Game of Thrones, Season 8 Episode 6, “The Iron Throne”

“The Iron Throne” should have been a great series finale. It’s rife with callbacks to earlier parts of the series, and provides us with the satisfaction of seeing the Starks -- long the representatives of all that is just and fair in Westeros -- firmly in positions of power, settling the question of who will rule Westeros, and thus correcting the unconventional story turns of Ned’s beheading and the Red Wedding. However, most of what might be satisfying about these resolutions is thoroughly undermined by the path showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss took to arrive at them.

Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5, “The Bells”

“Let it be fear.” These are Daenerys’s words to Jon after Jon can’t bring himself to return Daenerys’s affections early in the episode, and they are supposed to signal a sea change in her rule of Westeros: if she can’t win their love, then she’ll rule by fear. Much later in “The Bells,” Dany acts on this threat, using Drogon to raze King’s Landing and destroy much of the Red Keep, slaughtering Lannister soldier and innocent Westerosi civilians indiscriminately, despite the Lannister forces and the citizens of King’s Landing ringing the city’s bells midway through the battle to signal their surrender. Dany spares no one, and in doing so, has seemingly become the exact kind of terrible tyrant she always claimed to be fighting to eliminate from the world.

Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 4, “The Last of the Starks”

After “The Long Night,” a lot of critics complained that the stakes of the battle seemed artificial, and the battle itself anti-climactic, partly because no major and/or beloved characters died. I disagreed, and instead found “The Long Night” quite stirring, but the first scene of “The Last of the Starks” made me question my contentment with the outcome of last week’s episode. Jon gives what is meant to be a powerful speech honoring those who died, but all I could think about was how much more powerful it would be if he were eulogizing Tyrion, Brienne, or Jaime, or if not them, then perhaps even more minor characters, like Sam, Gendry, or Tormund. Perhaps it might have been more powerful had Missandei been lighting Grey Worm’s pyre, or vice versa. As it is, however, I found the funeral scene underwhelming because we weren’t terribly attached to most of these characters.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 3, “The Long Night”

By taking place entirely in one location and focusing on one large-scale conflict, “The Long Night,” like season two’s “Blackwater” and season four’s “The Watchers on the Wall” before it, presents some interesting storytelling challenges: how do you pace what is essentially one long battle? How do you portray its many different dimensions – its epic scope, but also its quiet, intimate moments? How do you convey the mélange of emotions its characters experience – despair, terror, defiance, grief, rage, exhaustion, triumph – and make them all contribute to the overall arc of the episode (and without making the episode seem choppy or incoherent)? “The Long Night” presents a particular challenge in that it’s 82 minutes long, essentially the length of a short feature film. However, the episode turns this long runtime into an advantage, allowing different aspects of the battle room to breathe, and creating some absolutely stunning imagery and moments of high suspense in the process, all while resolving one of the series longest-running plotlines.

Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”

Last week I found the season premiere, “Winterfell,” underwhelming. Consisting almost entirely of reunions and introductions between characters that have spent a long time apart, the only substantial plot development involved Sam telling Jon about his true parentage. Other critics described it glowingly as an episode about the calm before the storm, but on the whole, I thought the episode seemed like an extended bout of fan service. So why, then, is “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” which also has its fair share of reunions and introductions, and which also features very few plot developments, a much more substantive and satisfying episode?

Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 1, “Winterfell”

For all the hype leading up to this final, abbreviated season of Game of Thrones, “Winterfell” is largely a subdued, piece-moving episode, consisting almost entirely of reunions and introductions between characters as they gather at Winterfell in preparation for the Night King’s invasion. These reunions and introductions are like an extension of the armistice summit from last season’s finale, extended to the characters who were absent from it, namely Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Sam. Now that all almost all of the major and minor characters are concentrated in Winterfell (aside from the handful remaining in King’s Landing), such reunions and introductions were inevitable, and it seems like showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss just decided to get almost all of them out of the way in "Winterfell" to pave the way for what will hopefully be more propulsive subsequent episodes.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 7, “The Dragon and the Wolf”

After all of the problems with story logic and character behavior in last week’s episode, “The Dragon and the Wolf” is for the most part a pleasant return to form: a series of satisfying narrative turns and excellent scenes, many of which are in competition for the strongest of the episode. It doesn’t completely justify all of the nonsense parts of “Beyond the Wall,” but it reveals the problems of that episode to be mere hiccups rather than fatal flaws. Add to that the resolution of one prominent plotline, and the laying out of a clear path for the final six episodes, and “The Dragon and the Wolf” is largely an excellent season finale.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 6, “Beyond the Wall”

There’s a lot to enjoy about “Beyond the Wall,” including another fight involving dragons, suspenseful action, some nice character interactions, and more terrifying developments with the Night King. However, as fun as these things are there’s also a lot to bemoan about this episode, which suffers from some plot developments that reveal the machinations of previous episodes to be mere delaying tactics, as well as really clunky and poorly motivated interactions between characters in Winterfell.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 5, "Eastwatch"

After last week’s thrills, this week features another piece-moving episode. Unsurprisingly, Jaime survives his plunge into the lake, but I was disappointed to find him escaping capture by the Dothraki, as I thought it would deprive us of the Lannister reunion I had hoped for. Thankfully, we still get that reunion later in the episode, just under different circumstances. And considering what Daenerys decides to do with her prisoners, it’s ultimately a good thing.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 4, “The Spoils of War”

Well, what a marvelous twenty minutes of television the end of this episode is! After three episodes of Daenerys and company twiddling their thumbs at Dragonstone, slowly bleeding allies and resources in a failed war of attrition, Daenerys finally takes to heart Olenna’s parting advice about being a dragon, and strikes at Cersei’s forces in a thrilling and fulfilling twenty-minute battle. This scene is extraordinary, featuring everything I want out of a large-scale confrontation involving dragons and important characters on both sides of the conflict. Its combination of epic scope and riveting character moments is Game of Thrones at its absolute best, offering up grandeur, majesty, suspense, and surprise unparalleled elsewhere on television.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 3, “The Queen’s Justice”

Rest in peace Olenna Tyrell. Your frankness and wit made you a fan favorite, and you died as you lived, speaking truth to power. Her scene with Jaime, and the warfare that led to it, are the highlights of an otherwise slow, piece-moving episode. With nothing left to lose, Olenna gleefully reveals to Jaime what we’ve long known -- that it was she who orchestrated Joffrey’s assassination -- souring Jaime’s victory at Highgarden. Before she goes, Olenna also probes the dynamic between Cersei and Jaime, and the potential conflict simmering between them. Jaime might love Cersei, but there has been tension between them ever since Cersei took out her rivals at the end of last season. He’s questioned her decision making, and has looked on wearily as she’s made her alliances, even if he presents himself to everyone else as unwavering in his devotion. Jaime’s love for Cersei is his Achilles heel. Shrewd until her last moments, Olenna likely senses this, and feeds the voices in the back of Jaime’s head: she’s a monster and will kill him too, eventually. 

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 2, “Stormborn”

“Stormborn” begins, appropriately enough, with Daenerys and company observing a storm on the Narrow Sea. Dany has two scenes in this episode, and each check important boxes that smooth the way for subsequent action. The first important task is to shore up Varys’s loyalty. Their confrontation here is a product of good writing. One of the reasons we like Dany so much -- aside from her dragons, her empowerment, her being fireproof, her humanitarianism, and her rags-to-riches underdog story -- is that she’s smart (for a Game of Thrones leader). She’s cautious and savvy, listens to advice, and routinely ferrets out and counteracts the plans of those who would do her harm. So considering Varys's past, of course she would be suspicious of his loyalty rather than just blindly accept the alliances he arranged with Dorne and Highgarden.

Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 1, “Dragonstone”

“Shall we begin?”

Daenerys’s question at the end of the first episode of this season of Game of Thrones is an apt one, as last season made it clear that we are now beginning the end game for this series, the broad outlines of which seem more or less clear: Daenerys and Cersei will go to war; Daenerys will likely win (as Jaime speculates); Daenerys will then ally with Jon and Sansa, and all of our remaining protagonists will focus their efforts on defeating the Night King and his army of undead. The order of events might change, and there might be a few surprises along the way, but this seems like the shape of what's to come, more or less, in the wake of Cersei eliminating all of her rivals in King’s Landing last season. The fun of it will be in seeing just how (or if) all of this comes to pass. So yes, Dany, let us begin.