Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4: Arya returns to Winterfell, Daenerys’ dragon wreaks havoc on Lannister army

This is a season of unions and reunions. Arya Stark finally arrives at Winterfell and she did not go to King’s Landing after all. Cersei is safe for now. She gets past the guards and goes directly to the crypts. Sansa comes and they hug, but there is awkwardness. They don’t recognise the person they see before them. This is only a shadow of them. There is affection, but the reserved sort. Sansa takes Arya to Bran and Bran gives the Valyrian steel dagger to Arya. Sansa meanwhile sees the delight in Arya’s eyes as she cradles the dagger in her arms.

Cut to Dragonstone. Jon invites Daenerys to the caves beneath the mountain of dragonglass. There are carvings on the walls made by Children of the Forest and the First Men. One of the carvings show the common enemy: Whitewalkers. Jon uses this to explain to Daenerys how even different races came together to fight the Whitewalkers. So why can’t Starks and Targaryens? Daenerys says she’ll fight for him against the true enemy only when Jon bends the knee. Tyrion Lannister and Varys tell Daenerys the bad news. Daenerys loses patience and angrily says, “Enough with the clever plans.”

In Winterfell, Brienne and Pod are practicing sword fighting, and it is clear that Podrick is no match for Brienne. There is, however, somebody in Winterfell who is. Arya meets Brienne and engages in a duel. It is a nicely choreographed little fight that ends at Arya pointing the dagger at Brienne’s throat. Sansa and Littlefinger are watching. Sansa leaves dejectedly realising that everybody she knows is changed. Actually she herself is far from the snivelling, soft girl that left for King’s Landing. Even though Jon died and came back and fought and killed a Whitewalker, he is the closest to what he was when he left for the Wall.

Cut back to Dragonstone, Theon Greyjoy arrives. Jon holds him by the throat and tells him what he did for Sansa is the only reason he won’t kill him. Talk about getting a grand welcome.

Randyll Tarly tells Jaime that all the gold has safely gone through King’s Landing. But then the inexplicable happens. Daenerys’ Dothraki army arrives. How did it reach so quickly from Dragonstone to somewhere in the Riverlands? The geography in Game of Thrones seems odd at times, and sometimes people seemed to have teleported themselves, but this was odd even for Game of Thrones.

Anyway, the Dothraki army wreaks havoc on the Lannister and Tarly with their horses and curved swords. And if that weren’t enough, Danerys herself arrives on Drogon, and most of the Lannister army is reduced to smouldering heaps of ash. Tyrion, who is watching the massacre from a distance, feels a pang for the Lannister soldiers who are being systematically killed by the Dothraki and Drogon. Bronn fires a huge spear-like arrow in Drogon’s direction. This arrow is like the one that was used to kill Smaug in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. Drogon is hurt, but not dead. As Daenerys is taking the arrow out, Jaime sees a chance and goes to kill either Drogon or Daenerys. Tyrion mutters, “You f***ing idiot” and just before Jaime can use the spear he has, Drogon breathes fire and somebody (my bet is Dickon Tarly) saves Jaime in the nick of time by shoving him into the nearby pond.