Game of Thrones (2019)

Season 8

Director: David Nutter, Miguel Sapochnik, David Benioff, DB Weiss
Starring: Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey
Episodes: 6

Synopsis:
The Night King has breached the Wall and marches his army of the dead south as Danaerys and Jon Snow's forces gather at Winterfell to confront him.

Impressions:
Not having access to HBO, I didn't get to this until well after the storm had passed. I'm pretty sure anyone with even a vague awareness of the series knows how ill-received this season was. Oh, the first couple episodes aren't too bad, but then we get Episode 3 and the Battle of Winterfell and everything falls apart from there. If you're not really thinking about things and you have a short memory, it may not seem that bad, but if you do have your brain turned on and you remember things like overarching themes and character arcs, this is going to sorely disappoint. Ironically, some of the endgame scenario matched my expectations, but the way we get to that point is rather slapdash. I can see a lot of decisions were done for dramatic effect, but you can have drama with good writing, like, you know, the earlier seasons of the series. I don't think there are many fans who would argue that we've been getting diminishing returns as this series has gone on and it seems natural for it all to unravel at the end rather than coming together and delivering a truly satisfying conclusion. We may well never see George RR Martin's vision for the end of the series fully fleshed out, so if the way this plays out doesn't do it for you, you may as well make up something yourself. For a casual viewer, I suppose this is well enough worth a watch, but for someone deeply connected to the characters and the lore, you'd probably do well to pass on it, so in my final judgment, I'm going to split the difference. Take it or leave it.

Rating:
50/50