Game of Thrones | Season 8 Episode 5 | The Bells

REVIEW

We have reached the penultimate episode of the final season. The series’ grand finale is near. This episode opens with Varys writing letters revealing Jon’s true origin. There follows a cryptic exchange with a young girl, hinting at his attempt to poison Daenerys. With a scene change we again see Varys speaking with Jon on the beach of Dragonstone, trying to convince him to claim his place on the Iron Throne — remarkably incautious behaviour for the man we know as the Spider. We then move to Tyrion, who decides to go and speak with Daenerys: we find her physically worn, her gaze ever more unhinged, strongly reminiscent of Aerys as seen in a flashback. The Imp’s attempts to make the queen see reason fail, and during the night we see Varys escorted by the Unsullied to the beach, before Jon and Daenerys. Tyrion gives Varys a last farewell — perhaps too laconic a farewell — and we watch the Master of Whisperers meet his death proud and faithful to what he always professed. There follows a scene before a lit hearth in which Daenerys gives Grey Worm her last memento of Missandei — the collar she wore as a slave — and he throws it into the fire before leaving the room to Jon. Daenerys confesses to Jon the envy she feels for him, loved by the people, while she can only inspire fear. A moment of passion seems to spark between the two, but it dies out — and she resolves that if fear is all she can inspire, fear it shall be.

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

In the throne room of Dragonstone we see Tyrion try once more to persuade the queen to avoid a bloodbath at King’s Landing, pressing for one final diplomatic attempt. When the queen seems to accept, she says openly that she has no interest in a peaceful path — rather, she means to exploit Cersei’s certain refusal to pin the responsibility for the coming massacre on her. It is the night before the final battle: the Hound and Arya pass through the besieging army to enter the city. Tyrion visits his brother, taken prisoner and chained in a tent. There he decides to free Jaime, asking him to try to convince Cersei to flee with him through a secret passage, hoping for the city’s surrender.

The fateful day arrives and we see the Golden Company deploy outside the walls, facing an entire Dothraki horde and the armies of the north. Then Cersei appears, surveying from the heights of the Red Keep the whole city and the people of King’s Landing being let into the fortress. Euron, at the head of the Iron Fleet, looks around just before the explosive entrance of Daenerys and Drogon. In this episode the scorpions accomplish nothing: within minutes the fleet is utterly annihilated by the dragon’s fury. The same fate then befalls the defences on the walls.

The scene returns to the two armies, arrayed face to face. The silence is broken by a mighty explosion that shatters the walls and routs the company. Drogon and Daenerys have opened the way for their army, which slaughters the few remaining enemy soldiers and pours into the city. Their victory is certain. Despite her elevated position, Cersei seems unaware of the battle’s course, and it is Qyburn who gives her a tragic account of their remaining troops. The few surviving Lannister soldiers face Daenerys’s armies in a city street and, at the sight of Drogon perched on a tower, throw their weapons to the ground in surrender. The voices of common folk, more and more of them, begin calling for surrender. The two queens face each other from afar and at last the city’s bells ring; we see the relieved faces of Tyrion and Jon, glad to have averted the massacre. Daenerys does not look satisfied. She launches Drogon into flight, heading for the Red Keep — but suddenly begins to raze the city with flame, burning alive thousands of fleeing citizens. Grey Worm chooses to follow his queen, attacking the still-disarmed Lannister soldiers. There follow many scenes of violence in the streets, where Unsullied and northern soldiers indiscriminately slaughter women and children, and images of Daenerys literally sweeping the city with dragonfire, detonating even the caches of wildfire.

A stunned Tyrion watches the devastation from a distance while Jon wanders dazed through the streets, rousing himself just in time to save a woman by killing one of his own men. Jaime reaches the hidden beach but is intercepted by Euron, who survived the attack on the fleet and taunts him until they fight. The duel is close, but Jaime prevails — not before being stabbed by Euron, who dies laughing. In the fortress, Sandor convinces Arya not to throw her life away for revenge, and the young Stark departs. Cersei decides to leave the keep to reach safety, escorted by Qyburn, when her party crosses paths with the Hound, who begins fighting his brother — Gregor ignores Qyburn’s orders and kills him. At last comes the long-awaited clash between Gregor and Sandor. The Hound seems to be losing, but achieves his aim with one final sacrifice, hurling himself and his brother from the fortress walls to end together in the flames engulfing the city. Jaime and Cersei find each other and try to escape together through the secret passage Tyrion suggested. They find the way out blocked by rubble and die together, embracing — Cersei begging her brother to protect her, he trying to console her. Arya, meanwhile, makes her way through streets full of smoke, rubble and people fleeing the destructive fury of the mother of dragons, whose fire claims victims even in her own army as it withdraws from the city. The young Stark survives several collapses and tries to help the common folk to safety. Still alive, Arya gazes at the charred corpses and the ruins. Spotting a white horse, she rides off through the now-deserted streets as ash falls like snow from the sky. Over the closing credits we hear a different rendition of “The Rains of Castamere”.

This episode brought several narrative arcs to a close (some long-standing members of the show died) and introduced major developments for the characters still alive: Game of Thrones has become something many did not expect. Daenerys Targaryen gave vent to the worst legacy of her family, burning King’s Landing street by street, roasting tens of thousands of innocents after the battle had already been won. The show and the books foreshadowed this possibility countless times, so it did not exactly come out of nowhere. But Dany’s transformation from saviour to Mad Queen in a handful of episodes was not a good idea. Viewers are left with the impression that the characters and the script were written poorly and in haste — so much so that the series’ most militant fans launched a petition to reshoot the season with new writers.

What do you think? What did you enjoy, and what made you wince? Are there aspects you’d like us to explore further in future articles? Write to us in the comments or on our Facebook page!