Thank You for the Content Slop, HBO
In a finale that can best be described as going out with a muffled sigh, Game of Thrones heaved its way across the finish line last night. And it ended with a handful of twists that everyone hated! Let’s mount this dragon, shall we?
Who ends up on the Iron Throne? No one, of course! (HBO is our one true king and master.) Jon Snow, a man who is not bright, takes about 20 minutes of the episode to come around to the idea that he must be the one to kill Daenerys before she goes any more Mad Queen. The character everyone coded as Hillary Clinton was ready to wage forever war across Westeros, can you imagine!!
Then in a moment of anti-climax, Jon gives his aunt a big wet one and stabs her in the chest. In its grief, whatever dragon Dany had left breathes fire all over the Iron Throne, melting the last thing standing in King’s Landing, the symbol of absolute power that we were all gaming for. The Bernie Bros finally defeat the girl boss who was meant to be queen! The dragon flies away with Dany’s body grasped in its claws, apparently not to be heard from again. What a relief, that could’ve been a problem had it not been so easily dispensed with!
Things get much dumber from there: Samwell, the nerd who should’ve died a coward’s death AT LEAST a couple episodes ago, stumbles on the idea of inventing democracy and everyone laughs at him. Perhaps he was fueled by fluoridated bottled water! But first, a group of wealthy elites picks one of their own to rule the Seven Kingdoms: It’s Bran, everyone! The guy who never really wanted it but, as a future-seer, definitely saw this coming. King Bran, who they make clear will formally be known as King Bran the Wheelchair Guy. This ending was no doubt focus-group tested within an inch of its life as the only ending that would leave everyone feeling about the same degree of dissatisfaction. (I want my content slop and I want it now!)
To continue wrapping things up at warp speed—the episode was mostly people hugging goodbye and talking about boring shit I did not care about—the group decides Jon’s gonna be sent back to the Night’s Watch, which apparently still exists, despite basically all its members dying in battle and the threat beyond the wall being neutralized. There he will oversee an infrastructure plan to rebuild the wall and invigorate the local economy. It’s politics, people! This resolution was apparently good enough for Grey Worm, the Unsullied, and the Dothraki army, who clearly weren’t that mad about Jon killing their queen. Oh well, they sail away too, none the wiser.
Then we get a series of scenes of Jon hugging his ungrateful siblings farewell and Tyrion straightening the chairs of the Small Council, which is now composed of a bunch of rogues. One of them is concerned about getting the brothels up and running again, how charming! The camera pans out as the founders of a New Westeros get into a light-hearted argument about the finer points of city planning. Riveting stuff!
Arya, queen of our hearts, announces she’s going to sail off the map to become a lady explorer/colonizer. But why, you might’ve asked. Doesn’t matter, this isn’t real, and HBO is hellbent on making you feel like an idiot for spending eight years of your life getting attached to these characters. All hail the network that’s made one trillion dollars shoveling this slop to us and naturally already has a prequel in the works! I love this mega-corporation that gives me the lukewarm gruel I so desire week after week
Tyrion goes soft, too, waxing on about how we cannot defeat stories or something. Brienne is seen writing the recent history that just transpired, noting that Jaime Lannister was trash dick, if there’s any justice in the world. A woman is writing the story now, you see!
So who won? It might seem only David Benioff and D.B. Weiss emerge unscathed. They gifted us made-up nonsense to discuss every week around the digital water cooler. No matter how much the fans came to despise their creation, this duo kept making the show worse and worse, pulling off an impressive feat: an absolutely dogshit finale to a legacy TV show. Again, none of this matters. These mediocre guys will next be seen serving us another lukewarm-at-best Star Wars movie. And God bless them for it! They made the trash we so desperately wanted, and we eagerly slapped on HBO’s content feedbag. With a belly full of content, everyone can feel like a winner.