Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Post - Athens, OH
The independent newspaper covering campus and community since 1911.
The Post

Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow during "The Queen's Justice." (provided via HBO)

TV Review: One queen notches another win, but the other may be in dire need of a good friend from the North on 'Game of Thrones'

She’s got an army of Unsullied, a Dothraki horde, a fleet of ships, the world’s smartest dwarf as her Hand and three fully grown dragons — but things are not going well for Daenerys Targaryen.

The Sunday, July 30 episode of Game of Thrones saw Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) take yet another defeat in her conquest for the Iron Throne.

While Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) and the Unsullied infiltrate the never-seen-before Casterly Rock through its Tyrion-constructed sewers, Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and the Lannister forces took the also-never-seen-before Highgarden. Jaime has a brief heart-to-heart with Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg), before she chugs her final glass of red wine and accepts her death — but not before revealing to Jaime that she was the one responsible for the death of Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), also by poison, in Season 4. Jaime’s obvious shock was all the satisfaction she needed.

The fan-favorite Olenna will be remembered for her audacious wit and quips, particularly her fluid and hilarious destruction of the Sand Snakes.

Speaking of the destruction of the Sand Snakes, Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) assured that, poisoning Tyene (Rosabell Laurenti Sellers) and forcing her mother, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) to watch. With the Sand Snakes finished, Cersei has had her vengeance for the death of her daughter, Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) — and viewers no longer have to deal with the dreadfully written and rightfully derided Dorne storyline.

For the moment, though, Daenerys is in an ugly bind: the Sand Snakes and Olenna are dead; Yara (Gemma Whelan) is a prisoner; and Grey Worm and the Unsullied are trapped in Casterly Rock, since Euron (Pilou Asbæk) and his fleet apparently strapped jet engines on their ships and zoomed from King’s Landing to Casterly Rock — which is on the other side of Westeros, by the way — in the blink of an eye.

Daenerys is in pretty dire need of an ally — perhaps a good-looking, know-nothing bastard.

Daenerys and Jon (Kit Harington) finally made their long-awaited meeting, and it was rather tense. Jon refuses to swear loyalty to her, while she is dubious of his claims about the White Walkers and the army of the dead. Eventually, in a one-on-one with no dwarves or Onion Knights around, Daenerys decides to allow Jon to mine Dragonstone’s dragonglass in order to fight the White Walkers — who she remains skeptical of.

This tension is not the type some viewers wanted.

Guys, she’s his aunt. Just because the old Targaryens did it doesn’t make it OK. Right?

Meanwhile, Sam has apparently cured Jorah of greyscale in one night, Bran is super emo in his reunion with Sansa and Gendry is still rowing, I guess.