All hail the King Formerly Known as Bran.
In the end, the Iron Throne…went to no one. It was melted to a puddle of iron by a dragon, but the role of king went to the person it probably made the most sense to go to, just in terms of the fact that he knows everything past, present, and future and will be able to make decisions for his people based on that and whatever, and he can also warg around to track down an angry dragon when he doesn’t want to deal with coins and brothels and ships and stuff. It’s Bran. Bran’s the King. King Bran the Broken.
Meanwhile, Jon’s been sent right back to the Night’s Watch to lead the Wildlings, Sansa’s the new Queen in the North, Arya’s off to discover the West, and Daenerys Targaryen is dead.
Last week, women and children were being burned alive for no apparent reason. This week, Tyrion was comically arranging chairs and Sam literally held up a book called “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Ya never know what you’re going to get with this show.
The whole thing started just about where the last episode left off, with Tyrion, Jon, Davos, and some soldiers wandering the thoroughly destroyed King’s Landing, surveying the damage their queen had done. Grey Worm was sentencing Lannister soldiers to die, and Jon was all, “it’s over, dude.”
Grey Worm refused to accept this and the unsullied even almost turned on Jon, and so Jon gave up and just let Grey Worm kill the guys. Who even cares anymore? Everyone might as well die at this point.
Tyrion went on to the Red Keep by himself and wandered slowly through the debris until he came upon Jaime’s golden hand, followed by the dead bodies of Jaime and Cersei. Tyrion cried. Jaime and Cersei would likely not have survived even if Dany had only burned the people she went there to burn, but still. Sad for Tyrion, we guess.
Arya and Jon then made their way to some really tall and extra dramatic stairs, and Jon walked up to the top to meet the new queen, who was ready to address her army. She made Grey Worm her master of war, and declared that their war was not over until they liberated all the women and children all over the Seven Kingdoms (except of course for the ones she just brutally murdered).
As Tyrion stood beside her, she pointed out that he freed his brother and committed treason, and he pointed out that she just slaughtered a city, and then he tore off his fancy Hand of the Queen pin and they stared at each other for a second before she instructed her men to take him. (Honestly she should have done that last week instead of killing all the people who hadn’t wronged her but whatever).
Jon and Arya reunited, and Arya had some cold hard truths to tell, like how Sansa saw this coming, and how Jon will always be a threat to Dany since she knows who he really is.
Jon then went to visit Tyrion, who was imprisoned, and Tyrion just reminded us all that Dany went crazy and Jon would never have done such a thing, and tried to go back and describe all the things she had done to justify what she just did. Then they both waxed poetic about love and reason and duty and it all came down to the fact that Jon would have to kill the queen.
Meanwhile, Dany found the throne. The walls around it had fallen down and it was way smaller than she thought it was going to be, but she was still about to finally have her moment until Jon Snow showed up to yell about all the women and children she just killed. But Dany was still convinced that her world will be a good world, because she knows what’s good, somehow. But no, she will not show mercy to any of the people who’ve wronged her, and she doesn’t regret what she just did to King’s Landing.
“Be with me,” she told Jon, and got real close to him, which gave him the perfect opportunity to STAB HER.
She died surprisingly fast given how slow every single other thing has happened this season, and then Drogon arrived to sadly nudge his mama a couple of times, bare his teeth in Jon’s direction, then turn his fiery breath towards the Iron Throne, which he completely melted. Then he picked Dany up in his dragon hand and flew away with her into the cloud of ash, which was when this first got funny.
Some unknown time later (perhaps a “few weeks”), Tyrion was brought in chains in front of all the heads of house, and we learned that Jon was also a prisoner. Grey Worm refused to free him even as Sansa demanded it, and when no one could figure out what to do, Tyrion was like, “the king or queen should do it.”
Then everybody realized there was no king or queen, and so they all decided to choose one. Whatever character Tobias Menzies plays (honestly can’t remember) tried to apply for the job, but that didn’t go well, and then everyone laughed uproariously after somebody suggested they turn the seven kingdoms into a democracy. Somebody asked if Tyrion wanted the gig, and he said absolutely not, but after thinking about it, stories are really cool and effective, and maybe we should choose the person with the best story. And that person is Bran.
And since Bran can’t father children, the next time they need a new ruler, they’ll choose it again in the same way in the same spot instead of just handing it off to a son or daughter.
Before Sansa agreed to Bran, she declared that the North will be an independent kingdom after everything they just went through, meaning Bran’s now just the king of the Six Kingdoms, and Tyrion’s his Hand. And as for Jon, no matter what happens, there will be a war, so King Bran decided to send him right back to the Night’s Watch for a life sentence of watching…something.
Arya plans to go west of Westeros, to find out what happens after all the maps stop. Brienne updated a book about Jaime and somehow let herself end it with “died protecting his queen” instead of “turned out to be a real sister-loving jerk after all.” Tyrion carefully arranged all the chairs at the council table, only for everyone to come in and mess them up, just before Sam arrived to present him with a very large book called “A Song of Ice and Fire,” a book about the history of the wars following the death of King Robert, AKA the book series this show is based on.
King Bran then arrived for two seconds only to check if anyone had found Drogon yet, and no one had, so he said he was going to go work on that while the rest of them figured out the rest of whatever ruling six kingdoms entails. We honestly thought Bran was just going to warg away right there at the table, and we were ready for it, but instead he just had Podrick push him away, leaving the rest of the half a council to argue about whether ships or brothels are more important.
The final montage was the real end. Arya led ships West of Westeros. Sansa was crowned the King in the independent kingdom of the North, and Jon reunited with Tormund and Ghost and led the freefolk past the wall, where the zombies apparently really are gone for good.
And that was it. Our watch has ended.
Vote in the poll below with your thoughts on the finale, and stay tuned for more coverage and unpacking of all of that.
Game of Thrones aired on HBO.
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