*SPOILER ALERT*

The television phenomenon, “Game of Thrones,” has returned to the small screen for the next six weeks. On Sunday, the show’s eighth and final season premiered, setting the tone for the final chess pieces to be played.

Last season left off at a cliffhanger with the White Walker army taking down the Wall that separated Westeros from the outside. It was an intense scene for the mythology of the show. For the first few seasons, all the characters were separated across different lands and locations and now they are coming together. Last seasons’ cliffhanger and this new episode are representative of that.

[media-credit name=”Helen Sloan/HBO” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]“Game of Thrones,” especially in the earlier seasons, has always had a magical power in setting up the plotlines of the show with the pace of reading a book, page by page. Every plot line gets its fair amount of attention and this episode was no exception. The primary goals of this episode were clear- to set up the storyline for the future, but that is not to say the episode was not entertaining.

The show has become known for its high production quality and stunning visuals, but those shots don’t come without a price tag. Each of the final six episodes of the show cost about $15 million to produce, according to “Variety.”

This season began with the arrival of Daenerys Targaryen, The Dragon Queen, and the return of Jon Snow, King of the North, to Winterfell to fight the inevitable war with the White Walkers. The pair have recently struck up a relationship despite their blood relations, but they haven’t learned that important bit of information yet. This arrival proved to be a tense situation for the people of the North. Not everyone is as happy as Jon Snow is to have Daenerys around.

Later on in the episode, Samwell Tarly arrives in the North to talk to Jon about something. Sam tells Jon that he is actually the true heir to the iron throne, not Daenerys. And that he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, not the parents he originally thought he had.

As the episode is ending, everyone is arriving in the North to fight the White Walkers including the rest of the Starks, as well as some of the Lannisters. This poses an interesting dynamic with Bran Stark and Jaime Lannister seeing each other for the first time since the first episode of the first season when the later pushed the former out of a window.

The slower pace of the show, with its language-focused scenes, make these moments like Bran seeing Jaime or Jon finding out about his parents, all the more exciting. This is what makes the show so great to watch. The creators certainly know how to create tension and keep their audience on the edge of their seats.

There is still much left to discover about the world of Westeros and with so little time left. But through this premiere, we have come one step closer to finding out who will end up sitting on the Iron Throne. Will it be Jon Snow? Daenerys? Cersei Lannister? Or someone else?

“Game of Thrones” has become the world’s biggest show since its premiere in 2011. With the premiere of this season, all eyes are on the cast and crew to see what is going to come out of the final episodes of one of the most important shows of the last decade.