![gay of thrones season 7 episode 2 gay of thrones season 7 episode 2](http://assets.viewers-guide.hbo.com/small5339b7c747b2c@2x.jpg)
Bronn may enjoy being addressed as a lord, but he has no understanding of the responsibility that entails, which is why he happily fights for coin and women, whereas Jaime would charge a fire-breathing dragon if he thought it might protect those he loved. It’s a limited perspective from a limited man, but it’s not tossed off as a comic observation, as the rest of the episode goes on to demonstrate all the many other things a person can and will fight for. It’s telling that the episode opens with Bronn (Jerome Flynn), staring over the walls of King’s Landing at the assembled phalanx of Unsullied, questioning why the “cockless” would go to war since they can’t have families and therefore have nothing to spend their gold on. Theon’s redemption speaks to the main theme of “The Dragon and the Wolf”: the essence of what we fight for. And while sad-sack Theon doesn’t face down Euron, he does win back his authority and sail off to rescue his sister largely because he has no balls. Jaime doesn’t have to be a Queenslayer, but he does (technically treasonously) abandon Cersei after being shamed by Brienne (“Fuck loyalty,” says Westeros’s most loyal knight). Sandor doesn’t fight his brother, Gregor (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), but he does stare directly into the man’s red eyes and reminds him of their unfinished business. Violence is teased, but tantalizingly withheld, thereby setting a clear endgame for the final season. The events that occur in and around the Dragonpit are just as inevitable as those in Winterfell and the Wall, but they’re less predictable. Even the consummation of Daenerys and Jon’s love feels as obligatory as the tasteful staging of the scene, which suggests a means of not overly complicating the act in the rear view when both of them eventually learn that they’re related. But Littlefinger’s death, the revelation of Jon’s parentage, and the breach of the wall have been so long in coming that they don’t carry nearly as much dramatic weight as they should. It’s satisfying to watch Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) carry out the judgment of her sister, Sansa (Sophie Turner), and horrifying to see the Night King’s army use their newly converted, blue-fire-breathing zombie dragon to tear down the Wall, leaving the fates of Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) and Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) left uncertain.
![gay of thrones season 7 episode 2 gay of thrones season 7 episode 2](https://imgix.gizmodo.com.au/content/uploads/sites/2/2017/07/2017-07-24_152917.jpg)
Less refreshing, just about everything that occurs in the North is a wooden confirmation of things viewers already know, from the obvious (and largely pointless) treachery of Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen), to Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and Samwell Tarly (John Bradley-West) confirming that Jon Snow is actually Aegon Targaryen, Daenerys’s nephew. With the exception of the moment that Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann) rolls a wight out of its makeshift prison, the entire sequence is notable for how it sees the episode zigging away from the spectacle that has increasingly defined this season and toward the show’s once-stubborn obsession with the art of diplomacy. Meanwhile, the dishonored Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), unsurprisingly, finds it difficult to make eye contact with Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie). Jon Snow (Kit Harington) warily assesses Cersei while Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk) violently dismisses his nephew, Theon (Alfie Allen). At the start of “The Dragon and the Wolf,” the season-seven finale of Game of Thrones, the lengthy Dragonpit meeting between Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and their respective alliances reestablishes relationships and reminds us of long-simmering feuds with nothing more than a few brief conversations and glances.