Game of Thrones returns with more of a whimper than a bang

Like an ex-politician with a hot take on Brexit, Game of Thrones is back. The first episode of this seventh, and penultimate, series – ‘Dragonstone’ – saw the entire ensemble of familiar faces return, as the finely poised situation in the show was laid out for all to see. The first six seasons charted the War of the Five Kings, but now, with the Targaryen heir returned to Westeros, and the White Walkers almost at The Wall, we are heading towards the War of the Two Wars – and ‘Dragonstone’ is the start of an inexorable motion towards the show’s final showdown.

But by Game of Thrones’s own rollicking standards, ‘Dragonstone’ moves at a rather glacial pace. After an extended absence, that’s justified narratively by its need to reorient the viewer to the state of play in Westeros, following the events of ‘The Winds of Winter’, which wiped out a whole chunk of the Game’s remaining competitors.