Game of Thrones is performing some serious plot acrobatics

A lot happened in "Eastwatch" — but almost none of it made much sense

A still from Eastwatch
(Image credit: Macall B. Polay/courtesy of HBO)

"Eastwatch" felt like Game of Thrones at its old and chatty best. Everyone had a lot to say, especially about their juicy old unmentioned grievances. Don't get me wrong: The big new revelations we got were meaty and fun, too. Jaime's miraculously alive! Cersei is pregnant! Jon is legitimate (and has a better claim to the throne than Dany)! Gendry's back, Jon's a Dragon-whisperer, The Hound made it to Eastwatch and Dickon — poor Dickon — is toast! Even more pleasing, somehow, were the smaller moments that didn't direct you quite so aggressively. Liam Cunningham is so gifted I could watch him natter on about fermented crab forever. (He's so good I can almost — almost — overlook the fact that Theon, who made a big comeback to Dragonstone last week to ask Dany to do something about Yara and Ellaria, was strangely absent this week.)

But this was a charmingly talky episode, largely because long-separated characters are finally back together and everyone is in the mood to revive old wrongs. Cersei seethes over Jaime's message from Olenna. Varys darkly remembers his experience "just following orders" for the Mad King. Arya reminds Sansa of how shallow she used to be. Littlefinger digs up an old bit of Stark drama — a letter she was forced to write her family as a hostage in King's Landing — to foment Arya's distrust of her sister. Davos reminds Tyrion that he burned his son with wildfire. Gendry is so done making armor for the family that killed his father that he walks away mid-project (he also reminds the Brotherhood of how they wronged him). Randyll Tarly uses his last living moments to upbraid Tyrion for killing his father ("also, foreigners stink"). Sam is done with academic conventions, particularly the poop part, which we've seen him deal with in retch-inducing detail. And that remarkable team in Eastwatch almost dissolves into mutual recriminations until Jon — ever the effective diplomat — reminds them that they are on the same side as they are not (at this point in time, and strictly speaking) dead.

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Lili Loofbourow

Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.