Game Of Thrones (Season Eight)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Towards the end of the final episode of Game Of Thrones, there’s a moment where Drogon, after a very long shot of his dragon-face where we are supposed to be able to intuit his emotions and thoughts based on nothing more than looking at him, breathes blisteringly hot fire all over the Iron Throne (instead of over Jon Snow, even though he has just stabbed Daenerys while snogging her).  In a short space of time, something as iconic as that seat is transformed from a unique, imaginative, well crafted, revered and original piece of artistry to a hot steaming pile of molten mess.  I don’t know if the producers intended this, but it’s the perfect summation of where season eight fits in with the other series in the Game Of Thrones canon.  It’s still some of the best television ever, but it’s a poor imitation of what has come before it.

Let’s be realistic, though, the final series was never going to please anyone.  Hardcore fans, no matter the ending, were always going to struggle with exactly that: they didn’t want it to end.  In season four, it looked like the storylines could never be resolved, yet season eight dispatches conclusion after conclusion with the nonchalance of a housecat knocking ornaments off a windowsill.  After the peak of season six , and the exceptional contribution of season seven, it really hurts.  Season eight took a long time coming, breaking from the annual cycle of its predecessors only to premiere when it was good and ready.  Again, we didn’t have ten outings to look forward to: there were just six episodes.  But each was nearly feature length.  More budget would equal more entertainment, surely.  But no, Game Of Thrones lost its beauty of being the best use of TV as a format ever, and instead felt like a themed hexalogy of straight-to-TV movies.  At the time, despite needing to witness the biggest event to occur in television broadcasting, I found myself ill-prepared in a non-Sky household.  Each Monday night I would need to voyage across London to different friends’ front rooms to make sure I didn’t risk going into the office the next day without being completely up to date on the latest, until settling on a particular friend whose location, set up and hospitality suited the best.  He’d never even watched the programme but indulged me drawn curtains and complete silence for each subsequent instalment.  I was enraptured to find out how it would all end, and therefore in no frame of mind to give it any serious analytical thought.  But, re-watching this final series for the first time in order to write this blog, I found myself slowing down in my ability to sit through back-to-back Game Of Thrones.  I must have seen season one five times now, yet this second sitting of the eighth series proceeded slowly, losing out to The Walking Dead’s epic tenth season, some Broad City and the last season of Bojack Horseman.

So, what’s not to like about it?  The first thing is that it all feels very rushed.  What unfolds in each episode would have filled a season by earlier standards.  Things could have been drawn right out and nobody would have minded.  Sure, it’s good pacing to build momentum to a final climax, but the characters’ behaviour becomes surprisingly erratic, squandering hours’ worth of foreshadowing with contrived moves that prevent any delay to finishing the stories.  I’ll refer us to two other sources here who go into more detail about the two greatest flaws in season eight.  The first video here from Screen Rant cleverly labours the fact we have no explanation for this rush.  When such clever quality has come before, it seems inexplicable that this would suddenly run out.  The second is an article here on the blog of the Scientific American which attributes our disappointment to a change in the storytelling itself.  Before, Game Of Thrones’ storytelling was sociological: we could clearly see that the actions of Cersei or Daenerys, while violent, were informed by external factors such as their upbringing, the prevalent culture, the environment, belief systems etc.  Sociological storytelling is rarer because it is harder to do quickly, though it often solicits great acclaim, such as our reception to The Wire.  Hollywood favours psychological storytelling, with people doing things because of how they think and feel internally.  Somehow, this pollutant gets into the bloodstream of season eight and makes everything stricken and uncomfortable.  Tyrion, Arya, Jon Snow, Daenerys and even Drogon have to emote at the camera for longer than usual, pulling faces to convey inner turmoil whereas before their actions and words in response to other factors would have clearly shown and justified these moves.  It’s cheap and lazy and less than Game Of Thrones fans deserved.

The internet is already awash with this sort of opinion, so there’s little more to add, but the geek in me finds closure in being able to pinpoint what should have been done differently.  It’s still epically ambitious telly.  The first half of the season builds to and culminates in the final battle against the Night King.  The sense of impending doom and hopeless odds is maintained well throughout, peppered with longed-for reunions among key characters, netting these three episodes higher IMDB ratings and the final instalments (though still much lower than all the episodes before).  It’s no surprise that the Night King comes at night, but I’ll again have to show a lack of originality and join the ranks of those that cursed the battle in The Long Night for being too dark.  I adjusted my screen settings three times while watching it and still had no confidence that I was seeing things properly.  It was only afterwards I realised that I should probably have googled for advice on what settings to apply on a 55” LG OLED, but maybe someone at Thrones HQ could have watched the ep back and realised it was overly concealed by its own shadows.  Nevertheless, it’s still a thrill-fest from start to finish.  We gasp as some of our faves are dispatched (Edd, Berric, Lyanna Mormont, Jorah Mormont, Theon) and cheer when Arya finally ends the whole thing with one stab of the pointy end.  It’s hard to believe it’s over.  Just like that, a problem like the Night King is solved and we’re into the second act, off to King’s Landing to deal with that naughty Cersei.

But it all starts to go wrong again for our Daenerys, with Missandei coming so close to surviving the whole thing and another dragon getting offed.  She’s understandably miffed.  Cue The Bells, the televisual equivalent of the world’s biggest wank as we’re forced to watch King’s Landing get incinerated by a vengeance-mad Targaryen atop a dragon.  Street after street is flooded with fire, burning alive men, women and children, most of whom end up exposed after tripping over Arya while she staggers about for no reason.  She’d be chewing the scenery if there were any left.  Yes, we’re meant to believe that actually Daenerys has been bonkers all along.  Look at her face, yeah, that’s how you know.  She mad.  Oh, she mad.  We lose sympathy for her quickly.  Gone is the Thronesian trope of making us root for morally compromised characters.  We’re now being told clearly who’s a baddie and who’s a goodie.  Peter Dinklage has to act his absolute socks off to bring anything good to the whole sorry affair and Tyrion’s remorse and disappointment are bitterly palpable.  But is he cross about the burning, or just furious to be involved professionally in the whole affair?

Among the burning, you can spot further Hollywood hacks woven into our previously precious story-telling.  I give you: two leading men having fisticuffs.  This ideally takes place amid jeopardy (for example, a collapsing Red Keep).  It’s a pet hate of mine in films and explains my lack of interest in superheroes.  No matter what has come before, the final stakes are decided by enemies punching each other.  It’s just not interesting as the good one has to win eventually.  As King’s Landing gets roasted, Jaime takes on Euron in a dirty beach brawl for the right to get side eye from Cersei.  Upstairs, the Clegane brothers finally have at each other because, by the way, Sandor is much angrier about Gregor burning his face when he was a child than we have realised at any point up till now.  The Hound’s fight with Brienne in season four was elevated above this nonsense by all the genuine baggage each character brought to every bone-crunching punch, but the elaborately choreographed set pieces that play out here leave me so cold I’m surprised they didn’t put out the dragon’s fires.

I’m feeling guilty about trolling this all so much, but I’m not even done.  After so much post-massacre faff (and me wondering where that massive Targaryen banner came from and how any Dothraki have survived this far at all) I almost felt like I would stab Daenerys to death if Jon didn’t hurry up and do it.  There was no guessing, no surprising.  It was coming a mile off, only it was limping and had a leg off.  For this act, Jon Snow, our hero, is banished back to the Night’s Watch.  Now this does get a strong reaction, as it seems like unjust punishment.  But his final shots show him ranging beyond the wall with Wildling kin and we realise he’s now about as done with Westeros as we are.  Everyone decides Bran should be king (he’s not arsed), despite a brief moment of considering parliamentary democracy (LOL), while Sansa at last achieves secession for the North from the other six kingdoms.  Arya is teed up for her spin off, The Amazing Adventures Of Arya Stark, by sailing off the edge of the map, and, with that, we’ve said goodbye to each of the surviving Stark children.

Don’t get me wrong, this is all still an amazing achievement in television.  No show has ever got so big before that its final season could only be delivered through feature-length episodes.  The cinematic ambition is never lost.  Our eyes can still feast on a richly imagined world.  Every shot, every set piece, every scene is carefully executed.  The end of Game Of Thrones is triumphant by anyone’s standards.  But this dazzling doesn’t distract from a damaging lane change.  By dialling down the storytelling craft and hurrying to get things over with, any fan can’t help but feel jarred.  There’s short change in this final visit to Westeros, simply because the standards set before were so high.  Leaving us on an IMDB rating of 4.1, despite reaching 9.9 more than a handful of times, Game Of Thrones is best remembered for its other seasons.  Just pretend it never ended.

Best newcomer

Even as the population of existing characters dwindles, we’re not given anyone new that’s significant enough to mention here.  Instead, I just want to question who the extra ones are back in the dragon pit when the fate of Westeros is decided.  They get to say “aye” I suppose.

Most valuable character

While Arya does indeed save all mankind from death, it’s Jon Snow that ultimately gets left with all the hard jobs.  Galvanising everyone to fight the dead when nobody believes him is one thing, but then having to be the one that kills his own aunt (that he’s in love with) to eliminate her from ruling, and then being punished for it with banishment, all while being the rightful heir, just shows what a stoic martyr he is.

Best death

It’s poor Lord Varys that sticks in my mind here.  Conleth Hill provides consistently understated performances in every season, but he even manages to bring nuance to Varys’s dawning realisation that the queen he’s risked everything for isn’t going to live up to his expectations and be the best choice for the realm.  This is despite the looky-looky nature of the season eight dumbshow that guides us through what is happening with sheer obviousness.  Scheming (for good) till the end, he is led finally to be fried with a final dracarys and we can only be glad that he outlive arch-rival Littlefinger.  Second place: Qyburn getting his head smashed in by the Mountain.  Splat.

Jaw-dropper moment

You can’t get much more Thronesian than a flaming sword, so when Melisandre ignites the blades of Daenerys’ Dothraki hordes as the Night King approaches Winterfell we marvel at this cinematic sequence, if only because it provides some much-needed illumination to proceedings.  What follows is the slow extinguishing of every last flame as Daenerys’s loyal soldiers ride into the fray.  We’re in for a long night.

Game Of Thrones (Season Seven)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Seven Hells!  Suddenly there were only seven episodes in this seventh season of Game Of Thrones.  Sure, they were mostly longer than usual, but the overall effect of fewer, bigger instalments compared to the normal format was that there was a lack of the complication in which all other series have revelled.  Thrones’ beauty is often in its complexity, and its fierce refusal ever to compromise on this: no detail is dumbed down to promote accessibility.  In 2017, international expectations for the series were unprecedented, so it was unlikely any nascent viewers would require catering for.  This was for the fans, and by this point, there were millions of fans worldwide.  The web woven round Westeros by season six was indeed as intricate as any ensemble story-lining ever attempted.  Sixty hours of background meant that every encounter and re-encounter between characters was drenched in an excess of history.  Should this season, then, have continued to mine that deep vein, painstakingly inching things along?  Perhaps, but, instead, season seven ramps things up in a way we have never seen before.

Nevertheless, progress requires departure from the way things were done before.  In that sense, this series overhauled the old approach to big set pieces: building up to the most explosive action for an episode nine free for all (like the Battle Of The Bastards in season six).  Instead, breath-taking sequences were peppered throughout, a lavish garnish of production budget, particularly when compared to earlier seasons’ clever navigation of not being able to afford a thousand Wildlings to sweep the battlefield.  Whether it’s the Lannister forces facing a dragon attack while absconding with Tyrell gold from the Reach, or the Unsullied taking Casterly Rock, in both an imagined and a real sequence, we are spoiled in the eyeballs for untold extras in expensive costumes running generally amok.  The show is elevating itself from the biggest boxset of all time to a sequence of Hollywood blockbuster films.  This is a stroke of luck for the action fans, but the beginning of the end for what has up to now been exceptional storytelling.

Amid all this destruction, though, we begin to tally up how many prestigious families have been totally wiped out.  The Targaryens have been over since before season one, but the Tyrells get done, the Greyjoys are nearly over, the Martells mostly stabbed and the Starks are only just emerging from complete annihilation.  This leads us to one of the best threads of the whole season: the Starks getting their groove back.  We’re treated not only to Bran finally returning to Winterfell, but Arya also finally comes home after the longest time a child has ever gone out to play for without telling her parents where she is going.  Of course, Jon pops off to Dragonstone (more on this later), so it’s almost a one in, one out policy, but our hearts soar as Sansa gradually reassembles her surviving siblings around her.  Bran, however, isn’t that arsed.  He stares blankly ahead, telling people he’s the Three-Eyed Raven as if this is a Westerosi equivalent of declaring “no offence, but” before saying something awful.  He is immobile as his sisters hug him.  You start to wonder if he’s the first case of late-onset Asperger’s in the Seven Kingdom.

Nevertheless, once he has cruelly dismissed the wonderful Meera after totally mugging her off for all her help, he observes as tension seems to fester between his two sisters.  There follows the most delicious intrigue as it seems Petyr Baelish is successfully playing the Stark girls off against each other.  We’ve come so far, yet it all seems poised to fall apart.  That is, until a scene in the hall at Winterfell when Arya is brought before her sister, apparently to answer for her crimes.  The moment Sansa artfully directs proceedings to accuse Littlefinger instead of her sibling, and his subsequent oilier-than-ever squirming to get out of the situation at any cost, constitutes a huge story arc pay-off that has been built series on series before finally rewarding us as fans.

The other big reunion is the assembly of Westeros’s biggest lads for a bit of a stag weekend north of the Wall.  Berric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr and the Hound team up with Jon Snow and pals to range into the snows to find and capture a soldier from the Night King’s army for the sole purpose of some show and tell with Cersei in order to encourage her to support them in the coming war against the dead.  Even Gendry (not seen since season three) gets to come along for a bit.  I’ve spoken before about my issue with people not wearing hats in the snow, but these lot face blizzards and zombie polar bears with loose locks blowing irresponsibly in the breeze.  That said, the whole of Beyond The Wall is one of my favourite episodes, but their recklessness extends beyond anything we could ever have imagined.  In the end, it costs a whole dragon to get a dead man in front of Cersei.  The same dragon ends up resurrected on the side of the baddies (melting the Wall in a climactic finale), while Cersei has no intention of supporting her fellow living beings.  Maybe Daenerys could have popped up there on the dragon in the first place, preventing such a big fail, but I suppose that wouldn’t have led to such exciting action.

So let’s talk about Dragonstone.  Formerly Stannis’s gaff, before Brienne offed him in season five, Daenerys moves in to a castle that seems to have been done up in the meantime.  This may be down to more daytime scenes this time around, and fewer occasions of burning relatives alive on the beach to appease the Lord Of Light, but I can’t believe they didn’t throw out the tacky old Westeros map table, or at least put some windows in that room what with all the stormy weather.  Either way, much is made of the walkway between the castle and the beach, so some location scout must be very pleased with their find featuring so heavily.  It provides plenty of vistas for Jon Snow to brood over, not to mention serving as the perfect platform for intimidating dragon flyovers.

One corner of Westeros that gets plenty of attention this time around is Oldtown, with the workings of the Citadel expanded on further through the eyes of Samwell Tarly.  For a graduate trainee, his immediate appointment to personal assistant of the Archmaester seems a bit suspect, but it at least brings into our lives the wonderful addition of Jim Broadbent’s performance.  Even with the rest of the cast’s incredible strength in their roles, it’s always smashing when another household name joins in on the fun.  Even if that fun is ignoring Samwell’s pleading to deal with the Night King or refusing to have Jorah Mormont’s greyscale treated, focusing instead on having Jon’s pal empty endless overflowing bedpans.  All being said, this element fits in seamlessly to the rest of our stories’ richness, exemplifying the fact that Game Of Thrones is now operating completely in its own universe.  While viewers can revel in the bolder action, our sense of the coming end makes inevitable our resistance to things resolving.  Just as all men must die, all good things must come to an end, and Game Of Thrones, even when not at its peak, is one of the best.

Best newcomer

This was easier back in season two when new characters popped up all the time.  This penultimate season proves to be less of an opportunity for great new faces, so I’m going to cheat and bring in someone who actually debuted in series six.  Euron Greyjoy still counts as a bit new, doesn’t he?  Either way, his goading of Jaime Lannister creates a great chance to dish out shade-throwing lines about Cersei liking a “finger up the bum” while we can also credit him with superb enunciation of the word twat.

Most valuable character

While this series is dominated by Queen Cersei’s resurgence, it’s the Night King who’s the best monarch.  Undying loyalty from his subjects?  Check – they’re already dead.  A crown that can’t be taken off?  Check – it’s quite literally growing out of his skull.  A great throwing arm?  Check – he can take out an airborne dragon with just a quick toss of one his spears.  He gets extra marks for consistency too, quietly offering an underlying, simmering tension to everything else that has unfolded, we’re now poised for his time to shine and he couldn’t be more ready.

Best death

Despite Tyrion’s protests, Daenerys incinerates two generations of the Tarlys after taking both Dickon (not Rickon) and Randyll prisoner.  Unwilling to swear loyalty, their obstinacy leads to a great dracarys moment, and we all know that Samwell probably isn’t arsed.

Jaw-dropper moment

I’ll finish with another discussion about bollocks.  Our Theon finally finds an advantage to forced castration when a disobedient Iron Islander refuses to follow his leader on a mission to rescue Yara from Euron following the epic sea battle that turns the tide against Daenerys.  Theon gets the salt kicked out of him, but it’s not until he’s able to withstand several huge blows to the crotch unaffected that the tables turn and the rascal takes another step to redemption.

Game Of Thrones (Season Six)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Welcome to peak Game Of Thrones.  As these episodes first aired, this programme was easily the biggest show in the world.  Rising to such pressures, the show’s producers mostly maintained their confidence with the approach that had worked so well thus far: careful character development, reaping the sowed seeds of earlier instalments’ storylines, adding layer upon layer of richness to the imagined world of Westeros.  The ultraviolence is of course still there, and the boobies, while the culling of characters, large and small, alone or in groups, continues unabated.  The whole thing feels like a gradual focusing in on what’s really important, lasering through so much detail to what is actually an incredibly tight narrative.  In its course, events tangibly pivot, the characters having reached the furthest distances of their spreading out, and, as if pulled by gravity, reunions, regroupings and rapprochements punctuate our progress so that we finally feel a sense of an approaching ending.  Yet, as fans, we hope this remains a long way off, as any Game Of Thrones content is quality content.

One of the most significant reunifications is that of Sansa and her (supposed) half-brother Jon Snow at Castle Black in the fourth episode.  She hasn’t seen any close family since the end of series one, and, with Jon at the Wall since that season’s second episode, it’s remarkable how much we have longed for them to embrace each other as siblings, despite how little time on screen they’ve actually ever spent together.  With Sansa finally free of Ramsay, and Jon’s watch ended (because he died and was resurrected by Melisandre, the latter proving useful for once), the two reform the Starks and set out to gather the Northern houses to their cause against the Boltons.  This culminates in another legendary episode: Battle Of The Bastards.  While not the only instalment in the season with a 9.9 rating on IMDB, this episode boldly declares not just that Game Of Thrones now has as much budget as a Hollywood blockbuster, but also that it can handle epic scenes just as well as, if not better than, any cinema fare.  Dominating nearly the whole episode (with just a touch of Daenerys and her deliciously sexually charged first meeting with Yara Greyjoy) this immense sequence takes grip and never lets go.  From Ramsay’s cruel execution of Rickon (I’m still devastated) to the moment when all seems lost as the Wildlings and Northmen are pincered against a pile of dead bodies by the Boltons’ spears, there is no let up.  And you don’t want any: this is pure pay-off for hours and hours of careful, artful build up.  As Ramsay’s own hounds devour his smug face off while Sansa enjoys witnessing his just desserts, we’re left to remark at how ambitious an act of story-telling her whole journey and transformation is.

Meanwhile, her younger sister is also awash in character development.  Arya spends a lot of this season at the theatre, on a job from her new employer, the Faceless Men.  Watching Ned Stark’s beheading and Joffrey’s season-four poisoning enacted by luvvies serves not only as a great recap, but also brings to life what succulent tabloid fodder the exploits of the Lannisters and their like would provide in any news cycle.  Before indulging in this hobby, though, Arya is busy being blind, the punishment for using a face without permission.  A girl has been very naughty.  Of course, workplace bully, The Waif, is on the scene, beating Arya with a stick, proving she really is a nasty piece of work who goes about beating up the disabled.  She later pursues Arya through the higgledy-piggledy streets of Braavos in thrilling chases, brutally murdering the lovely Lady Crane in the process and causing a lot of fruit to be spilled, much to the ire of hardworking market traders, so the moment when we see The Waif’s face added to the wall at the House Of Black And White is a cause for deep satisfaction.  Don’t mess with Arya, ok?

Whilst the youngest Stark girl is free to get home, we’re also reintroduced to her old travelling companion, the Hound.  Absent for the whole of season five (like Bran and pals) to give the other plotlines room to breathe and catch up, the scarred one resurfaces in a sept-building crew, learning life lessons from a guest-starring Ian McShane before he is hanged in his own construction by some deviant members of the Brotherhood Without Banners, who also massacre the rest of the workers for the sake of completion.  In true Thronesian style, Clegane Junior gets bloody revenge and we start to trust our feeling that maybe he is one of the good guys, even though he did punch Brienne, Sansa and Arya a lot.

The sept-building sequences here, though, can tend to feel like a bit of bagginess when compared to other, much tighter structures.  I’m talking about The Door.  This episode brings together a great deal, explaining Hodor’s origins with the eye-opening wonder of a true epiphany, all while detailing the origins of the Night King and culminating in another great burst of zombie apocalypse as the lair of the Three-Eyed Raven is compromised and invaded.  Poor old Meera has to drag Bran though countless blizzards while he wargs about, but luckily Uncle Benjen crops up to save the day.  Given how many scenes play out in snowstorms, I’m surprised more characters don’t take to hats.  Jon Snow and Meera both have luscious curly hair, but it’s not enough to keep their ears warm in biting winds.  I just get concerned for them.

Talking of septs, it’s all getting a bit bothersome over at Cersei’s.  Margaery only ends her imprisonment by faking devotion (whereas the split ends look real), saving her grandmother’s life by surreptitiously urging her to flee despite being under the hawk-like glare of Septa Unella.  As all the Sparrow and High Sparrow inconvenience arises from Cersei’s own scheming, it’s only fitting that she should endeavour to end it with her greatest scheme to date.  While the massive explosion at Baelor’s Sept results in the cast genocide of her dreams (seeya Margaery, Loras, Mace, Kevan, the High Sparrow himself and even little Lancel in the cellars beneath), the loss of his beloved proves too much for her last surviving child, and King Tommen, the first and probably last of his name, tosses himself out of a Red Keep window (not a euphemism) while the flames burn in the distance.  As a series climax, the tension that builds to the wildfire tearing through half of King’s Landing is irresistible, from Lancel spotting those bright green drops, to Margaery realising everyone in the sept is in danger.  None of the seven gods save the High Sparrow and sadly his condescending ramblings are no more.  This final episode in fact averages a death every five minutes, with Grandmaester Pycelle stabbed to death by Qyburn’s kids’ club, and Walder Frey’s throat sliced open by Arya in super assassin mode, potentially borrowing some skills from old pal Hot Pie to bake Walder’s sons into a pie that shows absolutely no evidence of a soggy bottom.  Just a fingertip.

Up North, Bran’s visions further flesh out the Mad King’s backstory, with some genius casting giving us a brilliant young Ned Stark (fingers crossed for a spin-off of Robert’s Rebellion with the same cast) who out Sean-Beans Sean Bean.  And we have the formation of a good-guys supergroup, with Ser Davos Seaworth teaming up with Jon Snow and his Wildling brethren (including the hilarious Tormund).  Melisandre, though, is first to be voted off, after Davos confronts her about burning to death the lovely Princess Shireen (a scene so horrific I completely omitted it from my season five post).

And finally, in the Bay formerly known as Slaver’s, Daenerys continues to kick arse.  Righting centuries of Dothraki sexism, she liberates the Dosh Khaleen and burns the Khals, amassing the world’s largest horde to deliver Meereen from those pesky slavers (up to mischief again).  She makes Tyrion her hand, luckily missing the excruciating scenes where he tries to make Missandei and Grey Worm drink or tell jokes, but dumps Daario to have him babysit her cities.  But not before she’s burned a few enemy ships on her dragons.  Maybe she even enjoys it a bit.  Maybe.  We then launch into the acceleration that comes to characterise these later series.  Varys somehow flits back and forth to Dorne in journeys that would have taken a season each if they were in series two or three, but he quickly gets Ellaria Sand and Olenna Tyrell onside (not before she’s cussed the Sand Snakes which shows that great minds think alike), and before we know it, Daenerys is finally (after talking about it for six seasons) returning to Westeros with an army.  We have momentum and the conclusion feels in sight.

Best newcomer

Let’s go for Melessa Tarly (also in Sex Education).  When Samwell brings Gilly and Little Sam home for a stopover en route to Old Town, she exudes the warmth and care that we can see shining through in her heroic son.  While his father almost chokes on his venison at the sight of a Wildling dinner guest (he would have preferred a whore), Melessa shows only compassion.

Most valuable character

Lady Lyanna Mormont is a clear fan favourite, whether offering 62 Bear Islanders to the Stark cause, or outdoing all the other Northern lords when it comes to her loyalty, resurrecting the old cry of “The King in the North” while pointing out that every other house compared to hers has been rubbish.

Best death

Whoever built Pyke had little concern for health and safety.  Atop cliff stacks, each part of the castle teeters over churning stormy seas, linked only by creaking rope bridges designed to swing in the constant wind and rain.  Alas, then, that Balon Greyjoy, didn’t ever have these reinforced or develop  a better centre of gravity, as his cheeky brother Euron easily tosses him over the edge (not a euphemism, again) and the man we’ve seen be mean to Yara and Theon over and over plummets to his death on the rocks below.

Jaw-dropper moment

In the season’s closing minutes, we see Lyanna Stark whispering in her brother’s ear while she dies after childbirth.  Then we see the baby in Ned’s arms, apparently doing Blue Steel.  What secret did she impart?  We’ll have to wait till the next season to find out, but with Jon Snow’s face suddenly replacing the baby’s in the next shot, the rumours of his origin finally appear to get the first hint of confirmation.  Jon… Targaryen?

Game Of Thrones (Season Five)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Alternative titles for this season (not sanctioned by anyone other than me) include Game Of Thrones: The Cersei Years or, of course, Shit Gets Real.  While the nudity and adult content is less gratuitous than it has sometimes erred to be, this series is the murderiest, violentest, religionest, graphicest and twistedest set of episodes yet.  As with each passing year of its by-now snowballing popularity, 2015’s trips to Westeros are lavished in increasing budgets which, rather than detracting from the sociological richness and deep characterisation, enhance the two former elements by bringing them further to life with rich and extensive imagery.  For fans of the show, this season has it all.  And for fans who know that, like winter, season eight is coming, it’s important to feast on this real peak of Thrones before everyone runs out of puff.

While the action of its predecessors saw characters take a lot longer to get around Westeros alone, season five is the start of much more rapid and extensive movement.  Arya goes to Braavos and Tyrion and Varys go to Pentos and finally reach Meereen, while Jaime journeys to Dorne (with Bronn), Sansa ends up at Winterfell, preceding Stannis’s own arrival there, and Jon Snow drags half the Night’s Watch to Hardhome.  Let’s focus on Arya for a bit, as a chance encounter with a coin in season two seems to result in her undertaking the worst work experience ever.  Determined to track down Jaqen H’gar, she petitions the House Of Black And White to let her join their organisation, wilfully sweeping its floors after purging (nearly) all of her material possessions.  And what a place.  I still can’t really work it out.  It seems to function as a sort of multi-faith prayer room (like the ones you see signs for at airports) but with a pool of poisonous water you can be given to drink if you want your dead body washed in an adjacent room, before, I think, your face is hung up in a big underground cavern for use in future assassinations.  Praying and killing: together at last.  Progressing through the training, Arya ends up in an even worse role, if that’s possible, carting unrefrigerated shellfish around a hot port city, before murdering the wrong person.  But, in fact, Meryn Trant is completely the right person, allowing Arya finally to get some more names off her kill list.  The graphic gore of Trant’s death by stabbing feels like just desserts not just for his awfulness since season one, but also his unsettling sexual preferences: beating small girls.  Arya clearly shows she’s one small girl who won’t be beaten.

But it’s our big girl who comes a cropper.  Not Brienne Of Tarth, though (whom we all love and whom the producers of the show seem to love seeing get punched in the face or stomach, mostly in season four), but Queen Cersei.  Sensing her hold of Tommen at risk due to Margaery’s skilled manipulation of her intended, Cersei forms a dangerous pact with the newly emerged High Sparrow.  But he proves to be one old man who simply won’t play her game (of thrones).  While her delicious scheming sees both Margaery and Loras locked away, the tables turn when Cersei herself is held to account for her affair with Lancel Lannister (now unrecognisible).  Enter Septa Unella (who crops up as a parent in Sex Education), showing you don’t need many lines to make a big impact.  Never is this more clearly demonstrated than in the season’s finale, Mother’s Mercy, when Cersei is finally allowed out on remand, provided she walks all the way home naked.  The scenes of her journey make uncomfortable and almost endless viewing, but Unella is there the whole way, ringing her bell, dodging the peltings of detritus, and periodically shouting “Shame.  Shame.”  In fact, this approach is a great process to adopt in the workplace for anyone who needs feedback on their performance.  No office should be without a bell and a shame parade when somebody does something wrong.

Meanwhile, over in Dorne, we have the first introduction of featured characters that I can’t help but find slightly pointless.  With Oberyn’s head smashed in, his paramour Ellaria Sand is set on revenge, despite Prince Doran’s counsel of restraint.  Three of her fightingest daughters support her claim, but their arrival all at once leaves insufficient time to establish any individuality, leaving a banal taste as their motives to act or shove their bare breasts through prison bars descend into an element of interchangeable caricature rarely seen in Westeros.  I could really do without them.

Luckily, at the other end of the scale, there is Jon Snow (at least until he is stabbed to death in the final episode).  Carefully navigating the lawlessness of Caste Black until a new Lord Commander is chosen, it’s our Jon himself who finds himself at the head of the Night’s Watch, thanks to long-time good egg Maester Aemon.  He must then cope with Stannis’s expectations of support for his kingship, and with Melisandre’s insistence he clutch her bare breasts, all while slowly realising that every Wildling he saves from the White Walkers is one that can fight against the dead in the coming battle.  How all the Wildlings got to Hardhome isn’t covered, but Jon must head there with Tormund (whose comedy we haven’t yet fully discovered) on Stannis’s spare ships to bring them home.  There then unravels, in this eighth episode, what is perhaps my favourite sequence in the whole of Game Of Thrones.  Finally, we’re combining dragon-featuring fantasy with an all-out zombie apocalypse.  The tension is high throughout, from the Wildlings’ initial suspicion of the crows, to the slowly-dawning realisation that the Night King has turned up with his army to scout for new recruits.  The sheer panic as the Wildlings run for the walls of Hardhome is chilling, while the sudden silence that follows still haunts me.  As the skeletons invade, a battle unfolds, with Jon, Dolorous Edd, Tormund and the last giant eventually paddling to safety.  But the Night King isn’t bothered.  Just look at the complacence of his expression as he reanimates the battle’s victims on the waterfront just by raising his hands and sort of shrugging nonchalantly while eyeballing Jon.  I’ve watched the episode countless times, and I still find myself struggling to breathe throughout.  In addition, my muscles tense up in angst.  You could remove the sofa from under me and I wouldn’t change position. 

Best newcomer

It’s slim pickings here, so I’m going to go for The Waif, Arya’s workplace rival in Braavos.  She’s basically a dick to Arya the whole time, so she’s only here as my aversion to her is so strong that we have to recognise her effect on the viewer.

Most valuable character

Samwell Tarly is our hero this time around, even though his most heroic turns were in season three.  It’s he who stages an impromptu nomination of Jon Snow in the race for Lord Commander, proving he’s the ultimate wingman in both backing his best pal and trolling the awful Ser Alliser Thorne.

Best death

We need to make more of a fuss about Miranda, Ramsay’s plaything and daughter of the kennel master at Winterfell.  She’s an absolute piece of work, gleefully joining in with Theon’s torture and accompanying her bastard beau when he runs down girls in the forests.  When she intercepts prisoner-wife Sansa on the battlements of Winterfell, an arrow notched, she conducts herself deliciously like the cat who’s got the cream.  But, at last, Theon does the right thing and tosses her over the edge.  Her body hits the ground unceremoniously and we yell at the telly for Sansa and Theon to escape the clutches of the bastard of Winterfell.  Such fun.

Jaw-dropper moment

The Sons Of The Harpy have to be one of the campest terrorist organisations ever seen.  Not content with shiny gold masks and colourful tunics, they move in this oily, sinister way like their going to jazz-hand you to death.  Sure, they’re successful in killing off dear old Ser Barristan and wounding Grey Worm, but their big uprising in The Dance Of Dragons sees a lot of them burned to crisps by Drogon.  But from the moment Jorah Mormont’s spear gets one square in the chest, via the stabbing of Hizdahr zo Loraq (nobody minds), to the sight of Missandei and Daenerys holding hands in fear as they’re convinced they’ve met their end in the middle of the fighting pit, this sequence rivals the Hardhome evacuation for sheer maintained tension and insurmountable peril.

Game Of Thrones (Season Four)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

The fourth season is the first series of Game Of Thrones I remember being covered in the media.  This dragon-based fare was no longer the niche preserve of its traditional audience; it had broken out into the mainstream.  Coverage talked of the arrival of Pedro Pascal (from Narcos) and Indira Varma (from Luther) as key Dornishmen and women, bringing another of the Seven Kingdoms’ countrymen into our theatre of action.  With the Red Wedding a distant memory, and its celebratory murders extinguishing a whole dynasty of characters (Catelyn, Robb, Talisa), series four is marked by new pairings for key players as they embark on new journeys, while established groups take on further complications that, together, leave the impression of a universe expanding following a big bang and drifting further and further away from ever being resolved in the near future.  As a viewer, this was one of the most thrilling and compelling parts of Game Of Thrones’ appeal: we could see ourselves treated to endless high-quality, imagination-rich, boob-and-nudity-riddled ultraviolent content.

Everything pivots on the second episode’s notorious poisoning of King Joffrey.  As ever, a reminder, if ever we needed one, that nobody is safe, but it is gratifying to watch him asphyxiate in his mother’s arms after so cruelly tormenting every single guest at his nuptials.  This in turns fits the Thronesian wedding trend of every ceremony being marred by a death (the Dothraki will be impressed).  While this assassination robs us of Jack Gleeson’s delightfully camp yet sinisterly threatening performance, it sets into motion the intrigue and scheming required to replace the entire thrust of our storyline around the Young Wolf.  Tyrion ends up accused of killing his nephew and threatened with execution instead of being given the firm handshake we surely owe anyone who delivers the little bastard his comeuppance.  This allows Peter Dinklage to deliver more of his outstanding acting rage, moving on from irreverence and intoxication, building instead on his sensitive treatment of new (and unwilling) wife Sansa.  Persecuted by his entire family and, in fact, the entire realm, at his farcical trial, it’s his betrayal by Shae (whom I never liked) that leads him to deliver one of his most memorable soliloquys, admitting guilt to his only real crime in their eyes: being a dwarf.  The series’ rip-roaring finale sees us cheering our Tyrion along as he strangles Shae with Lannister gold (how ironic) and crossbows down his own dad and veteran actor Charles Dance while he passes his nightsoil.  Tyrion is then spirited from Westeros in a dual act of derring-do by dream team Varys and Jaime.

The devil, though, is in the detail.  The main culprits in the poisoning passed me by on my first viewing, but now I have enjoyed the episodes several times, I am able to pick out more foreshadowing, bigger clues and a great deal of stark obviousness that I had previously failed to detect.  Beating her husband to an escape from King’s Landing, Sansa’s flight takes place in the chaos that immediately follows.  Again, I defy anyone not to scream along at her progress as she dashes through the capital’s alleyways, placing blind trust in the ill-fated Ser Dontos Hollard, only to be delivered into the little hands of Littlefinger.  She manages to see out the series at the Eyrie, but we all know that the abuse coming for her in the fifth season will compound her vile treatment throughout seasons one, two and three.

Meanwhile, a lot more of the action unfolds beyond the borders of the Seven Kingdoms.  Daenerys is taking over Meereen and freeing slaves, building her retinue of core supporters but sadly ending the bristling tension between Ser Barristan Selmy and Ser Jorah Mormont after she discovers the previous duplicity of the latter (much to the former’s glee).  Bran, who helps us track the passing of time by monitoring his transformation at the onset of puberty, has made it beyond the wall, but comes a cropper at Craster’s Keep, bringing about another near miss as Jon Snow arrives on the scene to sort out the Night’s Watch mutineers filling their boots with Craster’s ale, food and wives.  I’ll admit to struggling to work out what Locke is doing on this mission, having seemingly taken the black.  I wondered if he was being punished for chopping off Jaime’s good hand, but no, he is on another Bolton baddie posting, tracking down Brandon Stark but meeting a well-deserved bloody end in the process.

But this series belongs to Jon Snow.  Mostly.  Sure, we have more of Ramsay torturing and mutilating Theon, to such an extent he refuses Yara’s rescue attempt, Brienne ends up in an odd couple with Podrick, and Arya and The Hound prove it’s not so easy to get along when you both want to kill each other.  But Jon just does everything right, no matter the cost.  Having betrayed his new Wildling pals, ending up both scratched in the face by an eagle and shot with arrows by crazy ex-girlfriend Ygritte, he must face discipline back at Castle Black.  Maester Aemon, ever the voice of reason, manages to mitigate his fate, but Snow’s enemies are clearly biding their time, despite him outperforming them in every element of night-watching.  This crescendos into our most ambitious episode to date: The Watchers On The Wall.  Yes, it’s another battle, but we’re allowed to see a lot more of the action, as there are a lot more actors in the budget.  Even giants.  Surrounded on both sides of the Wall, the Night’s Watch must survive the, er, night in what turns out later to be a giant waste of time (and a timely waste of giants).  The Wildlings aren’t the enemy; they turn out to be the refugees.  Sadly, we don’t realise this till Ygritte, Pyp and Grenn are killed.  Nevertheless, it presents a great chance to Stannis to do something right for once, but we’ll save that for next week…

Best newcomer

We finally meet the Three-Eyed Raven.  In this series, though, he is no great shakes, lounging inert in a musty room as you would expect any OAP to on a visit to the old folks’ home.  But it’s what he represents that’s so significant.  This is why Bran has journeyed so far.  Or should I say, why Bran has made Hodor carry him so far, while Meera sorts the food and protects them and Jojen trains him in clairvoyance before getting stabbed in the heart repeatedly by an animated skeleton.  Team Bran’s narrow survival of the dead army awaiting them at their final destination goes to show that season four’s epic drama does not run out at episode nine.  What is more, we are at last treated to seeing a Child Of The Forest…

Most valuable character

Olenna Tyrell takes all the best lines and steals every scene.  But she more than rises to the challenge of protecting granddaughter Margaery while fuelling and abetting her ambition.  Her lack of remorse for poisoning Joffrey before he ever gets the chance to be her grandson-in-law is truly delicious.

Best death

The Moon Door has always freaked me out, thanks to my terrible fear of heights.  I always worry I will go momentarily mad and jump off tall buildings, so I can never go near the edge of things.  In a climactic tussle, envious Lysa Arryn accuses Sansa of stealing away her new husband and we are on the edge of our seats at the fear of losing our ginger heroine over the edge of the Moon Door.  Demonstrating cold-hearted calculation, Baelish embraces his insecure lover to reassure her, before shoving her and sending her tumbling to her death screaming like a mad woman.  As if we didn’t already know: never trust Petyr!

Jaw-dropper moment

Tyrion’s trial by combat lives on in infamy.  The Mountain looks all but defeated, much to the displeasure of Tywin and Cersei, but he somehow manages to crush Prince Oberyn’s skull with his bare hands.  All our retinas end up with the image of the poor Dornishman’s squashed head burned into them, proving that nobody can take on the Lannisters and win.