The Last of the Starks

"The Last of the Starks" is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Game of Thrones. It is the seventy-first episode of the series overall. It premiered on May 5, 2019. It was written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and directed by David Nutter.

Plot
The survivors plan their next steps; Cersei makes a power move.

Appearances

 * Main: The Last of the Starks/Appearances

Deaths

 * Rhaegal
 * Missandei

Cast
Starring
 * Peter Dinklage as Lord Tyrion Lannister
 * Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ser Jaime Lannister
 * Lena Headey as Queen Cersei Lannister
 * Emilia Clarke as Queen Daenerys Targaryen
 * Kit Harington as Warden Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen
 * Sophie Turner as Lady Sansa Stark
 * Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
 * Liam Cunningham as Ser Davos Seaworth
 * Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
 * Alfie Allen as Prince Theon Greyjoy
 * Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran Stark
 * Gwendoline Christie as Ser Brienne of Tarth
 * Conleth Hill as Lord Varys
 * John Bradley as Samwell Tarly
 * Hannah Murray as Gilly
 * Rory McCann as Sandor Clegane
 * Jerome Flynn as Bronn
 * Kristofer Hivju as Tormund
 * Joe Dempsie as Lord Gendry Baratheon
 * Jacob Anderson as Commander Grey Worm
 * Iain Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont

Guest Starring
 * Pilou Asbæk as King Euron Greyjoy
 * Anton Lesser as Qyburn
 * Richard Dormer as Lord Beric Dondarrion
 * Ben Crompton as Lord Commander Eddison Tollett
 * Daniel Portman as Podrick Payne
 * Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Ser Gregor Clegane
 * Bella Ramsey as Lady Lyanna Mormont
 * Rupert Vansittart as Lord Yohn Royce
 * Richard Rycroft as Maester Wolkan
 * Staz Nair as Qhono
 * Alice Nokes as Willa
 * Danielle Galligan as Sarra
 * Emer McDaid as Winterfell girl

Uncredited
 * D.B. Weiss as Wildling 1
 * David Benioff as Wildling 2

Cast notes

 * 21 of 21 starring cast members appear in this episode.
 * This episode is the final appearance of starring cast members Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), and Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont) due to the death of their characters.
 * Andrew Burford, Yusuf Chaudhri, Nick Chopping, Rob Hayns, Rowley Irlam, Theo Morton, Jason Oettle, Sam Stefan, Andy Wareham, and Ben Wright were stunt performers in this episode.

General

 * The episode title refers to Arya's statement "We're family. The four of us. The last of the Starks".
 * The fates of a few missing characters from the Battle of Ice and Fire is revealed. Ghost and Rhaegal did in fact survive though injured (Ghost bloodied and missing an ear and Rhaegal with holes in his wing). Yohn Royce also survived.
 * Dragonstone does not appear in the Title sequence despite being a major setting for the episode.
 * Cersei returns in this episode, after being absent for two episodes, as she was last seen in "Winterfell". This is the first and only time her character has been absent for two consecutive episodes.
 * All the cast members whose characters died in the preceding episode return to "play" their corpses during the funeral scene at the beginning of this episode: Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont), Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont), Richard Dormer (Beric Dondarrion), and Ben Crompton (Eddison Tollett).

Callbacks

 * Tyrion convinces Jaime and Brienne to play the drinking game he originated in Season 1's "Baelor", in which you have to take a drink if someone can accurately guess something about you.
 * Jaime mentions the horrible things he has done for Cersei, including pushing a boy out of a window and crippling him for life ("Winter Is Coming") and strangling his own cousin ("A Man Without Honor").

Errors

 * 804 Starbucks Coffee.jpgg the feast scene at Winterfell, a modern Starbucks paper coffee cup is clearly and prominently visible in front of Daenerys. It happens when Tormund is boasting about Jon and how "who most people get bloody murdered, they stay that way".  On the HBO Now streaming service, it is visible in the episode from 17:38 to 17:41.
 * Following his legitimization, Gendry says that he is no longer "Gendry Rivers" - which is wrong on two points. First, he was never an acknowledged bastard, and only acknowledged bastards can even use the special surnames used for bastards of the nobility. Within the TV show, no one ever referred to him as anything other than "Gendry" before. He even points out in dialogue that he didn't even know Robert Baratheon was his father until after Robert died, so Robert could never have legally acknowledged him. Second, "Gendry Rivers" is simply the wrong bastard surname. Bastards from the Riverlands use the surname "Rivers", just as bastards from the North use "Snow". Gendry is from King's Landing, however, and bastards from the Crownlands use the surname "Waters". A simple google search could have revealed this, and the line is apparently in error.
 * The line was so clearly in error that several major foreign language dubs simply refused to accept it. The official German language dub, for example, outright changed the line to "Gendry Waters".
 * The error was particularly obvious on Game of Thrones Wiki itself, where for the past eight TV seasons the administrative staff have habitually had to stop editors from retitling the "Gendry" article to "Gendry Waters" - not "Gendry Rivers". It's a moot point now given that Gendry has officially been renamed "Gendry Baratheon".
 * A possible in-universe explanation is that as a commoner, Gendry himself isn't very familiar with the rules of bastard surnames, and Gendry himself mistakenly told Arya the wrong surname.
 * Jaime states that he strangled Alton Lannister to death with his own hands. This is false; he beat Alton to death, and strangled Torrhen Karstark. Neither kills were strictly speaking "with his own hands", but with his chains.

Winterfell

 * Queen Daenerys Targaryen officially legitimized King Robert Baratheon's bastard son Gendry as "Gendry Baratheon" in this episode, making him the new Lord of Storm's End, and thus the new head of a revived House Baratheon.
 * It is fitting that Davos Seaworth and Brienne of Tarth are the first to toast him as "Gendry Baratheon" and Lord of Storm's End, as both of them are nobles from the Stormlands and started out directly serving Gendry's own uncles in earlier TV seasons (Davos under Stannis, Brienne under Renly).
 * It goes unsaid in the episode that as Robert's son, Gendry actually has some Targaryen blood in him. In the books, Robert's grandmother was a younger Targaryen princess, making him the second cousin of Rhaegar and Daenerys - thus Gendry is Daenerys's second cousin once removed, and Jon Snow's third cousin. The TV continuity might have moved this around a little to make it Robert's mother instead of his grandmother (statements on this have been vague).
 * Gendry does not have a "stronger" claim to the Iron Throne as Robert's son, at least not by inheritance law: Robert was a usurper, and while he used his partial Targaryen descent as a token claim to the throne, he was simply from a younger branch of the family. Of course, a weaker claim to the Iron Throne didn't stop Robert from taking it in the first place.
 * Daenerys raises the question of the current lordship of Storm's End, an issue that has remained largely unresolved in the show until this point. In the novels, the lordship of Storm's End is a lot more clear: After Stannis seizes the castle, he leaves two hundred men to hold it under the command of Ser Gilbert Farring. After Stannis' defeat at the Battle of Blackwater, the garrison continues to hold Storm's End in Stannis' name. In the fourth novel, Storm's End is besieged by a Tyrell force led by Mace and Lord Mathis Rowan. However, Mace soon abandons the siege to return to King's Landing after the arrest of Margaery by the Faith, leaving a token force with Lord Rowan to continue the siege, but the castle continues to support Stannis's claim to the throne. In "Arianne II" sample chapter from the sixth novel, it is reported (but not confirmed) that the Golden Company has taken Storm's End, and Mace Tyrell's army is currently descending on the castle from King's Landing.
 * In the TV show, Storm's End was never depicted on-screen for budgetary reasons in Season 2. It was tacitly assumed that Stannis's forces were holding it "off-screen" since Season 3, and after Stannis died in Season 5, that Tommen was at least the nominal lord of Storm's End through his death at the end of Season 6. After Tommen died, however, it wasn't clear what happened to the title - i.e. if Cersei just claimed it with no right to do so (as she did the Iron Throne) or gave the title to some subordinate.
 * The question of who physically controls Storm's End at this point is of course still unanswered. The TV writers haven't made much attempt to keep track of such things: consider that in Season 7, it was stated that Dragonstone was simply left abandoned after Stannis withdrew to the Wall in Season 5 - when it would be ridiculous for Stannis to not at least leave a skeleton defense force in such a strong fortification (as he did in the novels). Thus, like Dragonstone, the TV writers might just have not thought out who has been holding Storm's End since Season 5 (or even Season 3).
 * While planning the siege of King's Landing, the Riverlands, the Reach, and the Stormlands aren't mentioned at all. It is especially strange that the Stormlands aren't mentioned, especially since Daenerys had just legitimized Gendry and restored House Baratheon.
 * Dialogue states that the Prince of Dorne has declared for Daenerys, indicating either that there are still branches of House Martell alive or that another Dornish house has taken rule of Dorne. At the same time, Daenerys' legitimization and elevation of Gendry indicates that all legitimate branches of House Baratheon are gone.
 * It is mentioned that Yara Greyjoy succeeded in retaking the Iron Islands. She explained in the Season 8 premiere that while she didn't have many forces left, the bulk of Euron's fleet was off in the east at King's Landing, so she could probably retake the isles from the skeleton defense force he left behind.
 * In the books, under different circumstances, Asha (Yara's name in the books) also maintains some hope of retaking the Iron Islands by allying with the Drowned Men, as the priests of the ironborn have come to loathe Euron as an "ungodly" and honorless man (even by ironborn standards), and thus they might be able to rally a general insurrection against him. However, her hopes are shattered after being defeated by Stannis. Asha knows well that the ironborn are not a forgiving people, and she has been defeated twice: once at the kingsmoot, and again at by Stannis - more than enough to stamp her as unfit to rule in the eyes of the ironborn. Moreover, Stannis intends to wed her to one of his subordinates, Ser Justin Massey; being married to a "green land lord" will make her a laughingstock among the ironborn, and totally destroy her political ambitions. Whatever happened in the TV continuity happened off-screen however, without specific details.
 * As Tyrion Lannister points out, according to succession law Bran Stark should by rights be the lord of Winterfell and the North, due to being Eddard Stark's last surviving trueborn son - and as it turns, out, actually his only surviving son, as Jon Snow is really the son of Ned's younger sister Lyanna. Bran is younger than either Sansa or Arya, but they follow male-preference primogeniture. Complicating matters is that as the new Three-eyed raven, Bran doesn't feel he can be lord, and has essentially abdicated (as he said when he returned last season, but repeated here). With Bran abdicating, rule of House Stark would lawfully fall to Sansa, as the elder sister.
 * Bran Stark says that his wheelchair is the same design as one used by "Prince Daeron's nephew, 120 years ago". This was apparently referring to King Daeron II Targaryen, Daeron the Good, who would have been a prince around that time. It is an invention of the TV series, however, that Daeron ever had a nephew who needed a wheelchair. All Targaryen family members are accounted for and none needed a wheelchair - but Daeron II married outside of the family, to Myriah Martell, so it isn't impossible that he could have had a nephew-by-marriage we don't know about.
 * Brienne of Tarth says during the drinking game that she is an only child. This is technically incorrect, as she had two older brothers who died in childhood. She has acknowledged this in the TV continuity before, by phrasing that she is Lord Tarth's only "surviving" child. Due to the high infant mortality rate in Westeros, however, it is not uncommon even in the books for characters to only count surviving children.
 * Jaime and Brienne have sex in this episode: when the scene begins, just before Jaime arrives at the door, note that it starts with the camera pointed at Brienne's sheathed sword - a frequent visual metaphor for sex.
 * Gilly is revealed to be pregnant with Sam's child, confirming rumors that she was pregnant after fans noted that Gilly appeared to be visibly chubbier in the season premiere compared to the previous season. There are actually unconfirmed rumors that actress Hannah Murray is pregnant in real life, but she hasn't wanted to talk about her private life in recent interviews.

Dragonstone and King's Landing

 * Given that the TV show has surpassed the current novels, we don't know if the deaths of Rhaegal and Missandei will happen in future books, or are purely an invention of the TV series. Another scenario is that they will die, but in different circumstances. The answer will, of course, await the next book.
 * There is no Grey Worm and Missandei romance in the books, because she is only ten years old in the novels. The TV show cast an older actress due to the larger dramatic weight needed for a screen role, then decided to turn her relationship with Grey Worm into a romance.
 * Missandei's death means that there is no longer a single non-white female member of the TV show's recurring cast. After Ellaria Sand was sentenced to death in Season 7, Missandei was also the only non-white member of the Starring cast.  Grey Worm, however, was promoted to Starring cast for Season 8 - meaning he is now the only non-white recurring cast member out of the entire large cast of the TV series.  The entire Dorne subplot from the novels has been abandoned, and only a single vague line was given about the current status of Dorne (see above).
 * Tyrion saying the last 20 years of warfare, murder and misery were all because Robert loved a woman that didn't love him back is a vast oversimplification. While Rhaegar's "abduction" of Lyanna might have been a major factor in the outbreak of Robert's Rebellion it was really Aerys' brutal and unjust executions of Rickard and Brandon Stark, along with calling for the heads of Eddard and Robert that started the war.
 * It is impossible that Cersei isn't visibly pregnant by this point, thus insinuating either that Cersei lied to Jamie about being pregnant with his child in order to manipulate him, or lost the child to a miscarriage. The timeline of events the show runners have presented is that Jaime impregnated Cersei before he left King's Landing to attack Highgarden. A generous estimate of travel times from book-Westeros would mean that Cersei has to be at least three or four months pregnant during the Season 8 premiere episode. Furthermore, when factoring in the additional time that Daenerys spent traveling down from Winterfell to Dragonstone, several weeks to a month, Cersei would have to be at least five to six months pregnant by this point, making it physically impossible for her not to be showing by this point. An example of this can be seen with Gilly, who was noted by fans to be visibly pregnant in the premiere episode.
 * When the Targaryen ships are destroyed, the survivors swim their way to the nearby shore of Dragonstone, including Grey Worm, Tyrion, and Varys. Back in Season 2's "The Night Lands", Varys gave his famous remark from the books that in the ruthless intrigues of the royal court, "Storms come and go, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling".  In this episode, therefore, Varys literally kept "paddling" and survived.

In the books
[This section will be updated with comparisons when the sixth and seventh novels are released.]

Memorable quotes
Daenerys Targaryen: "We have won the Great War. Now we will win the last war."

Daenerys: "We'll rip her out root and stem."

Missandei: "Dracarys."