_This article contains spoiler for seasons one through seven of “Game of Thrones.”_
The trailer for the eighth and final season of “Game of Thrones” dropped on March 5, and most viewers are now more excited than ever to see “A Song of Ice and Fire” wrap up on the small screen. I am not.
I started watching “Game of Thrones” in 2015, and like many before me, I was hooked. It was fantasy based around consistent characters with unflinchingly tragic stories and world details that unfolded almost entirely in the background. Then David Benioff and D.B. Weiss ran out of books to adapt and completely dropped the ball.
That’s not to say the show isn’t well made, because it is. HBO sinks a comical amount of money into “Game of Thrones” and it shows. But, the show started to lose some of its appeal with the fourth season and had completely lost me by the sixth. As tempting as it was to drop the show and await the final two books (releasing some time around the heat death of the universe), “Game of Thrones” is still a well-made show.
The last season of the show featured some climactic battles and much-awaited character meetings, but that’s not enough to hold up a production. If it was, “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” would be praised as one of the greatest films of all time. The seventh season of “Game of Thrones” featured many characters being uncharacteristically standoffish and the timeline of events becoming questionable at best. While some of the previous season’s issues can be attributed to time constraints, I’d argue that showing less would’ve been better. It would’ve allowed for more thought and better pacing, a much better solution than cramming too much into seven episodes.
Needless to say, my expectations for the final season are at an all-time low, but the trailer did stir some excitement. It displayed string-pulling characters such as Varys (Conleth Hill) looking genuinely frightened, Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) rallying for battle and Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) doing God only knows what. And while that’s all well and interesting, the whole trailer appears as though most of it happens pretty close together (as in, within a couple of episodes).
I’m left afraid that this season might have the same pacing problems of season seven, but a whole lot worse. Unlike season seven, every plot thread has to be resolved this season. As a recap, here’s what needs to be resolved before the show ends — the army of White Walkers coming to kill everyone, Theon Greyjoy’s (Alfie Allen) strange redemption arc, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, who actually gets to sit on the Iron Throne and most importantly, Cleganebowl. That’s a lot of plot resolution to cover in six episodes, even if a few of them are feature-length. The final season of “Game of Thrones” will either be a well-produced trainwreck or a good ending to a once great television show. Either way, I think it’ll be enjoyable to watch, and we’ll all know for sure come April 14.
_Edited by Joe Cross | jcross@themaneater.com_
