King" who became increasingly murderous and insane before Jamie Lannister executed him. Could the madness be Dany's Targaryen inheritance? 6. Will the writers really give us the CleganeBowl we demand? Arya and The Hound's conversation left us in no doubt that both were traveling to King's Landing. Arya to handle Cersei, and The Hound to deal with his brother the Mountain, AKA Gregor Clegane. CleganeBowl is something the fans have demanded ever since The Mountain squished Oberyn's eyes like overripe grapes. But since when have the Game of Thrones writers given us exactly what we wanted? They love to mess with our expectations and surprise us - sometimes in the worst, Red Wedding style ways - so it feels incredibly unlikely they're going to give us the straightforward showdown that we've envisioned in our fevered little brains.<doc-sep>At the end of Game of Thrones season eight, episode four, when Cersei asks Missandei to say her last words, she only has one to offer: “dracarys.” It’s the High Valyrian word for “dragon fire,” and the word Daenerys uses to order her dragons to turn their flames on her enemies. For Missandei, who was freed from slavery when Daenerys ordered her dragons to kill the slavers who held her way back in season three, the word is a symbol of freedom and synonymous with Daenerys’s rule. But for others, that Daenerys has made her rule synonymous with burning people is the biggest problem with it. Much of the episode, titled “The Last of the Starks,” is spent debating whether Daenerys is fit to be queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The Stark kids question whether she’s earned the North’s loyalty and immediately start spreading the truth about Jon’s parentage. In one of the episode’s tensest and most memorable scenes, Varys and Tyrion have a fierce debate over whether to replace her with Jon. Varys’s central argument in that scene, in essence, boils down to this: A woman known for burning her enemies, clearly consumed by rage and passion, isn’t likely to make the wisest or most compassionate judgments. Would a queen whose fiercest followers use “dracarys” as their watchword really care for the ordinary people of the Seven Kingdoms? Varys is right to worry. Game of Thrones seems to be setting up Daenerys for a version of a common real-world problem, one in which successful revolutionaries turn out to be awful leaders. Dany’s “dracarys” problem — or why good revolutionaries can make for bad leaders — explained Earlier in the show, Game of Thrones put in a lot of work setting up parallels between Daenerys’s conquests in Essos and George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Both Daenerys and Bush claimed high moral purpose — abolishing slavery and toppling a dictator, respectively — but were so clueless about the aftermath of their wars in foreign lands that they ended up facing violent and cruel insurgencies (remember the Sons of the Harpy? ). Now Daenerys is back in her native Westeros, leading a faction in a civil war rather than an invasion of a foreign country. She’s a revolutionary, working to overthrow the Lannister dynasty and install a new government — one that is hostile to “tyrants,” as she says this episode — in its place. The problem, though, is that this kind of revolution can often replace old tyrannies with new ones. The classic examples here are 20th-century communist revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro — leaders who seized power in the name of the people but ended up building structures that oppress them. Research by scholars Jeff Colgan and Jessica Weeks suggests that these equally oppressive outcomes are not accidents. Revolutionary leaders are often aggressive, and work to consolidate power for themselves after the revolution. They tend to build what political scientists call “personalist” dictatorships — political systems where ultimate power is concentrated in their hands and their hands alone — and then use that power to repress political opponents and wage war abroad. “The same characteristics that allowed revolutionaries to succeed in their domestic struggle,” Colgan and Weeks write, “also make such leaders more likely to initiate international conflict once they have obtained office.” Daenerys fits this pattern to a tee. A woman whose iron will and ruthlessness allowed her to rise to power on Essos, and to eventually win most of Westeros to her cause, she’s clearly an effective revolutionary. But that same will to power makes her unwilling to share it, and that same ruthlessness makes her willing to go to extreme lengths to punish her enemies. Any innocents who get hurt along the way are just collateral damage. This is clearly the final major conflict the show is setting up. Once Cersei is dispatched with — and, let’s be real, she will be dispatched with — the struggle for the shape of the postwar order will begin. Daenerys is clear on what she wants: a personalist-style system where she is the unquestioned queen. But even her allies are starting to openly wonder whether that would be good for anyone else. “The Last of the Starks” was almost entirely foreshadowing for that ultimate conflict between our heroes, in addition to setup for next week’s battle at King’s Landing. Daenerys’s behavior this episode — her impulsive dragon charge, her desire to burn King’s Landing before her advisers persuade her not to, her pleading with Jon about how the throne is hers and hers alone — sure suggests that she shouldn’t win this final war.<doc-sep>
After all the excitement of last week’s episode, fans shouldn’t get too comfortable, as the fourth instalment in season eight of Game of Thrones just continues to up the tension. There is not settling down or lots of time to recover from the Battle for Winterfell. Instead, everyone says their farewells as Jon, Daenerys, and the rest of the surviving forces march on King’s Landing. It wasn’t all plain sailing for those who defeated the Night King though and there were a few shocks to ensure viewers stayed very much on the edge of their seats. This was also another extra long episode, meaning there was plenty to take in – although you probably already know about that Starbucks coffee cup at this point. For everything else you might have missed in ‘The Last of the Starks‘, read on. Ghost Didn’t Get A Goodbye Hug But May Hint At Jon’s Future Ghost lost a ear in the battle and Jon couldn’t even pet him goodbye, wtf is that?! #gameofthrones pic.twitter.com/dC3CmLTIGf — Ruke Loshaj (@rukeloshaj) May 6, 2019 The Stark children and their direwolves are interwoven so closely that the fates of these canine pets have often shared the fates of their owners. Although they don’t play as big a role in the show as they do in the novels, the direwolves have still proven to be symbolic. Grey Wind died just like Robb, betrayed by his enemies, while Nymeria is free and living in the wild in much the same way as Arya has. The fact that Ghost has been sent North could be an indicator that Jon will eventually return back to the North to live out the rest of his days, having survived the battles that are to come. We just wish that he had been given one last moment with his friend when Jon was saying farewell to everyone. He has been a very good boy these last few years and even lost an ear during the Battle of Winterfell, so deserved a hug as much as Sam or Tormund. King’s Landing Seems To Have had Its Geography Shifted Although Game of Thrones has never been dead set about making sure locations always look exactly the same, the changes that appear to have been made to King’s Landing may have gone too far. As one of the most important locations in the show, the capital has been shown plenty of times. Wide shots have previously shown King’s Landing surrounded on all sides with water and a lush green environment. That wasn’t the case in the latest episode. The city looks as if it is in the middle of a desert, with sand as far as the eye can see. When Daenerys goes to give Cersei a chance to surrender, her army is in a place that looks nothing like anywhere else we have seen in Westeros. Daenerys Has Learned Nothing About Anti-Dragon Warfare It is hard to argue that anyone would know more than Daenerys about dragons. She brought the magical creatures back from extinction and managed to let them grow into huge monsters. However, the Targaryen queen doesn’t seemed to have learned much in the last few years about how her enemies might try to combat these weapons of mass destruction. Rhaegal’s death via a volley of giant crossbow fire shouldn’t come as a surprise to her. The Lannister army previously used the same method to injure Drogon and the Night King shot her other child out of the sky with a javelin. This is a constant weakness that neither Dany or any of her advisors have attempted to deal with. Cersei Looks Pretty Dragon Proof For the last few seasons, most of Daenerys’ advisors have been trying to temper her from flying to King’s Landing and setting fire to the place. While they were doing this out of a fear that it would result in the deaths of lots of innocent civilians, it now looks like that isn’t an option for the Mother of Dragons. Those giant scorpion crossbows that Euron used to kill Rhaegal line the walls of King’s Landing. You’d have to think that an attack with Drogon is out of the question if she wants to keep her last dragon alive. It could very well mean that there will be a lot more of her own forces killed during any future battle.