Game of Thrones review: Season 7, Episode 1

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 1: Dragonstone. Do not read if you haven't seen the episode.

After more than a year, Game of Thrones has returned and well...it's left us wanting a lot more.

Both in the sense that it was a tiny bit underwhelming but also in that it set so much up we're now just waiting for the payoff, but here's where we're at so far.

Arya:

Arya kicked things off in the most spectacular ways proving to us all that a) she is not to messed with and b) everyone needs to get ready for a hearty serving of just desserts.

After killing Walder Frey, Arya put on his face and called a house meeting at which she made a speech about the awfulness that was the Red Wedding before poisoning them all, wiping out the whole house in one go: "Tell them Winter came for House Frey".

She then moved south, on her way to tick Cersei off her kill list - but not before she ran into a band of soldiers who were inexplicably joined by Ed Sheeran, who was inexplicably singing. Nonsense.

The north:

In the north, Jon and Sansa are at odds over how to rule and Littlefinger looks set to exploit the difference and turn Sansa on her brother, but what he didn't bank on was the return of Sassy Sansa.

He asks: "What do you want that you do not have?" To which she replies: "At the moment? Peace and quiet."

Speaking of slaying, looks like Sansa may level up in her badassery as the lords of the North have all voted for gender equality and women will now be trained to fight as well as men.

As Lyanna "The Childlike Empress" Mormont puts it: "I don't plan on knitting by the fire while other men die for me".

Seriously someone just make her the queen already and be done with it.

King's Landing:

That said, the current queen ain't so bad. Cersei is ready to start offing people's heads as she and Jaime search for allies and a plan now that she's killed everyone and is surrounded by enemies.

She's invited Euron Greyjoy to King's Landing, apparently to offer him an alliance by way of marriage, but not before she gets something else out of him. When he offers marriage, she declines, prompting him to promise her an invaluable gift - presumably, exactly what she was hoping for.

On the road:

The Hound is travelling with Beric Dondarrion wondering - like the rest of us - what makes him a power player in all of this. In answer, the crew show The Hound a vision of the future in the fire which seems to be of the White Walkers advancing on The Wall.

So perhaps the Hound has a part to play in all this too? Also, all of this took place at the house of a family the Hound left to die several seasons ago, and he buries their corpses in - perhaps - a show of newfound compassion? Either way, he seems to have just joined the Game of Thrones.

The Citadel:

Sam is basically the Citadel intern - fetching drinks, cleaning bedpans and stacking shelves. But he does make two major discoveries, one of which, by stealing his way into the restricted section of the library (He's the Hermione of Game of Thrones, am I right?).

He discovered there's a massive supply of dragon glass buried at Dragonstone which he rushes to inform Jon of, and also he comes across Ser Jorah Mormont, locked away with his Greyscale asking only one question: "Has she come yet? The dragon queen?"

Which leads us to:

Daenerys:

Team Dany has just pulled into Dragonstone (where, presumably, she and Jon will meet when he goes for the dragon glass).

This was possibly the most disappointing part though because they arrived, spent a lot of time slowly walking around looking at things without a word and then, right at the end, she got to the war planning table and announced: "Shall we begin?"

So basically:

All the women of Thrones are still badass as hell, all the pieces are in place and the wheels are in motion but nothing actually happened.

Which means next week's episode must be where everything kicks off and we are so ready for it.

* Game of Thrones airs 1pm and again at 8.30pm on Mondays on SoHo, and is available on NEON.