‘Game of Thrones’ Limps Into Finale (TV REVIEW)

[rating=2.00] “Mother’s Mercy”

There’s an SNL skit from a few years back featuring Andy Samberg as a hormone-riddled, prepubescent Game of Thrones consultant whose job it is to gleefully up the amount sex on the show. When it aired, its second season was widely criticized for its sex scenes that were over-the-top to the point where it detracted from the story.

While it addressed a number of criticisms the show was facing at the time, it also served as a commentary on the increasingly unchecked authority that showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff have allowed themselves. As author George RR Martin, looking to finish book six of the seven book ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series, has lessened his involvement dramatically this season to the point that his editor has taken to Twitter to voice her unhappiness with the direction the show has gone.

Amidst all the think-pieces that this year’s season brought about, from the brutal rape of a beloved character, why that was okay, the increased level of disparity in the violence, why THAT was okay, it was enough to have overshadowed this season’s remarkable moments (had there been any).

The fight at Hardhome was well-intentioned with moments of terror, but failed to give a good sense of space to the point it was too distracting to get lost in the moment. Drogon coming to Daenerys’s aid had its potential as well, though quieting down the murderous, spear-throwing mob long enough for a touching mother/dragon moment was an irritating precursor to some of the worst CGI in modern television. A trend which continued into the finale. More on that in a bit.

“Go on. Do your duty.”

Stannis, deserted by half his army, marches onto Winterfell, only to be overcome by the Bolton’s army. It was even vaguely reminiscent of the first season, in that we never saw any of the actual battle, just the aftermath, which was done at first due to budget constrictions, but now is the result of abbreviated storytelling.

Prior to the battle that we never see, Podrick tells Brienne, who leaves her post watching for the candle in the Broken Tower, which of course just happens to be lit the second she does so. Which, in all fairness, deserves a certain amount of credit that the show was able to make LIGHTING A CANDLE a symbol of lost hope.

While Brienne confronts Stannis, choosing to avenge Renley’s death over her sworn oath to protect Sansa, he not only gets the nobility of being allowed last words, but an off-screen death. Unlike the lingering camera on his wife, found hanging from a tree that very morning (either by suicide or murder from the deserting soldiers), nor the screams of his young daughter as they watched her burn. Even the audience was forced to stare at Ned Stark’s head on a spike in the final episode of the first season, or his son Robb’s decapitated body with his direwolf’s head sewn in place. Here, however, Stannis is given a quick cutaway in exchange for a nameless soldier impaled by Ramsay across the battlefield.

Similarly, Arya chooses vengeance over her sworn duty to become no one in a way pretty much everyone saw coming. Standing there in disguise, we’re treated to yet another scene reminding us that Meryn Trant is a terrible human being, showing him abusing the young girls inside the brothel. This is supposed to make for his death at Arya’s hand that much more gratifying, while it ends up short-changing her long-held hope of vengeance.

Of course, she returns to The House of Black and White, where Jaquen reveals (again, to no one’s surprise) that he’s aware of Arya taking a life that was not hers to take, because the mythology of the Many Faced God is both inconsistent and arbitrary as each situation requires. Oh, and after the worst Scooby-Doo-inspired moment of repeated mask-pulling, Arya goes blind.

“I think part of me always knew.”

The sequence in Dorne ends as ham-handedly as it’d been presented throughout this season, so at least that’s consistent. And if you could find yourself not completely distracted by the matte lines around Jamie and Myrcella aboard their ship, you might almost be swept up in the soap-opera-like revelation that she knows Robert Baratheon was not her real father. Before it’s clear that she’s been poisoned, as we see blood pour from her nose and she collapses in her father/uncle’s arms.

Cue the scene with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes and another Dornish subplot shoehorned in next year.

“We always want the wrong woman.”

Inexplicably, Jorah, Daario, Tyrion and Missandei were all able to escape from the fighting pits unharmed despite the numerous masked assassins bent on killing them moments before Drogon whisked Daenerys away. Daario dictates he and Jorah will go north, while Tyrion stays with Grey Worm to keep the city’s peace with the Unsullied, which is hysterical, given the Unsullied have proven to be the Game of Thrones equivalent to the battle-droids from the Star Wars prequels.

Conveniently, Varys happens to show up at just the exact moment as Tyrion contemplates his ability to rule a foreign city. Meanwhile, Daenerys gets surrounded by an army of (presumably) Dothraki soldiers, as her dragon is too busy defiantly licking his wounds to fly her back to Meereen. Because these kids today.

“Shame.”

Cersei breaks down and confesses a single sin, her affair with Lancel, denying all others. Especially the one about the incest, one she had confessed to her father in the prior season finale, no less. She’s then given the option to return home while she awaits trial for the sins she has not confessed to, because the show has become adept at using religious ceremony as a way to spackle over storylines to move them toward their payoff.

Which, here, is supposed to be Cersei, her hair cut off and stripped naked to walk through the streets of King’s Landing. As she walks through, she’s called a “cunt” and “whore” by the peasants of the city, flashed and pelted with food, her feet bloodying with every step. If it weren’t enough that the arrogant smirk of the High Sparrow himself (again, a terribly conspicuous casting of Jonathan Pryce) reflects the arrogance of the showrunners, who have proven to double-down this season on their presumption that over the top violence and misogyny are substitutes for compelling drama.

Though what was truly offensive was the CG plastering of Cersei’s face over the nude body double, which was as obtuse and disjointed as Tony Soprano having a conversation with the digital ghost of his dead mother.

Oh, and The Mountain is some kind of Frankenstein’s monster/zombie now. So…there’s that.

“For the Watch.”

Jon Snow proves one last time(?) that he knows nothing, falling for the stupidest trap ever.  He then gets stabbed repeatedly. At which point what remained of their audience reacted accordingly.