For the "Game of Thrones" fans out there who thought this season's shock and awe would culminate with the "heroic" death of beloved Ned Stark (and departure of equally well-liked actor Sean Bean, for that matter), you might be rethinking that stance after watching Sunday night's epic season finale.
For those who haven't yet watched "Fire and Blood" (or read George R.R. Martin's brilliant books on which the series is based), do not read any further. Major spoilers ahead!
Once again, there was a lot going on in the episode, too much to address fully with one story. But the big reveal of the evening was all about that final scene with Daenerys Targaryen and the fiery reveal of her "children," i.e. three baby dragons.
Talk about cliffhangers. So now what? What can fans expect in the future from Dany and the three future fire-breathers? MTV News asked actress Emilia Clarke for some inside scoop on what she knows about what will happen next for her character.
"I have had a dialogue with George [R.R. Martin], so kind of all of the things that I've been inquisitive about he's sort of answered in a way," Clarke said of having already gleaned a lot of top-secret info from her character's creator. "There's this wicked thing that he kind of hinted about," she teased, stopping herself short from revealing too much. "Just the stuff that he's saying, it just goes from awesome to awesome," Clarke said about Dany's future. "It doesn't get bad with her. It just gets so much better, so much more exciting."
With regard to the dragons, Clarke reflected back on how that story line is expertly teased throughout the season, ahead of the finale's big reveal.
"You see the relationship that Dany has with her eggs, and you see that grow and grow and grow and kind of the intuitive connection she has with them, you see that develop really beautifully," she explained. "And then the end is the end," she said with a knowing smile, speaking to that crazy final shot of her with her dragons, surrounded by flame. "That [was] pretty awesome too."
Clarke added that she hopes the second season will be equally awesome as the first. "I get to play with some more dragons!" she said.