Game of Thrones the Last of the Starks Review

After a season that has largely avoided the time compression problems that felled Game of Thrones season seven, "The Concluding of the Starks," the fourth episode of flavour eight, abruptly hitting the gas and tried to shove what felt like three episodes' worth of story into one episode of boob tube. It was nigh an hour and 20 minutes long — so, but about an episode and a third in total — just the overall effect was mildly chaotic, with a whole bunch of things happening and very few of them having the emotional weight that Game of Thrones clearly hoped they would.

Sansa would discover out information in one scene and be sworn to secrecy, then immediately betray that trust the next time she appeared onscreen. In theory, weeks passed between those moments, when Sansa truly had to agonize over the secret she now carried. In practice, it felt like about five minutes.

The episode's direction, by David Nutter ("The Terminal of the Starks" was the last of the nine episodes he'south directed since Game of Thrones began), was maybe the best of the season. But the script, past series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, was a mess, making for the weakest episode of the final season so far and an inauspicious preview of the bear witness's remaining few hours.

Then again, maybe that's the betoken! The fallout from all of these events would inevitably be messy and fractious and bloody; perchance Game of Thrones is trying to mirror that inevitability via structural storytelling choices.

Okay, yeah, I kind of dubiousness that too. Here are iv winners and six losers from "The Last of the Starks."

Winner: Aegon "Jon Snow" Targaryen

People existence drawn to Jon.

Helen Sloan/HBO

If Jon ... pitiful, Aegon ... actually, do y'all mind if I continue calling him Jon? Force of addiction ... wasn't getting the winner's edit earlier (equally I suggested a couple of weeks ago), he certain every bit hell is at present. Although he's displayed little to no real leadership skills beyond being able to give a semi-rousing spoken language, Game of Thrones has gone all in on the thought that Daenerys would be a horrible queen and Jon would exist a great king, and maybe the fact that he doesn't desire to be king is proof of how not bad he'd be.

I genuinely don't heed what the evidence is doing with Dany — more on that in a second — but the Jon of information technology all feels like Benioff and Weiss got their hands on George R.R. Martin's outline for the last couple of books in the series, furrowed their brows, and so said, "Wait, Jon?" Game of Thrones has never specially built up Jon as a grapheme of bang-up involvement, but now the prove has all but given in to portraying him as a symbol of some other, better world to come in one case these airheaded games of thrones are over.

One reason this feels so bogus is considering the show keeps telling us how proficient Jon is, which makes information technology all the easier to dubiety what it's maxim. For instance, Varys tells Tyrion in this episode that "people are drawn to [Jon]," and my initial reaction to that argument was, "They are?"

You lot could pivot this on Kit Harington, whose strengths as an actor (which are considerable!) don't always run toward "inspiring people with his great leadership." But I think information technology'due south far more on the actual text of the evidence, which has done niggling to convince u.s.a. that Jon has any thought what he's doing beyond being willing to risk himself and those he cares well-nigh in the name of increasingly idiotic plans.

This is probably a consequence of Game of Thrones' hard plough toward moment-based spectacle in its latter one-half. Jon can never exist depicted as a master tactician or a brilliant leader or anything like that, because it's more heady to run across him snatch victory from the jaws of sure defeat. And that means he becomes the Westerosi version of the Dillon Panthers from Fri Night Lights — forever winning unlikely victories and hoping nosotros ignore that he's the chief reason those victories were unlikely in the showtime place.

Loser: Daenerys Targaryen

She'due south very proficient at flying effectually on her dragon, though.

HBO

Dany had a pretty sweet gig going for a while there, correct? She'd canvas across the Narrow Body of water with three dragons, a full Dothraki army, some Unsullied, and a whole bunch of other allies and compatriots. So she'd bend the Seven Kingdoms to her will, equally finer the only person in the game with the unrivaled power of a dragon air force.

What'south more, the show she was on actively celebrated her for her actions. Game of Thrones' sixth season, which more or less concluded the series' second deed, ended with several shots that specifically positioned Dany as a savior, forging ahead to break the reign of Cersei Lannister, who opened the season 6 finale at her most evil, blowing upwardly a bunch of people in a church. The "Dany is great and Cersei isn't and then much" dichotomy couldn't have been more clear.

And that crude calculation held firm throughout most of flavor seven, too. It'southward only in season eight that the testify has taken a hard turn toward, "But what if Dany'due south not so great after all!"

To be clear, I remember this is actually a pretty compelling story turn, in theory. Nosotros've had plenty of hints over the years that for all of her speeches about breaking the wheel and freeing the enslaved, Dany more often than not merely wants power for herself. And Varys is right that her inclination toward feeling like she is destined, on some level, to occupy the Iron Throne isn't a great sign of a stable ruler. Game of Thrones has always shown Dany making compromises to maintain ability, then a slide downward into tyranny isn't that difficult to imagine.

But the show has more often than not tried to sell viewers on this development in this last scattering of episodes, which makes it feel like it came out of nowhere far more than it actually has. For instance, I recall Jorah's decease is supposed to exist office of this arc, because he was Dany's wise counsel or whatever, but it simply didn't play that fashion at all, because Game of Thrones lost rail of their human relationship until they were fighting together confronting a bunch of wights.

I remember turning the last battle for the Fe Throne into a boxing betwixt Jon and Dany could exist really interesting, conceptually. But Jon is a bland [insert generic leader hither] of a character, while Dany'south heel plough is whiplash-inducing. Nowhere has Game of Thrones' loss of narrative real estate in these final two seasons (which ran seven and six episodes, respectively, instead of the normal 10) felt more obvious.

Loser: Game of Thrones every bit a piece of work of popular feminism

Information technology's easy to point to Dany's storyline every bit kind of a weird turn for Game of Thrones, because information technology wasn't then long ago that the show boasted something along the lines of popular feminism bona fides. And by "wasn't so long ago," I mean literally 3 weeks agone, Elizabeth Warren wrote a piece about how much she loved Daenerys and the bear witness'due south women more more often than not.

Only especially effectually the time of season six — when the women of Game of Thrones began to seize power and cast off the men who had oppressed, assaulted, and raped them — the show developed a certain cachet about breaking the Westeros version of the patriarchy. Did it earn this cachet honestly? I don't know! But it certainly came upward whenever TV critics, including this one, wrote almost the show at that time.

"The Last of the Starks" is a pretty brutal undercutting of this reading, as it does poorly past essentially every major woman character who's not Cersei. (Cersei was already a terrible person.)

Sansa betrays her brother'south trust and tells the Hound that without all the years of rape and abuse she suffered, maybe she wouldn't have risen to her current position of ability, which feels less like something someone would say about a lifetime of trauma and more like something a screenwriting manual would say nigh a character who'southward meant to exist inspiring for rising above that trauma. Dany does her whole heel turn thing. Brienne hooks up with Jaime, and then melts into a weeping mess when he rides off to King'due south Landing again. And on and on.

I guess Arya doesn't have a moment like this. But Missandei is merely around to die and heighten other characters' arcs (she's also the evidence's one significant woman of color, so there's a whole sub-theme to this detail sociopolitical reading). And then "The Last of the Starks" was not a groovy episode for Game of Thrones' women to exist as something similar human beings instead of pieces on a chessboard.

To exist fair, characters like Sansa and Dany, especially, are complex and interesting beyond the ways in which they've been flattened into symbols of "girl power," whatever that means. Game of Thrones does non owe them a generic narrative of triumph merely considering it would provide a superficially more progressive story in our reality. Women tin can spiral up and fall apart and destroy the world, too, and actual feminist theory (every bit opposed to pop feminism) accounts for that.

But geez Louise, folks, I don't know that I wanted to encounter Brienne reduced to a sobbing mess because of a romantic relationship with Jaime that occurred mostly offscreen. Game of Thrones' reputation as a "feminist" show largely rests on its depiction of the brutality of the medieval patriarchy, contrasted with the vibrancy of its women. "The Last of the Starks" suggests that the show is largely uninterested in that reputation.

Loser: bones emotional coherence

This could have had fashion more than power if the show hadn't simply rushed past it!

Helen Sloan/HBO

"The Last of the Starks" begins at a funeral for the many, many expressionless from the Battle of Winterfell. It's fine, as these things become — lots of long shots of corpses belonging to characters both known to the states and anonymous; a speech communication past Jon; the flicker of flames — only information technology'due south not nigh as good as the long, drunken scene that follows, with the survivors hoisting their mugs to all they've lost and all they stand to gain.

In its third season, Game of Thrones might have made that celebration the entirety of the episode's plot for characters like Dany and Jon, while occasionally cutting abroad to King's Landing to check in on Cersei's preparations. Simply this is the final flavor of Game of Thrones, where time and space are at a premium, so the episode had to shift from smaller scenes focused on people who are simply happy to be alive to an incredibly forced tour of realpolitik featuring those same people.

This ends up pain the episode in more ways than one, as it provides rich opportunities for Game of Thrones' wonderful cast to dig into the season'southward new condition quo, simply and then tears those opportunities away from them abruptly. Sansa learns Jon'south true Targaryen lineage, just the very side by side time we see her, she'southward betraying his trust to Tyrion. It'southward what she needs to do to motility the story along, but the show does Sophie Turner no favors by asking her to exercise information technology.

Similarly, Jaime is in love with Brienne, until he must leave her to caput back to King'south Landing. He gives a speech almost how he's actually a bad person, and sure, why not. Merely it'southward all Nikolaj Coster-Waldau can practice to make sense of it, and the whole thing would have had more than emotional heft if information technology had come up even one episode later, to give information technology infinite to breathe.

The characters on Game of Thrones have ever been vessels for the plot, to some degree, but that'southward rarely been and then acute as it has been this season. What emotional throughlines season 8 boasts are largely swallowed up past its need to move the story forward at all costs.

Winner: supporting characters who've stuck around this long

Okay, peradventure not Missandei — who, again, died.

But definitely Gendry and Bronn, who both discover themselves getting huge promotions. Gendry is named lord of Storm'southward Cease, and thus a total-born Baratheon, while Bronn uses his leverage over Tyrion and Jaime (a.k.a. a crossbow) to negotiate a scenario where he might end up ruling over Highgarden.

And while it's truthful that Bronn doesn't accept his title yet, and Gendry doesn't win over Arya when he asks her to marry him, both of these guys accept stuck around the story for so long that they're going to stop upwards with some pretty impressive titles when all is said and washed. Bronn even got to deliver the episode'southward best speech, when he asked Jaime and Tyrion if they understood just how much cutthroats dominion the world.

Winner: Cersei Lannister

Cersei's gonna have one of these dragons down.

HBO

Is Cersei the but graphic symbol with an arc that makes sense at this point? Okay, certain, there are others, just of the principal characters waging war for the Fe Throne, Cersei has past far proved herself the most capable.

Certain, she doesn't have whatever dragons, simply thanks to a Euron Greyjoy ambush, Dany'southward down to only the one. (RIP Rhaegal.) Cersei also understands that by surrounding herself with innocents, she can largely leverage her familiarity equally a mode to remain in power. Her campaign hope is, more or less, "Yous tin can hate me all yous like, simply you don't know that yous don't hate her more," which honestly would work on me.

But, also, like, how on earth wasn't Dany prepared for "a giant crossbow" as a weapon to bring downward her dragons at this point? How wasn't she prepared for an ambush when she's fighting a literal pirate? Game of Thrones keeps saying that Cersei is cornered and on the concluding legs of her power, but and then all it actually shows u.s. are bold masterstrokes that brand it seem like she's most to win the war without even having to effort that hard.

Loser: compelling supporting characters to surround Cersei with

When the action abruptly lurched back to King's Landing in "The Last of the Starks," I realized how much this one-half of Game of Thrones is suffering for only having Gregor Clegane, Qyburn, and Euron Greyjoy in it.

One of them is a mute zombie, another is a mad scientist, and the concluding is a Eurotrash pirate who apparently doesn't realize that Tyrion knows Cersei is pregnant (thereby suggesting there'south no way the baby is Euron'south). And, wait, I similar all of those things in isolation, merely on the show itself, they're more often than not treated with a vague sense of campsite.

The result is that it feels like Cersei is starring in a much sillier version of the prove. I can become with that, to be sure, but it doesn't do the character any favors.

Winner: director David Nutter

I said way up above that I thought this episode was solidly directed, and I stand by that. From Tyrion'due south scramble across the ship's deck in a desperate attempt just to stay alive to how Missandei's death was shot, with Greyness Worm looking away from the execution in the foreground, Nutter made interesting choices throughout, and he did a nice job with the various scenes featuring the characters just kicking back and talking.

It's clear from the director assignments this season that Game of Thrones decided it was going to bring back Miguel Sapochnik to directly the most epic episodes (including last week's "The Long Night" and adjacent week'due south all-out state of war with Cersei), so have Nutter in to direct episodes that took a more interpersonal focus on the story. (Showrunners Benioff and Weiss volition straight the series finale.)

In other seasons of Game of Thrones, that might have left Nutter feeling like he was only around to direct the episodes that moved pieces around on the board. And to an extent, he has been! But he'southward fabricated that piece-moving feel brisk and fun, and he's imbued it with some caste of visual style, particularly in this episode and "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," the flavour's second outing.

Loser: the status quo

Missandei doesn't have much longer to live.

HBO

When I was thinking nearly this episode ahead of watching it, I figured there would be some attempt at re-piloting — by which I mean an attempt to establish a new status quo and essential premise for the serial. Now that the White Walkers are no longer a threat, the show was going to have to do some significant work to remind us of the danger Cersei poses.

I'm fine with that! I honey when a show has to dig itself out of a seemingly unfillable narrative pigsty in the name of keeping the story going. But "The Concluding of the Starks" was so pressed for time that it couldn't find a way to build a status quo it could sustain for more than a scene or 2. Globe-shattering developments happened offscreen, and others were tossed off casually, as though the show needs to move at a full gallop now.

Some of this was successful — I loved how brutal and out of nowhere Rhaegal's death was — simply most of it could have used some other episode or two of breathing room. Also often "The Concluding of the Starks" was sheer chaos.

Loser: Missandei

At that place are moments within the final hours of Missandei's life that I find compelling, like how her last message for Dany — "Dracarys" — both calls dorsum to very early in the pair's human relationship and doesn't bode well for King'south Landing. And if you're looking for a supporting character who is more or less expendable in a way that will move the storyline forward, well, one of Dany's few remaining tethers to when she was trying to costless Slaver'due south Bay is a solid choice.

But at the aforementioned fourth dimension, Missandei dies mostly to service the story. Information technology's not brutal or random in the way Game of Thrones tin can exist. Information technology'southward calculated, meant to provoke a certain reaction from Dany and the audience. She was immature and pretty and in love, and that should brand her decease a tragedy. Just the show never did well enough by the character to requite her anything across "immature and pretty and in dear."

The death of Missandei is the latest instance of how much Game of Thrones has suffered the further information technology gets from George R.R. Martin's books. There is raw pain in what happens to her, but little else. Information technology'due south an adequate cover version of something you lot one time loved, just it has so little of the original soul. Adieu, Missandei. I don't actually know that you should be all that sad to miss the last two episodes.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/6/18530741/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-4-recap-the-last-of-the-starks-winners-losers