It’s over…….waaaaahhhh, sniff!  Lol.  It’s the end of an era, our watch has ended, the lord of light has come for his people, blah, blah, yakkity schmakitty.   On a serious note, I will miss looking forward to Sunday nights for this show.  I already gave my thoughts on how I feel about this season and generally and the high esteem with which I hold the show.  I am eagerly looking forward to reading the last two books and watching the prequel series and I know many others are as well.

I thought the finale was interesting.  I didn’t love it but I definitely didn’t hate it.  The second half of the show reminded me of those high school movies like “Can’t Hardly Wait”, where each main character freezes on screen and a summary of what happened to them is shown over their face.  The difference is, we watched it play out.  There was a lot of walking with nice music playing in the background.

The truth is, I don’t think any ending would have satisfied viewers.  We’ve already talked our hind legs off about how rushed this season felt and how some characters seemed hard done by.  My thoughts are, it is what it is, Dan and Dave are clearly burnt out, the crew needs a looooong vacation, perhaps to the beaches of Naath and the actors need to forge their own non-GOT paths, if that’s even possible.  I already see that Lena Heady (Cercei Lannister) and Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont) are starring in a movie called “The Flood”, to be released shortly and many of us know that Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) is the star of “Dark Phoenix”, to be released on June 7.

So what do I really have to say about this episode?  I’ll start with my favourites and not so favourites, mixed with random thoughts:

1. Fave:  The scene when Tyrion found his brother and sister dead in the rubble.  Powerful and emotional and a little confusing.  I really felt for Ty Ty as he cried.  It was a real sense of hopelessness and regret that he conveyed.  Peter Dinklage is a bawse.  However….I thought the walls of the Red Keep came crashing down on Jaime and Cercei so how did the place still have a roof when Tyrion found them?

2. Fave: The dragon wings behind Dany when she appeared at the top of the steps right before her “dictator” speech.  She had become the dragon and she and Drogon wanted to show you exactly that.  Only the seven know how many times they practiced that very move.

3. Fave:  Tyrion’s pelting ‘way of his Hand of the Queen pin.  Tyrion: “Not tuhday betch!” and Tyrion’s conversation with Jon in the storeroom/prison (guess the actual prisons were burnt).  I kept saying to myself that Jon was literally turning into Ned Stark with his hard clinging to “honour” and “what is right”.  I just wanted to shake him.  At least he woke up when Tyrion mentioned his sisters, geez.

4. Confused:  Exactly how many Dothraki were there?  I thought most of them died in the Battle of Winterfell? Do they clone themselves or something?  I’m also asking the same about the millionty Unsullied who were stamping their spears when Suddenly Cray Cray was giving her victory speech.

5. Fave: The scene between Jon and Dany which resulted in him killing her.  Hands down the best scene in the episode.  We fiiiiinally saw the reason why Melisandre resurrected Jon.  I legit was holding my breath and for a split second I thought it was Dany who had pulled a knife out of her dictator suit and stabbed Jon.  I actually fell on the ground.  Dramatic I know but hey, it happens.  Stellar acting by Kit Harrington and Emilia Clarke.

6. Not so favourite: Why didn’t they show us what happened between Jon killing Dany and him being held in custody by Grey Worm and his peeps?  Why didn’t Bran the Broken just pardon his cousinbrother after Grey Worm and allllllll the Unsullied went to Naath?  Even if Jon still decided to go to the wall, which he probably would have done because that’s his summer home and he would have felt that he needed to atone for killing the woman he loved, he would have been able to live a pretty normal life.  You know, find a woman who was #notDany but was kind of #likeYgritte and not been banished to the wall forever?

7. Fave: Drogon’s reaction to Dany’s death.  So I thought that Jon was as good as dead but I guess Drogon was like, nah, you’re part Targaryen and I ain’t finna waste good fire on you so I’ma just melt this here Iron Throne that corrupted my mama.  When he nudged her body to try to wake her up I wanted to go pet him and offer him a glass of water.  Sigh.

8. Nice, appropriate scene but also upsetting:  Ser Brienne of Tarth, now captain of the Kingsguard, muh girl, you have a heart.  Even if they wrote exactly what she wrote in the white book, most women would’ve added, “He ain’t %$#@”.  “He had a good thing with me and went right back to that ho”.  Good being the bigger person Brienne, that’s why you’re alive and he isn’t.

9. I guess it makes sense but would have felt better if we had more time:  Bran the Broken makes sense for all the reasons given by Prisoner turned Spokesperson Tryion Lannister.  I just felt that we needed a better understanding of Bran’s abilities leading up to this moment so that his response that he basically always knew what was going to happen didn’t make me want to throw something at my tv.

10. Fave:  The Jon and Ghost (with one ear 😦 ) reunion.  I got moist-eyed and tried to hide it from my watching partner but I was so happy to see him finally get the pet he deserved.  Fan service moment for sure .

I’m glad the remaining Stark children (RIP Robb and Rickon) got decent endings.  Their parents would have been proud.  It felt like justice for the deaths of Ned and Catelyn and I was happy with that.  Bronn is a real winner in my books and I like the new small council, although if Bran knows everything, why would he need a Master of Whisperers? I guess he can “see” why, lol.  I felt like I didn’t need to nod to the Lord of the Rings ending with the book that Tyrion was conveniently left out of but I suppose that story was some sort of influence for the writers and if they wanted to pay homage, ok.

Lessons:

– Sometimes you can work really effing hard to help people and “save the world” but you end up getting sent to the proverbial wall (Jon).

– You can work hard all your life but if you let greed take over, your goal may always only be within reach but you’ll never achieve it (Dany).

– History is written from the perspective of those who experienced one side of the story, your contribution may never be acknowledged, so you need to be strong enough to remember what you did and let that satisfy you (Tyrion).

– Hard work, trauma and strife may actually result in a positive ending, you just have to stay the course (and maybe cut or contribute to the cutting of some throats along the way) (Sansa).

Thanks Game of Thrones, it’s been a fun journey.  I’ll miss you.

Next up:  Black Mirror Season 5, yaaaaaaasssssssss.