All eight seasons of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best

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Season 8

It probably won’t surprise anyone to find season 8 at the bottom of this list. The backlash this season received is legendary, and some fans think it tainted the series for good.

I’ll leave that argument to history. The final season did indeed fail to meet the expectations of a lot of fans, but it did have some wonderful moments:

Image: Game of Thrones/HBO

High point: Jaime Lannister knights Brienne of Tarth

Easily the most smile-inducing moment of the season came in the second episode, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” when Jaime Lannister proves that he has not only gotten over his early contempt for Brienne of Tarth, but that he respects her as a warrior equal to any he’s ever met. This moment pays off his long-building growth as a character.

For a Brienne, it’s a moment of validation in a world that had always denied her any. Brienne is the truest-hearted character on the show, a valiant fighter who strives to do what’s right and keep her oaths no matter what. She’s everything a knight is supposed to be, but because she was born into a sexist society, she couldn’t even be given the title. We cheer this moment because we know how thoroughly and completely Brienne has earned it, over and over and over.

Image: Game of Thrones/HBO

Low point: Those last three episodes were really in a rush to get to the end, huh?

I know I’m cheating here right off the bat, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly one wrong note in the season’s final stretch. I think most of it can be chocked up to failing to lay a foundation for the story. The show gave us big dramatic twists — Daenerys burning King’s Landing, Bran being chosen as the king of Westeros — without putting in the work to give them meaning.

Let’s take Daenerys’ big breakdown as an example. She had gone to extremes before, sure — remember when she crucified the Great Masters of Meereen after taking over the city? But there’s a big leap from killing powerful people who had themselves murdered hundreds of children (and made sure Dany knew about it) to flash-frying thousands of innocent men, women and kids because she was angry. The show needed to make us understand how she got across that gap and I don’t think it did.

Or take Bran’s kingship. The issue wasn’t that Bran was chosen as king; it was that all the people at the council picked him without a second thought, even though most of them had never met the guy. Game of Thrones had always taught us to pay attention to the minutia of the political process, to understand that some people were idealists and others pragmatists, and that getting them to work together required effort. But here, everyone was convinced to make this momentous decision because of one speech from Tyrion Lannister about the importance of stories.

What this stretch of the season needed was detail. The characters should have done some horse-trading before electing Bran, made some promises, maybe set up a couple of political marriages. We needed to spend more time getting into Daenerys’ head before she lost it. I would’ve liked to have spent more time with Cersei Lannister, too, a major figure who was all but absent from the show this year.

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MVP: Daenerys Targaryen

I will say this, though: insofar as Daenerys Targaryen’s story worked, it worked because star Emilia Clarke sold the hell out of it. Despite my misgivings, the moment where Dany stares at the Red Keep from atop her dragon, vengeance in her heart and hate in her eyes, is absolutely chilling. Clarke is a raw nerve throughout the entire season, doing her absolute best to let you inside the head of a character going to pieces. She’s great in her final scene, too, when Daenerys regains some of her cool calm.

I may not have loved everything the show did with Daenerys this season, but I appreciated the chutzpah it took to go there, and Emilia Clarke’s dedication to walking the path.

Arya: Helen Sloan – HBO (6) Official Battle of Winterfell

Runner-up: Arya Stark

Arya has quite final year! It’s she who delivers the killing blow to the Night King, a cheer-worthy moment that had fans rising out of their seats. And with the help of the Hound, she finally manages to let go of the yen for vengeance she’s been nursing ever since she saw her father get beheaded in the very first season. This is a whirlwind of a season for her.