Season 8 Episode 6 “The Iron Throne” review – A Feast of Conclusions?

 

Valarr morghulis. Everything needs to come to an end, and so does the greatest series of all time, the popcultural phenomenon to end all popcultural phenomena. Unlike the preceding episodes, this one isn’t exactly subtle or multi-layered about what characters are doing and why they’re doing it; nor does it need to be. Everyone is stating their motivations clearly. Every ambiguity left is deliberate. It’s always thus with endings. We know that Samwise is happy in the Shire. We don’t know whether Frodo will be in Valinor. And so we know that Samwell Tarly has the right job and becomes happy in it. We don’t know whether Arya will ever succeed. And that’s just how it’s meant to be.

Season 8 Episode 5 “The Bells” review – A coinflip

 

Sometimes, everything comes down to a choice. Sometimes, everything comes down to the flip of a coin. As the popular saying goes, each time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin, and the world holds its breath. As Varys says, he’s quite unsure on what side Dany’s will land. From there on out, one metaphysical question, old as human deliberation itself, hovers over everything: Do we possess free will?

Season 8 Episode 4 “The Last of the Starks” review – Castle of Glass

 

Last week, I wrote that it was so hard to assess the impact of the larger plot and themes as long as the show hasn’t finished the story yet, and the same still holds true today. For this reason, I’ll start with a disclaimer: I will try to call out the themes and larger developments as I see them unfolding right now, in the clear possibility that some red herrings will lead me astray. So I’ll not judge next week’s episode on the basis of whether it delivered on my readings of this one, as I hope my readers will not judge this review on the clairvoyance of its predictions.

Season 8 Episode 3 “The Long Night” review – Too big to comprehend

 

I think this is the first time that I’m at a total loss writing one of these reviews. We’re standing here, at what’s likely the apex of a development that speeded past us in the last half decade. If you had told me in 2014 that in 2019, we’d be watching a battle involving thousands of people on both sides, three dragons and a zombie giant IN THE MIDSEASON FINALE OF A TV SHOW, and that we’d complain about how much sense the battle tactics made, I’d have declared you a bit lucid. This a show that couldn’t scrape the money together to show more than two horses and twenty people for the Tourney of the Hand only seven years ago!

Season 8 Episode 2 “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” review: A Storm of Reunions

 

My illustrious co-host Sean T. Collins wrote in his terrific review of the first episode that while all the joy coming from the reunions in the season’s first episode lacked a bit of the bitterness that was the trademark of “Game of Thrones” all the time, ending with the knife-sharp conclusion that “poison helps the sugar go down”. It’s a staple by now to point to George R. R. Martin’s rare statement about the endgame of the series that it would be “bittersweet”. This episode showed how this can look in practice.

Season 8 Episode 1 “Winterfell” review: A Clash of Reunions

 

I’m conflicted about this episode. Really, really conflicted. On the one hand, in about an hour, it presents the culmination of moments that have been set in motion eight years ago, if you’re counting show-time, or even 23 years, if you’re counting book-time. People who haven’t seen each other since the first third of “A Game of Thrones” come back together on screen. In this clash of reunions, the possibilities and limitations of the medium TV all converge into one messy hour of screen time.