As we will be doing throughout this final season of Game of Thrones, reviews will contain some spoilers – please note you continue at your own risk.

The defenders of Winterfell find solace in their own various ways as the Stark home hunkers down and prepares to bear the brunt of the initial invasion of the Night King and his host.

If the opening episode was an exercise in a slow burn start, this week’s instalment feels like a long-held breath as the world of men awaits the invasion of the army of the dead. Focusing its action entirely on the Stark ancestral home and the various people within its walls, the episode tells a number of intimate, personal stories of those people as each finds their own way to while away what might well be their last hours in the world.

What’s interesting immediately is that one particular element which promised much last week is so swiftly – almost perfunctorily – dealt with. Subversion of expectations is all the rage in genre these days, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, but oddly in spite of the expectation that may have attached for some (as it did for me) the execution didn’t leave me disappointed. In fact, somehow the way it plays out, despite being completely opposite to what I had expected, feels like the most perfect way it could have done.

The other thing which dominated last week’s episode was the epic battle of the side-eye between Sansa and Dany, the former not all that happy that her brother had bent the knee, the latter not best impressed at the lack of respect she felt she deserved. What we get here makes that relationship even more interesting – these two after all have an awful lot in common, and are facing a battle against a literal apocalypse, so you’d think some common ground could be found for a more productive relationship. Certainly the seeds are there, but as with so many elements of the episode, events overtake them before we can really get a firm answer.

Elsewhere there are all sorts of encounters, exchanges and strange gatherings of the various people who have come together to fight the common enemy. Some of these will surprise, some will be a little uncomfortable for some viewers, but all serve a decent narrative purpose, adding to the feeling of expectation and weight, dragging the tension of the episode and what’s to come out like a guitar string being tightened almost to breaking point.

As last week, there isn’t any action in the traditional sense, nor blood, though I suspect there’s plenty of both to come. What there is, is drama by the bucketload, twists, surprises and revelations and a sense that the fight against the White Walkers might just be the beginning of quite a few people’s problems.

Verdict: Drum tight, playfully subversive and occasionally pushing its luck a little – I suspect one scene in particular is going to get all the wrong kinds of attention – this is Thrones at its absolute best. 9/10

Greg D. Smith