TV Review: GAME OF THRONES: Season 8, Episode 6: The Iron Throne & Series Post Mortem Analysis [HBO]

Tyrion and Jon’s Meeting

Why is Jon allowed to meet with Tyrion with no supervision? Why would Daenerys let her former Hand, whose siblings she just murdered, speak alone to the sole person alive with a stronger claim on the Iron Throne than her? These points, coupled with Tyrion’s recent betrayal, make it hard to fathom why Daenerys would let such a meeting take place. Why doesn’t she keep them separated? Why doesn’t she have them eavesdropped on? That is what Lord Varys or Littlefinger would have done. It’s like Daenerys is naive again (circa Season One), has never been betrayed in the past, and has learned nothing from her previous experiences. Daenerys, unlike Bill Compton when he was anointed Vampire King of Louisiana in True Blood, isn’t shrewd or suspicious in this critical moment at the dawn of her reign. Instead, Daenerys is oblivious. This clear and negligent lack of forethought, apprehension, and duplicity, however, are not her fault. It’s the fault of Game of Thrones‘ writers. It’s intentional. They need Daenerys nearly brain-dead in The Iron Throne so they can easily kill her. That is how the meeting between Jon and Tyrion is allowed to take place i.e. let them conspire, let them kill her, and let them get her off the Cyvasse board so we can have our happy ending.

Happy Endings Wrapped in a Bow and Shoved

Brandon Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) being named King of the Six Kingdoms is a bland ending to his storyline. Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) being named Queen of the North is a bland ending to her storyline. Arya Stark going off west of Westeros is a bland ending to her storyline. Ser Brienne of Trath (Gwendoline Christie) and Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman) being named to the King’s Guard is the epitome of vanilla.

These are all feeble, ordinary, and uneventful happy endings and story-line tie-offs wrapped up in a gaudy red bow, effortlessly shoved in the revolted viewer’s direction. I am not saying that some of the aforementioned characters shouldn’t have pleasant resolutions to their story-lines but the conclusions for the aforementioned story-lines are tepid and the antithesis of well-thought-out character arcs.

The Bronn Fiasco and the Death of Game of Thrones

Bronn (Jerome Flynn) being given the entire kingdom of High Garden and being made Master of Coin is the nail in the coffin of the reality formerly set forth in Game of Thrones. A knight who can’t read, write, or multiply is not only put in charge of one of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros but is also in charge of the royal treasury? This one scene ruins the realism and legacy of Game of Thrones. It turns a serious drama into a cartoon. Bronn doesn’t know any mathematics yet he is now the chief financial adviser of the king? It’s like the viewer is watching a jest that turns into a nightmare because everything that the viewer is seeing is real. The conversation in the Small Council about reopening whore houses after just fighting the army of the dead and ninety percent of King’s Landing being burned is real.

This is how David Benioff and D. B. Weiss choose to end Game of Thrones, a seminal drama-adventure TV series. Instead of a finely executed and satisfying ending like Breaking Bad‘s final episode, where everything led up to the events in that episode, all plot holes and flashbacks finally making sense, and everything tied off perfectly on an emotional and narrative high-note, Game of Thrones‘ finale is dyspeptic. It’s anticlimactic in almost every way with its writers picking the dullest way to end each story-line. The viewer is bored watching The Iron Throne because they eventually don’t care what is happening or to whom. For a TV series that started out so profoundly and has been so impactful to the television ecosphere, Game of Thrones goes out like a lack-luster movie-of-the-week with careless plot-lines and vapid characters.

If Benioff and Weiss wanted to end Game of Thrones and its story-lines with finality, they picked absolutely the most abysmal way to go about it. Their mission, however, is a success. They have ended Game of Thrones. They have ensured there will be no Season Nine. They have also ensured something else. Game of Thrones fans will never look upon Benioff and Weiss’ Game of Thrones TV series in the same favorable way again because now they know where everything will end – in ashes.

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