♪ (MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(SOBS)
The beginning of 804 is-- is a chance for...
the characters in the show to say goodbye.
We really want to show...
just how many people fell
defending Winterfell and defending the living.
Thousands of them are-- are on these massive pyres.
The feast scene was a very different tone
than the scene in the first episode of the series.
Everyone's thinking about what they've just seen,
and-- and the people they've lost.
They've just burnt their-- their comrades' bodies,
so it's-- you know, it-- it has that kind of appropriate...
dark, somber beginning.
Dany kind of structures the feast scene, in a way.
I mean, she's really the person whose emotions
and choices are guiding the scene.
And things start to shift a little bit
when Daenerys calls for Gendry
and-- and names him the new Lord of Storm's End.
DAENERYS TARGARYEN: Gendry.
D.B. WEISS:
she's giving people...
permission to-- to celebrate what they've done.
Things start to relax a little bit,
and these people did survive and they-- they won,
and they emerged victorious.
And so what started as a very funereal scene
gradually starts to shift into more of a party atmosphere
as people get drunker and drunker.
That shift does not happen with Daenerys;
she's scarred by the events that just took place,
but she's also very much thinking about...
what Jon Snow told her,
and she's really shaken
when she sees everyone celebrating with him,
and talking about what a mad man and what a king he is
for getting on a dragon.
He has love and respect from these people
that, even with the gesture that she just made,
she can't ever equal.
She realizes that his true identity
is a real threat to her if it comes out.
So, she's in a fairly dark place
and while other people are starting to try to celebrate
their survival and their victory,
Dany's not in a celebratory mood.
WEISS:
with the intention of-- of...
of making this all work out,
and of bringing things back to the way they were before.
DAVID BENIOFF:
and-- and it seems like things are kind of getting back
to where they were, but...
it's almost as if he remembers all of a sudden what she really is.
It's tense for him.
For her, she grew up hearing all these stories
about how their ancestors who were related to each other
were also lovers, and it doesn't seem that strange to her.
For him, it is a strange thing.
Once Dany introduces the idea
that everything can be as it was if...
Jon...
keeps this secret buttoned down and tells no one,
she's introducing a conflict that plays forward.
From his standpoint,
he's already declared his loyalty to her.
He's promised her and he's a man of his word.
But he's also, you know, a family man,
and so, the idea that he wouldn't tell Sansa and Arya
about his true identity, it just seems very wrong to him.
I've never been a Stark.
He thinks he can have it both ways;
that he can tell Arya and Sansa the truth about who he really is,
and he can maintain his loyalty to Dany
and everyone's gonna learn to live together.
I need to tell you something.
WEISS:
comes into contact with this information
seems to understand is how incendiary the information is.
Sansa's left with a very difficult decision,
'cause she promises Jon that she won't tell anyone,
and yet when she's sitting up there on that wall with Tyrion,
she knows...
what will happen if she gives Tyrion this information.
She's a student of Littlefinger,
and she knows how information travels,
and she can think many steps ahead into the game,
the way Littlefinger did,
and know that if she tells Tyrion,
it's almost impossible for Tyrion not to tell Varys,
and if you tell-- I think these are all things that have been occurring to Sansa
between the time we see her get that information
and the time she passes the message on.
Tyrion.
♪ (MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
What if there's someone else?
I think the Jaime/Brienne relationship
has always been fascinating to us,
because they're such dissimilar characters,
and yet there's a real chemistry between them.
Tyrion kind of calls out the elephant in the room
and it manages to drive Brienne out of the room,
and in-- in doing so,
drives Jaime out of the room as well.
Even as drunk as they both are,
it's impossible for them to confront what they're doing
with words, even as they're doing it,
until the very end of the scene.
The vulnerability that they show
runs very counter to who they are as people.
I do believe that when Jaime decides to stay behind with Brienne,
it's a choice that he makes with every intention of...
of seeing it through.
When he hears what Cersei's done...
I think that's the turning point for him.
At that point, Jaime really has to--
has to take a really long, uncomfortable...
look at who he really is.
As much as Jaime cares for Brienne,
and admires her and loves her,
he's got almost an addiction to Cersei that he just can't break.
So, even though he's given a kind of a chance at happiness,
and some kind of different life for himself,
he...
he can't take it.
He can't-- He-- He-- He makes the choice to go back to Cersei.
♪ (MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Part of the story here is that
while we've been concentrating on Winterfell
and the fight against the army of the dead,
Dany's other enemies have not been just sitting still;
they've been planning for-- for the final battle.
We saw in season seven
that Qyburn had invented this giant dragon-killing scorpion
and it didn't quite work.
Qyburn went back to the drawing board
and he made even larger, more powerful scorpions.
Dozens of them are now lining the walls of King's Landing,
and dozens more are mounted on the decks of the Iron Fleet.
While Dany kind of forgot about the Iron fleet
and Euron's forces,
they certainly haven't forgotten about her,
and they're just waiting for her to come back.
By this point, they would have gotten news
that her army's emerged victorious
and were gonna head south,
and so they're just waiting in ambush for her return.
In some ways, the most important thing that happens...
to Daenerys in four,
is the death of her second dragon.
Now she's got one dragon,
and that dragon presumably is just as vulnerable...
as Rhaegal was.
So, there's this-- the mourning of a child,
which is very real to her,
and then their best friend is taken.
Missandei!
Dany knows that once Cersei has Missandei
that she's not going to see Missandei alive again.
-(DOOR OPENS) -(PANTING)
This is a moment for Cersei where she has a chance to...
maybe to flee and get away if she surrenders,
but that's-- I think anyone who knows Cersei
knows she's not gonna make that choice.
Her feeling is, "If I give up the throne, I'm dead,
and so, my only chance now is to win."
And that's what she says to Ned Stark in season one.
When you play the game of thrones you win,
or you die.
Dany is this young queen coming to try to usurp her,
and Cersei's not gonna give up the throne that easily.
She's captured an enemy, and this is how Cersei deals with enemies.
Tyrion's perspective is-- is, you know,
while we have these various wars for supremacy and everything,
let's not forget about the people who are gonna suffer the most from it.
He can envision what will happen to King's Landing
if these two armies clash and dragons are involved,
and it's an obvious catastrophe.
She feels like the odds are actually pretty good
on-- on-- for her at this point,
and she's willing to roll the dice.
(FOOTSTEPS ECHOING)
BENIOFF:
the only good prisoner is a dead prisoner.
(SWORD SWIPES)
WEISS:
where she was...
at the very beginning.
Emotionally, she's alone in the world,
and she can't really trust anybody.
People have underestimated Dany's strength
many times before, and-- and...
no one's really done very well underestimating her strengths.
Unlike then, she's extremely powerful,
and unlike then, she's filled with a rage
that's aimed at one person specifically.
BENIOFF:
in those final moments would be Missandei's final words.
Dracarys is clearly meant for Dani.
Missandei knows that her life is over,
and she is saying, you know, "Light them up."
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪