Hello everyone and welcome to TV Tuesday. On this fine Tuesday I will talking all about the eighth and final season of Games of Thrones.

This final season was good, I didn’t hate it, as I was afraid I wasn’t going to like it because I’d heard it wasn’t that great, but I think this really took characters to places they weren’t willing to go until they had no choice.

The season opens with Dany and Jon coming to Winterfell. Seeing Jon reunite with his siblings was so heartfelt, especially Jon and Aria, uh I love those two, I love their bond.

All the characters reuniting in the first episode where just really nice and done well, it wasn’t like boom, boom, boom, they eased us in. Seeing Sansa see Tyron, Aria and the Hound, and Jaime arriving in Winterfell to see Bran for the first time since he pushed him out the window in season one. I didn’t realize it had been that long since those two met. Of course Bran is all wise and forgiving so when Jaime goes to apologize for it all.

It’s funny to see a lot of the characters who have never seen a dragon before, see a dragon. The amazement, fear and wonder.

Then we get the great scene where Jon rides a dragon for the first time. Not only is it beautifully shot, but Jon is hilarious in going about it “where do I hold on?” Dany “wherever you can” and he just grabs everything, ha!

I also really like Dany and Jon together… too bad they’re freakin’ related.

The Dead are coming and Winterfell needs to create an army to fight them off.

Watching Sansa and Dany interact is icy; they do not like each other and when Jon goes to her to ask her to bend the knee to her, Sansa refuses. There is so much that the other doesn’t know, all Sansa knows is Dany’s father, the last king of the seven kingdoms was horrible so she doesn’t think his daughter will be any better. What Sansa doesn’t know is that she’s different, and even though Jon tries to tell her that, Sansa just sees a man in love, she doesn’t see her brother who he’s impartial to.

And the Dead aren’t the only thing that they have to defeat. There is also the question, who is going to end up on the Iron Throne? Dany or Cersei?

Speaking of Cersei, I like that we get to see her, she got everything she wanted, Queen of King’s Landing, but she has no one around her as everyone has gone to fight off the Dead… even her brother Jaime.

When he arrives in Winterfell he has to stand before Dany and Sansa to prove himself worthy of fighting for them in the battle of the Dead. Of course Tyron speaks on his behalf but it’s not enough; it’s when Brienne speaks for him, which I SO knew she was going to do, and I kinda loved (before what he did later on) that Sansa agrees for him to fight for them. Sansa’s loyalty to Brienne is unbreakable and this decision doesn’t bode well with Dany.

Then Theon comes back to Winterfell because he wants to fight and to come back to his family. Sansa welcomes him back with open arms and again, I loved that, especially after everything Theon has been through.

His uncle Euron though, is team Cersei and goes to be with her and he just screams evil so I’m not surprised by that.

SAM, I love Sam, but it’s Bran who tells Sam it’s time to tell Jon the truth about his parentage. What I like about this is that Sam tells him and even though it’s told many times throughout the season, we don’t actually hear it again. There is so much showing and not telling and implying that it doesn’t feel like we’re being hit over the head with it.

So, this now means that because of who his father is, Dany’s brother, he’s the rightful heir to the throne, but Jon doesn’t want to be the king and when he tells Dany as much, she begs him not to tell anyone and to bend the knee to her as their rightful queen. You know that Jon can’t keep that to himself. That secret gets out real fast.

I thought it was interesting that the show chose to give Arya a love interest in Gendry. They are very cute to together and they have great chemistry, but it just felt like it came out of left field. I thought her wanting to know what sex felt like before she might die in this battle was something we could do without, but it also feels very on brand for Game of Thrones.

I enjoyed seeing Tyron and Jaime getting along together, there’s a lot of history between those two and seeing them work together and their arc this season was just truly heartwarming.

I can’t not talk about Brienne being knighted. The moment when everyone in the room agrees she should be a knight; she deserves to be a knight – but Brienne laughs it off because she knows she can’t be one because she’s a woman. I love that they’re like, yeah says who, you deserve it, let’s make you a knight. The emotions are so real, and then on top of it Jaime knights her it just felt like it all came together and I just loved that entire scene.

At the end of the second episode we can see that the Dead are arriving, which then leads into the third and longest episode, the battle of the Dead.

First off, I enjoyed the battle it was really well filmed and pulled off; it always amazes me how much work goes into this show and seeing everything that went into this episode alone was just amazing. But sadly, I still thought this episode dragged a bit because it’s one long scene of battle, in the dark where you can barely see anything and that frustrates the viewer because you’re like, “I want to see what’s going on!”.  We get a lot of sound effects though.

Seeing one of the last scenes with Theon, where he’s apologizing to Bran for not being around and for how everything went down and Bran tells him he’s right where he belongs, oh it’s a bittersweet scene.

I also like how much Arya we get and her fighting, being a badass it really speaks to her character and who she’s become.

The moment when the Dead, rise… again was infuriating because just when you think you’ve started to defeat them, you haven’t because the dead don’t die.

The way the battle ended was really good too and really brought a story arc for Bran full circle.

They use Bran to lure the Night King to him so that Arya (who I didn’t see coming) could kill the Night King by stabbing him with a sword (a sword that was meant to kill Bran in the past) made with dragon glass that destroys the Dead. Once she stabs him, the rest of the Dead army fall and burst into nothingness. When you kill the leader, the rest crumble. And just like that they have won the battle.

And of course this battle had many causalities and I knew going in we were going to lose some major characters. Theon loses his life trying to protect Bran, but he’s no match for the Night King. And Jorah jumps in front of one to protect Dany, for a second there I wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. You can see the pain Dany feels once she realizes he’s gone; she realizes too late the love he had for her.

Now that the battle is over, it’s time to party and everyone is celebration mode.

Gendry declares himself a Baratheon, his true parentage. He tells Arya and at the same time he asks her to marry him. I knew from the moment the words were out of his mouth that she would say no. Arya isn’t the type to stay by someone’s side and be someone’s lady. The amount of times she’s not only said it in this season, but this series, I knew she wouldn’t accept his proposal. Poor Gendry, they do love each other though, which I think is sweet.

Then we have Brienne and Jaime, they finally sleep together, which I thought they had already done that, but I guess not. I was rooting for them; I was so happy for them, but god Jaime still loves his sister. Brienne begs him, really begs him not to go back to save her, but he can’t and he leaves and I HATE HIM FOR THAT! UGH!

After Dany begs Jon not to tell anyone his secret, he goes to his siblings, he thinks they have a right to know. Of course Bran already knows and I like that Jon tells Bran to tell the girls. Jon tells them not to tell anyone because he wants Dany to be queen.

Well, knowing Sansa doesn’t want Dany as queen, she tells Tyron because she knows he can do something about making Jon the king, anything to stop Dany being queen. Then Tyron goes to Varys to ask for advice. Well, when Dany finds out that Tyron betrayed her, she doesn’t kill him, but she does get her dragon to execute Varys.

Dany’s power this season really goes to her head. I truly think that her want to beat Cersei and be better than Cersei actually made her worse, as we see in the final episodes.

Now we’re moving into fighting Cersei and taking her down. They come up with a plan, but on their way to King’s Landing they get attacked. Dany loses one of her dragons, that was huge, then Missandei goes missing and this makes Grey worm angry. We’re led to believe she drowned, but we go back to Cersei in her castle and there is Missandei chained up.

In order to save her and take down Cersei, Dany wants to take down the city and essentially murder thousands of innocent people. Tyrion is not for this, but Grey worm will follow his queen anywhere.

But the moment Cersei kills Missandei that’s when something breaks in both Grey worm and Dany. I thought maybe Cersei wouldn’t kill her, but yeah no of course she did, how could I think any differently.

So, when Jaime goes back to King’s Landing he’s imprisoned. When Tyrion goes over with Dany’s army to begin the battle against Cersei, he goes to see Jaime. The heart to heart those two is something else. I mentioned it earlier how much I love how their relationship has grown, that scene is exactly why. He lets Jaime free and tells him to ring the bell; ringing the bell will signify that Cersei has surrendered.

I honestly didn’t think that Jaime was going to ring it, but he does, and that really sets Dany off and she just lets her dragon go to town on killing all of King’s Landing. I think this really surprises all the characters because I don’t think they thought Dany would senselessly murder people even after hearing the surrender bells.

Just before that happens, war breaks out and the dragon starts to destroy everything and when Cersei’s army realize they don’t have the strength to fight, they start to surrender. But after that bell rings, Grey worm starts to fight/slaughter men and this confuses Jon.

Finding out that the huge, masked body guard of Cersei’s is the Hound’s brother was rather interesting. Watching them battle it out was crazy, and they both really fight, only for both of them to die falling off a building. While all this is happening, Cersei sneaks by and reunites with Jaime as he of course goes back for her. Now they can die together, how poetic.

Those battle scenes were crazy; they do go on for a long time, but the intricacies of it all were so well done and so thought out. I like how in the end we follow Arya pretty much; I was so worried she would die, but seeing her make it out was a relief. I love how she goes in with the Hound, and that last scene with the two of them was so sweet. Again, another set of characters who have been through so much that you can’t help but love them.

Now, we have to talk about the series finale. I can say that I totally didn’t see any of that coming. So we have to obviously give a conclusion to all the characters, but wow didn’t see it all coming down like that.

So we start the end with everyone who is still alive realizing they’re still alive and just kinda trying to put everything together.

Tyrion goes to see his siblings and that’s when you really realize that Jaime and Cersei have died and Tyrion is really broken up about it, again so heart wrenching.

We then see Jon with the last of the King’s Landing soldiers that Grey worm then sentences them to death. Jon doesn’t think they need to die, but the queen wants anyone who followed Cersei dead. I really think this starts to open Jon’s eyes to everything she’s done and how far she’s come and what power is doing to her.

Dany then gives a speech to her people; I have to say it’s truly impressive. Any time they have these non-English, made up language speeches, it is so impressive.

That’s where Tyrion tells her his loyalty no longer lies with her as he thinks she’s gone too far with her destruction; so she imprisons him.

Jon then goes to see Tyrion because he’s still toiling with everything. The whole season he’s said he doesn’t want the throne, but he’s still at odds with it all because he’s seen what she’s done. Tyrion even points out that the reason Sansa told him the truth was because she doesn’t want Dany as queen. When they yell at each other “she doesn’t have a choice” “but you do” –very powerful.

I was confused and thought it was funny that the only thing that didn’t get destroyed in the throne room was the iron throne itself, but then it all played out really, really well.

Dany comes to the throne and she’s excited and happy that she gets to sit upon it. Jon, joins her and he’s super upset after everything that has gone down. He doesn’t understand why she did everything she did.

I have to say that I didn’t see Jon stabbing Dany. I was shocked, but it makes sense. Then the dragon comes, screams because his mother has been killed, then it blows fire to the throne, so it melts away. Now no one will ever sit on the throne, poetic, I liked that.

The dragon picks Dany up and flies away with her body. Jon is then imprisoned for murder.

Sometime later, they are forced to figure out who will be the leader of the six kingdoms. They have all the leaders come together and it is Tyrion who they bring out, who offers Bran as the king and everyone agrees. Of course Bran already knew, I love when he says “Why do you think I came all this way?” brilliant. He then tells Tyrion he wants him to be his hand so he can right all the wrongs he’s done. I thought that was great.

Because of this, Jon is set free, much to Grey worm’s disdain. Seeing Jon saying goodbye to Sansa, Arya and Bran was so bittersweet.

I like that they chose Brienne to write Jaime’s ending in the book… the book of Ice and Fire. I have to say I hated that. I hate when shows, books, movies end on this meta ending because it all feels so cheap. So I didn’t care for that, and it was sad to see that Tyrion wasn’t included in the text, like rude.

I like that they’ve sent Arya off to go exploring and Sansa is the Queen of the North, I think both of those are really appropriate for those characters.

I find it interesting when shows like to mirror the first episode with the last episode, and so they bring Jon back to the wall and castle black.

For an ending to this show, I enjoyed it. I didn’t hate it, I was worried that I would because a lot of people had said it wasn’t great, but I think it ended well and the characters all got decent endings. Honestly, I think Dany got an ending she ended up deserving. After who she became I think her getting killed off worked.

I’m going to miss this show because I truly loved this one.