Is The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Series Finale Better, Worse, Or The Same One Year Later?

For two months last year, in April and May 2019, Game of Thrones took over my life, and my life was Game of Thrones. I reckon I’m not the only one. It was the final season of one of the biggest shows ever, the last piece of the TV monoculture with more Emmy wins and nominations than any scripted series. As someone who writes about TV for a living, it was nice to cover something that everyone was watching, or at least was willing to discuss (yell about) the next day; it sure beats writing about Brockmire for an audience of 47 people who are slowly catching up on Hulu. (Watch Brockmire! It’s great!)

But following the series finale, which apparently people had a lot of opinions on, I haven’t re-watched a single episode of Game of Thrones. That’s not a knock on the show overall (I love The Sopranos, which has an objectively perfect finale, but I also haven’t gone back to “Pine Barrens” since binging all six seasons a few years ago) so much as Thrones burnout. It got back so bad that last April, I started dreaming about hanging out with Daario. Not even a good character, like Sansa, but Daario! Do not recommend.

Anyway, I should say, I’m in the majority of people who did not enjoy the finale. I wasn’t angry about it, but I can’t say I liked it, either. And I haven’t thought about Thrones much since. But with today being the one-year anniversary of the finale, I thought I would re-watch “The Iron Throne,” and see if it was better, worse, or the same as I remember.

I was cautiously optimistic heading into the re-watch, hoping we were unnecessarily cruel on “The Iron Throne.” Maybe it was a victim of unprecedented hype, and it would have a Pinkerton-like arc: hated at the time, loved in the future. But “The Iron Throne” isn’t Pinkerton — it’s Make Believe, or Raditude, or Harley, or the disappointing Weezer album of your choice. There’s enough good stuff in there to remind you of what once, but not enough to make you, y’know, like it. But first, I want to hand out some compliments.

What Works

It’s great to hear the theme song again (between Game of Thrones, BoJack Horseman, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, we’ve lost too many never-skip theme songs in the past year); the acting is uniformly excellent, especially Emilia Clarke’s steeliness as Daenerys Targaryen and Peter Dinklage’s heartbreaking performance as Tyrion Lannister (it’s fun to dunk on pouty-faced Kit Harington, but he brought it in season eight); the Mother of Dragons’ final outfit is killer; everything looks expensive; and it’s good to see my dude Tormund again. All that was true last year, and it’s still true now.

Those are the positives. But before getting to the negatives, there’s…

What I Forgot

Daenerys doesn’t appear until 15 minutes into the episode, and she dies halfway through; the Dothraki are the only fun characters; and how annoyed I was that Bran, not Davos, was named the Lord of the Seven, er, Six Kingdoms.

What Doesn’t Work

Let’s say, this time last year, you wanted to see what the hoopla was about and you decided to watch Game of Thrones for the first time. What would you know about Bran, based only on “The Iron Throne” Well, he has a weird nickname, “Bran the Broken.” He’s in a wheelchair; he appears to be emotionless; he’s “the keeper of all our stories,” whatever that means; and in his first small council meeting, he barely says or does anything. “This is your leader” you might ask. “The winner of the game of [checks notes] thrones” What an inspiring choice. In a vacuum, I don’t hate Bran becoming king (he’s a better pick than Jon), but Game of Thrones did not do the work to convince us that he was the right choice — he’s an interrupting weirdo whose powers remain frustratingly undefined. To make sense of King Bran requires too much headcanon. Even Isaac Hempstead Wright, who played Bran, seemed unsure about his character’s arc.