“We’ll rip her out, root and stem”

If you haven’t watched episode 3 of Season 8 of Game of Thrones on Showmax (episodes land at the same time as the M-Net broadcast, every Monday at 22:00), stop reading right now, and only come back once you’ve sat through the most tense and intense 82 minutes of television you’ll ever see.

*Update: The full boxset of Game of Thrones S1-8 is ready to be binge-watched on Showmax.*

Here come some spoilers.

After defeating the Night King, and suffering immense losses on all sides, the battle-scarred troops in the North – including the Unsullied, Knights of the Vale, Northerners, Dothraki, and, of course, the dragons who survived the Battle of Winterfell – are united in the quest of the remaining Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens, and those loyal to them, to remove Cersei Lannister from the Iron Throne.

At least, that’s judging from what we can see in the preview for episode 4:

• Daenerys celebrates the victory of the armies in the North over the Night King and his White Walkers: “We have won the Great War. Now we will win the Last War.”
• She vows to take down Cersei: “We’ll rip her out, root and stem.”
• Cersei and Euron Greyjoy watch the Ironborn and other troops assemble at King’s Landing with obvious pleasure.
• Daenerys’s dragons are back to fighting form and will be an enormous advantage in the battle for the throne.
• The armies are moving south in force, heading for King’s Landing.

Oh, and, of course, we’re thrilled to see the greatest hero of them all reunited with Gendry. She deserves all the loving in the world right now, let’s be honest.

 

But. We’ve got questions.

• Will Daenerys’s alliance with the North hold, now that she and Jon both know about his true lineage?
• Never mind their political alliance – what about their relationship, now that they know that he’s technically her nephew-boyfriend?
• Do the forces from the North stand a chance against the sheer numbers that Cersei and Euron have assembled, especially after the heavy Dothraki losses in The Long Night, even with Daenerys’s dragons?
• Will the Hound’s resurrected brother the Mountain get his final reckoning in the inevitable showdown between The Cleganes? Or is the Mountain invincible?

The only way we’ll ever get answers is by streaming the remaining three (sob!) episodes of Game of Thrones. Episode 4 lands on Monday, 6 May at 22:00 on Showmax.

Episodes are also available on DStv Now.