Every episode from the final season of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best

Image: Game of Thrones/HBO

“The Iron Throne,” Season 8, Episode 6

The series finale of Game of Thrones is really two episodes. The first half deals with the aftermath of Daenerys Targaryen’s slaughter of King’s Landing, as she makes speeches to her assembled hordes and executes surviving Lannister soldiers without trial. Jon and Tyrion wander the wreckage aghast and finally plot to kill the Dragon Queen before she can spread her tyranny to the rest of Westeros.

This is the better of the two halves, if only because Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) gives a final performance to remember. As she talks with Jon Snow in the Red Keep, she brings back a little of the hopeful woman we knew, the kind-hearted girl who wanted to rule wisely and well. That’s the woman Jon stabs in the heart, and it hurts.

And then Drogon burns down the Iron Throne, which is pretty cool.

The problem with the first half is that it never really grapples with what came before. The tragedy of Daenerys Targaryen is lyrical and sad…in theory. In reality, we’re still too blindsided by her genocidal about-face in “The Bells” to understand who she is now, how she got here, and why she has to die. As with much of season 8, the plot ran ahead of the story, leaving us behind.

Image: Game of Thrones/HBO

The second half is messier. We skip forward in time and find ourselves in the Dragonpit with the assembled Great Lords of Westeros, who elect Bran Stark as their king after Tryion gives a speech about the importance of stories. What we needed was more time to understand why these characters are making these choices. Some of them have never heard of Bran before, and others have no reason to think he’ll make a good leader. The scene plays as though it’s a momentous moment for Westeros and the people who rule it — it’s got the right music, the right blocking, the right rhythm — but without the right setup, it doesn’t land.

Once the plot is dispensed with, “The Iron Throne” slow down and lets us say proper goodbyes to some of the characters. Brienne gets a lovely moment where she makes her peace with the role Jaime Lannister played in her life, and a genuinely moving ending montage shows us what becomes of Jon, Arya and Sansa.

“The Iron Throne” is like the final season as a whole: beautiful, lopsided and baffling with occasional bursts of brilliance.