'Game Of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 6: 'The Iron Throne' Review and Recap

Game Of Thrones is over. Fans all over the world have signed 1 Million petition, calling on on HBO to remake the eighth and final season of Game Of Thrones. This is enough to tell you about the popularity of the show world over. The last episode was aired on Sunday and it has surely disgruntled many fans. But then you win some, you lose some.

The episode was a wrap up. 80 minutes doesn’t seem enough for a show that's spanned over eight seasons, Seven Houses and so many wars, dead kings and queens, hundreds and thousands of people, Dragons, Dire wolfs and magic of it all. The final season did look rushed up but then how do you end a saga this big and promise a proper closure to each and every character, explain all the minor subplots and make sure there is a conclusion to the journey this long. The bittersweet end we got was bittersweet after all. The first ten minutes of series finale was expected but in the end should have been the last ten minutes of this season's finale, the fight of Jon Snow and the other rebel Lords and Ladies against the tyrant Dragon Queen. 

So much of the story is left untold. We needed the conflict between Cersei and Daenerys to have been cooked properly, Night King shouldn’t have been given a lousy death after that build up from the very start, the family drama of the Starks which was always behind the camera needed clarity to establish Sansa’s learning and Bran’s gifts and in the end the establishing Daenerys as a dangerous, mentally unhinged conqueror. Queen of the ashes needed sincere character development. Her switch into a blood thirsty, war hungry tyrant was quite rushed. All the developments this season looked rather unnatural. 

Two powerful images in the first part of the episode were: The ceiling shot as Tyrion removes the bricks and finds Jaime and Cersei holding each other even in death and another one when Daenerys descents from the Dragon and Drogon is standing right behind her, you can only see the wings as Dany stands in the front and it appears as if she has Dragon’s wings now, before she walks ahead to address the army. 

The 80-minute episode was split into two parts. The climax of part one was the death of Daenerys Targaryen at the hands of Jon Snow.

Episode 6, titled The Iron Throne, started with Tyrion walking through a destroyed King's Landing, the streets of which were decorated by burned and bloodied bodies. He ventures into the Red Keep's dungeons, where he finds Cersei and Jaime. He crumbles with grief over the bodies of his siblings, who were killed by a different type of crumbling.

Jaime and Cersei died with surprisingly little ceremony last week, but Tyrion's weeping gave their endings a little extra gravitas. Jon chances upon Grey Worm and his squad of Unsullied executing Lannister soldiers. The war is won, Jon says, and there's no reason to kill these men. Grey Worm, who now wears a permanent scowl and is extremely hateable, says he's acting on the orders of the Queen.  

The two get into a testosterone-fueled confrontation before Jon decides he needs to speak to Daenerys. Before either Tyrion or Jon can make their way to Daenerys, who's fresh off her descent into villainy, she gives a victory speech to her forces by the steps of the Keep. Jon and Tyrion stand behind her. "War is not over until we liberate the world," she announces, "from Winterfell to Dorne." That last line is Jon's first clue that there's something not quite right about this new Dany. She proceeds to make Grey Worm her Master of War.

The crowd of Unsullied and Dothraki cheer. Tyrion approaches Daenerys, and she accuses him of freeing Jaime.

"I freed my brother and you slaughtered a city," he replies. He takes off his Hand of the King badge and throws it to the ground. You may recall the first "take off my badge and throw it away" move was pulled by Ned Stark in season 1, protesting King Robert's demand that an innocent Daenerys, then in Essos with no army nor dragons, be killed. Daenerys, who used her army and dragons to pillage the city, demands he be taken away.

Jon goes to see him. Jon, who is now absolutely incapable of reading a person, is still on Team Daenerys. Her best friend and her dragon both got killed, he says. How could she not be a little fiery?

"You love her," Tyrion says. "I love her too... not as successfully as you."

"Love is the death of duty," Jon says, a call back to his great-great uncle, Maester Aemon, who said that to him in season one after Jon's not father, Ned Stark, was executed. "Sometimes duty is the death of love," Tyrion retorts. "You are the shield who guards the realms of man." Tyrion is asking Jon to kill Daenerys, but Jon won't have it. Tyrion asks what Daenerys will do to Jon, the rightful heir to the throne, and his sisters, who know he's the rightful heir. Sansa will never bend the knee, he exclaims. "She doesn't get to choose," Jon says. "No, but you do," Tyrion replies, "and you have to choose now." "What about all the other people," Jon Snow asks his queen, "Who think they know what's good?" "They don't get a choice," Dany responds, thrusting a knife into her own heart in the process, though she didn't realize it.

But there's nothing about Jon Snow's character that would defend Daenerys in this situation. He clearly believed that what she did was wrong, that what she described in her speech to the Unsullied and Dothraki was abhorrent, the words of a self-deluded megalomaniac.

In the end, because he's Jon Snow, he does the right thing and kills Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains and Liberator of King's Landing and a mass murderer of the innocents, before she can liberate another population. He's imprisoned for this, and we get a time-jump.

Weeks later, Tyrion is led out to face the gathered nobles of Westeros. Grey Worm and the Unsullied have kept the Imp and Jon Snow in chains ever since Daenerys was killed and taken away by Drogon, perhaps to Valyria.

Actually, that scene between Jon and Drogon was pretty intense and fascinating. I thought for sure that Drogon would try to burn Jon and that the fire would have no effect and Jon would very obviously be a Targaryen that Drogon would defer to. I'm glad that didn't happen. Instead, Drogon melted the Iron Throne, as if even he acknowledged that it was the lust for power that led his mother to her demise. In the end, he still demurs to Jon, bowing before he flies away, Daenerys clutched gently in his talons.

In any case, weeks go by and the fate of the Seven Kingdoms must be decided, as well as the fate of Tyrion and Jon Snow.

Now comes the question of the Throne, which is not there but then it won’t be needed as well. Tyrion comes before bunch of nobles, who survived Westeros— the Starks, of course, Ser Davos, Brienne of Tarth and a grown Robin Arryn, plus Edmure Tully and Sam Tarly and various others, including a new Dornish prince.

They decide, at Tyrion's urging, that Bran is to be made the king and that from now on kings will be chosen by the noble Houses rather than by birth, because kings' sons are monsters more often than not. Everyone agrees, including Bran, and Bran The Broken is named king. "Why do you think I came all this way?" Bran (aka the Three-Eyed Raven) says.

Bran names Tyrion Hand, a fitting punishment for all his screw-ups according to the new king. This seems to convince Grey Worm. Grey Worm also agrees to Jon Snow being sent back to the Night's Watch, and for some reason everyone adheres to this plan even though Grey Worm and the invading armies all leave and they could just have Jon come back to Winterfell a few months later.

Sansa is the only one who doesn't bend the knee to her brother. She insists on the North maintaining its independence and Bran agrees (nepotism, that) and Sansa ultimately becomes Queen in the North, which she deserves.

Arya heads out West of Westeros on a crazy exploration adventure. She will eventually find the New World.

In King's Landing, a new council is formed with Tyrion as Hand, Sam as Grand Maester, Bronn as master of coin (because I guess Tyrion really did give him Highgarden even though that's utterly ridiculous) and Brienne as commander of the King's Guard. She writes down nice things about the previous commander, Jaime Lannister, who is actually dead, by the way, along with Cersei, and who "Died protecting his Queen" according to Brienne's history.

When Jon was sent North to the Wall. We get a great moment between Jon and Ghost, who's missing an ear but still makes Jon smile, a rare thing these days. Jon leaves with Tormund and the Wildlings, and heads into the wild north. You can see green blossoming underneath the snow.

Summer is coming.