Spoilers for Game of Thrones’ Season 8 premiere continue below! Be sure to check out IGN’s review and watch our post-show breakdown, Dragons on the Wall.
Game of Thrones’ final season premiere just aired, and it’s fitting that the episode had so many parallels to the series premiere that aired way back in 2011.
HBO was open from the get-go that this episode was going to have a lot of callbacks and references to the Season 1 pilot, even teasing some of them in the trailer for the new season. But seeing all those moments play out on the small screen still made us emotional when it came time to think about how far the Starks have come in the past eight seasons.
Click through the below slideshow or read through the list to see all the references, callbacks and comparisons and we caught from Season 1 and beyond! We’ll be updating this as more callbacks are spotted, so feel free to note any we missed upon first viewing of the episode in the comments below!
A BETTER VIEW
The reason Arya smiles at the little boy pushing through the crowd and climbing the tree is to try to see the procession of Daenerys Targaryen is because she did the same thing to try to see King Robert’s procession in the Season 1 premiere.
CHILLY RECEPTION
The Starks lining up to greet Daenerys intentionally mirrors the Starks lining up to greet Robert Baratheon.
THERE, NOW YOU KNOW SOMETHING
Robert Baratheon asked Ned Stark to be his Hand of the King down in the crypts near Lyanna Stark’s statue, which is the same place where Samwell Tarly told Jon Snow about his true lineage and that he’s actually Aegon Targaryen.
AN OLD FRIEND
The end of the episode, when Jaime Lannister shows up to Winterfell and sees Bran Stark in the courtyard, is a very pointed callback to the end of the Season 1 pilot, when Jaime pushed Bran out the window after he caught Jaime and Cersei having sex. Jaime was the “old friend” he told Sam he was waiting for.
“ONCE OR TWICE”
Jon Snow gave Arya Stark Needle way back in Season 1, episode 2, and their reunion in the Season 8 premiere mirrored that scene in many ways. “Have you ever used it?” Jon asked, looking at Needle again after so long. “Once or twice,” Arya smirked.
HELLO GOODBYE
When Jon Snow said goodbye to a comatose Bran in Season 1, episode 2, he did so by kissing him on the forehead. That’s the same way he greets him upon their reunion in Season 8’s premiere. Truth be told, while Bran isn’t comatose anymore, he was still just about as unresponsive to his brother Jon’s embrace given his “sight beyond sight” condition.
BARATHEON BASTARD
Gendry’s fan-favorite scene in Season 3, episode 5 when he calls Arya “my lady” gets a callback when he refers to her the same way upon their Season 8 reunion.
“WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT THAT CAVE”
When Jon Snow takes Daenerys off to a snowy waterfall to presumably have some sexy times, it’s a reference to Jon and Ygritte’s cave (used for the same purposes) back in Season 3, episode 5. Daenerys even says a similar comment to one Ygritte did about never wanting to leave. “We could stay a thousand years,” she said. “No one will ever find us.”
SPEAKING OF CAVES…
When Gendry arrives in Winterfell he’s gets right to crafting weapons made of dragonglass. He unloads wagons of the stuff…all harvested from the caves underneath Dragonstone seen back in Season 7.
A CLOSED DOOR IN A WHORE HOUSE
In the pilot episode, Tyrion famously cavorted in a Winterfell-adjacent brothel, only to be briefly interrupted by his brother Jaime. In the Season 8 premiere, it’s Bronn who’s with the sex workers, and interrupted by Qyburn. Who does what? Instructs him to go kill Tyrion and Jaime.
FAMILY FEUD
The crossbow Cersei instructs Bronn to use to kill Tyrion and Jaime is the same one that Tyrion used to kill their father Tywin Lannister back in Season 4, episode 10.
MY TWO DADS: PART 2
With Cersei now determined to kill Jaime, she’s going to need a new King Robert. Not just as a spouse, but as someone who’ll yet again think he’s the father of Cersei and Jaime’s child. Like Robert (half) thought with Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen. So Cersei allowing Euron Greyjoy into her bed this week, and him not knowing she was already with child, was a calculated move.
What were your favorite callbacks in this episode? Let us know in the comments!
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