Man, you guys are hard to please. I thought it was a great episode. It didn't have the visceral feeling of the Battle of the Bastards, but it really felt like it was for all the marbles - very epic. It was dark, but not that dark - it was at night in a blizzard, so seemed like the decisions made sense. I've got a pretty standard Samsung and thought it looked fine even with some compression issues, and I'm on an absolute shit internet connection.

You're not the only one. Maybe they'll release a not-dark version someday - which would pretty much be admitting they f-ed it up.

Not going to lie, when the show was over I wasn't sure if Jon's dragon had lived or died until I saw the promo for the next show. Maybe that was just bad editing, but dunno.

Right? Just fly around that shit. Good lord.

The fact that the internet is more worked up over the wolf not getting a goodbye than the surprise death of another dragon sorta shows how "off" this episode was...

Also enjoy seeing this come to an end (don't like prequels or sequels and don't have the patience for the books). I'd be OK with a happy ending kind of ending - which would be so weird in a show that has excelled at (almost) never giving you what you want - but doubt we'll get there completely. I think the show just ran out of steam on the villain side of things. Euron is like a scooby doo character, Cersei's conniving also seems cartoonish now, and the Night King was a straight up cartoon from the beginning. Maybe that's just me though.

Even if we're willing to say the ending has a predictable tone to it at this point, it still could go a handful of different ways, so we'll see. We need a bettin' pool.

I dunno, I think this episode played out really well and got rid of some of the bad taste from last episode. The show has been telegraphing Dany doing something like this since the beginning - I think we were always meant to feel a little queasy rooting for her. Kinda feel like we're checking off boxes for other characters' fates and that this could have been stretched out (half expect major characters to spend hours dying, I guess), but whatev, enjoyed the action and the turns for Ayra, among others.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that my favorite was the Euron vs. Jamie fight. I know it was implausible, but that also made it such a great surprise. Cersei's two lovers in a knife fight to the death on a beach? Who could have seen that coming?

Agree that the amazing visuals are being overlooked by arguments over the tepid writing. What other TV show looks better than most movies again and again?We're getting pretty immune to spectacular imagery but the Clegane Bowl fight as the castle collapsed was really A+ in that department.

They had sex, right? Seems like that qualifies regardless of intent.

This one has been a real sticking point. lol. They could have had Cersei at least TRY to take them out and the story wouldn't have had to change much - she could have even paused dramatically and returned to the wall with (another) evil grin as though realizing she's missing the opportunity. That little band of Unsullied could have easily sacrificed themselves to cover the retreat, and the major characters could have barely escaped. Dragon could have gotten another hole in its wing from a near-miss or whatever. Ah well.

All things considered, it ended as close to a happy ending as we were likely to get, and I think it was fine. Bronn got Highgarden AND is in charge of funding brothels, guys, cmon!!!! And the wolf got petted!!! But seriously, Bran as king is kind of weird, but makes sense in that he's selfless (to a comical degree) and neutral - or he's some sort of all-seeing monster that manipulated everything, which makes it even better imo. Viewing season 8 as building to a single point - Jon killing Dany - made the (quicker) pacing a little better for me. It wasn't complex, just that one moment, so I thought it worked. And boy did they set up the sequels...

But isn't this just another "happy" ending? Everyone already seems upset that most of the characters rode off into the sunset, and curtains.

Was there really a way to end this gracefully? Seems to me it's a case of Martin coming up with a bunch of cool plots and characters, but the story isn't finished and may never be finished. With the finite lifespan of a TV show, D and D did at least a passable job of tying it all together. Was it inspired? No, but it was definitely decent, with a lot of nice touches, and open-ended enough to churn out more when HBO wants, which is the bottom line. At some point in there it became a product instead of art. Re: Stern GOT.

... or you could blame the old writer. Who set all this in motion, but never had an end in mind..