The shrugging reaction to the latter death sums up this season's flaws, unfortunately. Season 7 practically made an episodic game out of killing whole Great Families of Westeros, starting from the minute-one assassination of House Frey and climaxing with the demise of the freaking Lord Protector of the Vale. And there's no question that a lot happened in the most recent sequence of episodes – even if a lot of substantive plot stuff seemed largely dedicated to lesser players in the great game. Thrones followed The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men in the grand tradition of TV-drama phenomena that wrap up with two "half-seasons," and it's possible that the elaborate table-setting in season 7 will pay off (immediately and spectacularly) in season 8. Unfair, maybe, to rank the penultimate batch of episodes as a genuine season. Will history be kind to the violent twists that ended Thrones? Ask me again in 10 years. Writing this right now, one day after the series finale, season 8 feels like a monument to flawed ambition and flailing Peak TV decadence, all massive battle scenes and brainless strategy. There’s an odd lack of balance underpinning this last season: Three hours spent on the build-up to the showdown with the Night King, but Daenerys decides to annihilate King’s Landing on what feels like a spur-of-the-moment decision. And the hook-up between Jaime and Brienne felt like a reductive moment for a fascinating double act. The final season of Thrones definitely lost track of too many key characters, banishing Cersei and Sansa to looming-authority C-plots. Then came the scalding of King’s Landing, a major final-act twist that inspired loud debate. First came the battle with the Army of the Dead, a fatality-heavy long night in Winterfell that became immediately infamous for some rather poor lighting decisions. The final six episodes aimed for a double shot of epic-showdown catharsis. Season 5 never quite figured out how to make drama out of bureaucratic stasis, and so every season since has seemed like an eventful counter-reaction. The rest of the season can't compare, unfortunately, the occasional Dragon cameo aside. There's a standout episode here, barely essential but wondrous to behold: The unexpectedly epic "Hardhome," which adapts a distant skirmish from the books into death-metal glory. Years past his prime, poor terrible Stannis tries to do something. In the post-Tywin King's Landing power vacuum, a new strain of religious fundamentalism adds a curious new quirk to Westerosi courtly politics. In positions of authority, Jon and Dany struggle to keep various factions united. Requiring a near-total reboot in the wake of season 4's wondrous calamities, Thrones began its second half with its characters embedded in frustratingly unfantastical perils. Sand Snake jokes aside, a serious scholar could find a lot to praise in the show's least-loved season.
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