On Monday night, The Daily Show weighed in on the controversy that brought nerds everywhere to their feet.
Yes, I’m talking about that Starbucks coffee cup that found its way into Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones.
“Last week, people complained that the episode was so dark they couldn’t see anything,” host Trevor Noah explained. “This week, people are complaining that they saw too much.”
In “The Last of the Starks,” the third-to-last episode of the HBO epic’s final season, a Starbucks coffee cup can plainly be seen—in multiple shots—in front of Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) during the Winterfell banquet sequence.
“Oh, shit! Forget the White Walkers, the white gentrifiers are coming!” exclaimed Noah. “Next thing you know, a one-bedroom in Winterfell is like three grand. That’s why there are only three black people on the whole show—we all got priced out!” (The only black female character on the show, Missandei, played by Nathalie Emmanuel, was decapitated during the same episode.)
“But no, I’m going to be honest, I love this so much,” he continued. “I just feel bad for the intern who screwed up, because knowing Game of Thrones, that intern is definitely getting his head chopped off. That’s how it goes.”
HBO released a statement Monday afternoon about the incident confirming it was a screw-up and not some elaborate Easter egg. It read: “The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.”
To make matters worse, Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss made cameo appearances in the very scene with the Starbucks cup.
But Noah wasn’t through. “Also, why do we assume that this is a mistake, huh?” he asked. “Why are people angry? They don’t have Starbucks in Westeros? Oh, you’re telling me you can believe in a world where dragons are real, but a to-go cup is too crazy for you? It’s called the power of imagination.”