There's no doubt that by the time the closing credits roll on Game of Thrones season 8, it feels like you've been hurried through a series of events that should have been given far longer to unfold. That said, season 8 doesn't actually start with this fast-forward mindset. Instead, the run actually begins with a very similar pacing to its seven predecessors. It isn't until deeper into Game of Thrones' final batch of episodes that everything starts to feel rushed. There's an exact moment when the speed is cranked up.
Game of Thrones season 8 was the HBO project's shortest run, consisting of just 6 episodes. While most of them clocked in at an extended runtime of around eighty minutes each, this still wasn't enough for the saga not to feel squashed into not-enough-episodes. Although, as I mentioned, this isn't an issue that's immediately detectable. In fact, Episode 3, "The Long Night," benefited massively from this extended episode length, feeling like the closest thing to a Game of Thrones movie that we've ever seen. If only the rest of season 8 had been able to carry on the streak of greatness.
Bronn's deal with Tryion & Jaime is when Game of Thrones season 8 starts to feel rushed
This is a great scene, so I'm not singling it out in an inherently negative way. What I'm criticizing it for is that it could have been a much more substantial subplot. After being asked by Cersei (Lena Headey) in season 7 to kill her brothers, Jerome Flynn's Bronn heads to Winterfell to cut a deal and once more switch allegiances. The interaction can be found in Episode 4, "The Last of the Starks," and it's all over in around 3 minutes, whereas the implied gravity of Bronn being handed Joffrey's (Jack Gleeson) crossbow felt like it should have been the start of something that was supposed to be more heavily chronicled.
That isn't what happened, though. With just six episodes to round off Game of Thrones' more pressing storylines, season 8 reduced Bronn's role to the bare minimum. This brief scene is the result of all this potential being condensed into a bite-sized exchange. It feels especially like a matter of getting Flynn on and off the set as quickly as possible when Bronn is asked to join the North's forces, and he replies: "My fighting days are done, but I've still got a few killing days left, d'you hear me? I'll come find you when the war is done." Until this scene, I had no problem with how season 8 had been paced. This was the turning point.
The weird truth of Game of Thrones season 8's closing episodes
It's very stylish to call Game of Thrones season 8 bad. The harsh fact of the matter is that it's bad in one of the best ways possible. While some finales can be criticized for being boring or not making any sense, Game of Thrones avoids both of those descriptions. Everything is logical and action-packed as the story draws to a close. It's just very, very fast. After all, season 8 was still based on George R.R. Martin's source material; it was just very loosely based on the books he hadn't (and still hasn't) gotten around to writing yet. The bare bones of the finale were already there and had been ruminated upon. The main issue is that the final two episodes weren't given the space they needed to breathe.
Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen losing it and torching King's Landing? That makes sense, given that she's just realized no one in Westeros has any love for her anyway. Her death? That makes sense, too. Kit Harrington's Jon Snow did what he felt he must to keep the Seven Kingdoms safe from her tyranny. Even Varys' (Conleth Hill) execution and Bran's (Isaac Hempstead Wright) election as king all follow the roles of Martin's world-building. The problem is that these are all huge developments, and they're simply shoved in the audience's general direction in quick succession and expected to be processed at a blistering pace. Even just one more Game of Thrones episode could have eased season 8's burden, although multiple additional installments would have been preferable.
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