Song of Fire and Ice, right in the title.

Will be the dragon queen or John Snow on the throne.

Of course at this point the show is following its own course so the novels might not apply.

They spent the last 2 episodes forging weapons from dragon glass that John Snow brought up from the south.

I would assume the "deadliest living army" was the Unsullied.

Dothraki are just unorganized cannon fodder. There was just a few hundred Dothraki at best and several thousand disciplined and trained Unsullied.

I thought the prior episode was better, nice build up with all the characters.

Yes, a move she remarked on in a prior episode I think.

I'm 99% sure it was a Vilarian? steel dagger that the assassin tried to kill Bran with.

Fat man needs to hurry up before a heart attack takes him out.

Rumor has it there was only suppose to be an original book or two, but after the first took off and publisher pulled up with a truck load of money things changed. An editor I chat with frequently said George's problem is one that often strikes down epic series writers is the characters get away from their creator and they run out of gas. The editor also noted very few writers are able to pull this off, Tolkien being used as an example. Unless you have a clear vision start to finish when you start putting it down on paper, things get sideways in a hurry.

After watching my wife stated "this was a filler episode wasn't it?"

Pretty much.

King's well went dry years ago, he should keep his mouth shut.

The Gunslinger saga was pretty much dead after the third book and he totally crashed and burned the final.

Also; refer to his one and only movie directing credit "Maximum Overdrive"

His early stuff is disturbing and worth reading, later not so much.

Since he was almost killed by a distracted driver years ago he has not been right.

His track record for finishing sagas in a satisfying manner to loyal readers is fairly low.

I'll pass on Kings opinions.

Arya will kill the mad queen, they were a little too cute having her ride off on a pale horse.

Jon will end up on the throne.

You can have the best sets, CGI and actors but if you don't have a great story and dialog it doesn't matter.

Star Wars prequels come to mind.

The last episode made up for the prior two lackluster ones though I thought a few of the characters were out of.. well character. Your going to tell me Arya is going to back up now when she is on the cusp of killing the queen? A motivation she has had for years? And just Dani frying Kings Landing after freeing the slaves in the other city? She has nothing to gain by doing this, everyone is already scared witless by the women with a fire breathing dragon who has just laid waste to an army. I know, madness runs in the family.. which Jon is part of.

Can't have it both ways.

And yes Euron coming ashore unwinded and unwounded after being blown out of a boat and swimming his ass across the bay just as Jamie comes ambling by was ridiculous.

Just some lazy writing.

This was a hard one for me- The dragon and Dani were literally in her sights.. and she does nothing? War would have been over on the spot. The crossbows were in easy range compared to the shots from the ship that killed the other. They could have killed the dragon and rained death down on Dani and crew with ease.

And her brother whom she was paying an assassin to kill is standing right there and does nothing?

Really doesn't mean anything as shots are not done in order (casting, weather and location conflicts have to be worked around not too mention they streamline as much as possible to save money) and multiple different endings were shot.

One reason to defend against leaks ruining the planned ending and I bet focus group testing to see which ending got the best audience reaction.

Moby Dick.

Her whole path and arc has been nothing but vengeance since Ned Stark's head was removed, sad it was not followed through.

She left him for dead, after robbing him. Perhaps that was enough.

It left much to be desired.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

"After the show ran ahead of the novels, however, it was taken over by powerful Hollywood showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Some fans and critics have been assuming that the duo changed the narrative to fit Hollywood tropes or to speed things up, but that’s unlikely. In fact, they probably stuck to the narrative points that were given to them, if only in outline form, by the original author. What they did is something different, but in many ways more fundamental: Benioff and Weiss steer the narrative lane away from the sociological and shifted to the psychological. That’s the main, and often only, way Hollywood and most television writers tell stories."

Excellent article on why GOT writing changed as it did.

IMHO there was only one good episode this season, the first one with the build up at Winterfell.

The rest left much to be desired with the show writers throwing away character arcs that had been building for several seasons.

It was beautifully shot and acted, like the perfect "10" you meet who turns out to be shallow as a cookie sheet and vacuous.

They threw distance away towards the end; perhaps my memory is faulty but did it not take 3 months for the king to go from the capitol to Winterfell in the first episode?

"Winter is coming" was all but dropped from the show the final season.

Yes.