This season is all about entering the "endgame" phase of Game of Thrones, yet "The Spoils of War" is the jaw-dropping installment that actually made good on promises that go back to the very finale of season 1. What would happen if the Stark kids ever saw each other again? Not just Jon and Sansa, but all of Eddard and Catelyn's living children meeting eye-to-eye, and broken soul to broken soul? And how would it feel if Daenerys finally lived up to the words "Fire and Blood" by raining holy hell upon the fields of Westeros? On the chilly side is the moment where Arya Stark finally came home to Winterfell. So many times in her life she has been denied the chance at a family reunion. She was mere feet away from Ned Stark when he lost his head, hopelessly running toward the doomed papa when a Night's Watchman named Yoren saved her from inevitable capture; she also just as helplessly ran toward the Red Wedding in a vain dash to save her mother, who she always felt she disappointed, and her beloved older brother; failure came again though when the Hound likewise saved her from certain death by stopping her; and then there was that time where guards just turned her away from the Eyrie, revealing that Lysa Arryn was dead while also unhelpfully excluding the fact that Sansa Stark was a mere mountain's trek away. Showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, who also penned this episode, conjure all these ghostly mischances when Arya on a lone horse, and with her father's haircut, crosses the snowy banks outside of Winterfell. Finally laying eyes on her childhood home as a very hardened adult, Arya fails to experience at all the exhilaration that comes from the end of an epic journey in a Disney movie. Nay, she is closer to Erich Maria Remarque's protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front, who upon returning to his family's house realizes that he now lives "without feelings," which makes him a stranger to the people he once loved. Slowly but surely, the lines of the endgame are taking firmer shape. And it now is becoming clear that Mad Queen Cersei will figure just as prominently in the final battles as the Night King. Seven Hells, maybe they'll team up? As we approach that end, it's clear that "The Spoils of War" is one of the finest hours in Game of Thrones history. I can attest to that since this review is close to tying my longest in its number of words, and this episode is 20 minutes shorter than the one that spawned that ponderous ramble! So the episode ends with the Lannisters enduring a devastating defeat at the hands of simply Daenerys and Drogon. If she unsheathed her other two dragons, she could finish the job in an afternoon. However, she cannot since the rest of the Lannister forces are going to huddle inside King's Landing for dear life. This too, though, is to her advantage. The Lannister forces are shattered as the weather grows gray. If they leave King's Landing, they will surely die in dragon fire. Until then, Daenerys and her army of Dothraki can begin a siege on the outskirts of King's Landing. This in turn gives the Unsullied Army time enough to march from Casterly Rock to the parameter of King's Landing and join in the siege... cutting off the capital from the bread lines it just won in the Battle of Highgarden. And their edible spoils were also spoiled in flames.
