Bringing an end to weeks of pent-up sexual tension and subtle flirting, the love scene between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen in “The Dragon and the Wolf” was a momentous, game-changing moment in a finale full of them.
It’s one that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss analyzed in great detail coming out of Sunday’s season 7 finale, which now holds the record for being the most-watched episode in Thrones‘ decorated history. When accounting for HBO replays and online streaming, total viewership for “The Dragon and the Wolf” peaked at just over 16 million. Although given the network’s flagship series won’t be back on our screens until mid-2019, season 7’s historic figures aren’t all that surprising.
Thankfully, the finale, one directed by Jeremy Podeswa (“Home,” “The Red Woman”), left us with plenty of food for thought, including the incestuous relationship brewing between Jon (AKA Aegon Targaryen) and Dany. While cutting between their steamy boat scene and Winterfell, where the all-seeing Bran Stark dropped the bomb on Samwell Tarly, Sunday’s Game of Thrones finale included a shot of Tyrion looking decidedly anxious as he watches Jon enter Dany’s chambers. And that can be traced back to Tyrion’s strategic thinking, as Jeremy Podeswa tells The New York Times (via Rolling Stone):
From my point of view, Tyrion always seemed three steps ahead. As long as there is a professional alliance between Dany and Jon, that’s something that everybody wants. We can imagine that that’s a helpful alliance. But when things get personal, then people make decisions based on their emotions, and that can complicate matters going forward, so I think he sees the potential here for things to get very messy. Usually, historically, nothing good comes out of relationships becoming more complicated! [Laughs] It’s also a question of what’s going to be his role within this new alliance, right? So there’s a kind of caution here.
Podeswa went on to explain how that facial expression may have been misconstrued as jealousy on Tyrion’s part, who harbors a “huge respect” for the Mother of Dragons while serving as her calculating Hand.
There is something to that. Everyone seems to be in love with Dany, in a way, and I think Tyrion’s a little bit in love with her. But I don’t think it’s an actual romantic love. There’s a huge respect for her, and maybe there’s a slight romantic element to that, but it’s more of a jockeying in terms of who has real power. Not over Dany, but who has power in a relationship with Dany. Jorah [Mormont], who really is in love with her, his relationship with Jon is complicated in a different way. With Tyrion, it’s all about who is going to have sway over her?
Game of Thrones season 7 came to an end on Sunday with the premiere of “The Dragon and the Wolf.” It was a breathless finale for what has been a breathless run of episodes, but given HBO has tentatively slated the eighth and final season for 2019, Thrones fans ought to settle in for the long winter.