"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 6 "The Iron Throne" - Spoilers post 2 forw

Honestly as someone who has generally - despite finding it very watchable - shat over this season for it's outrageously simplified story telling, plot conveniences, square-peg-round-hole machinations, crap character development, rushed writing, weak dialogue, character assassinations, and all the rest....

I found that finale decent and satisfying enough. Once Benioff and Wiess shed the CGI-spectacle-cloak, some half-decent passable dialogue magically reappeared. Where the **** was this in E03, E04 and E05?

Have to laugh as well at Tyrion literally vocalising to Jon the discontent that critics had of E05 in regards to Dany's past motivations not at all tallying with her decision to raze Kings Landing.

So, not perfect, not brilliant, not even particularly great, but perfectly OK. I didn't hate it, and I really expected that I would. How they arrived at the finale will always be a major bug-bear for me, but the finale in isolation is not bad at all.

Look, they sure could have scripted it better. The entire season, to me, was an utter shambles and hot mess that progressed like GRRM's bullet points expanded by CGI and spectacle, rather than actually make any attempt to join the dots and do the franchise the justice it deserved.

But that finale was still OK. Rushed as hell, and a ton of emotional notes completely failed to hit the mark (eg "Oh, Daenerys is dead, cool"), but the fundemental end for the majority of characters was OK.

I still feel outrageously cheated by the season - by the poor writing; but all it could have been; by the horrendously rushed nature of S7 and S8; by the dwindle of such a clever, intricate, complex and multi-layered show into a classic popcorn "good vs evil" spectacle that offer zero homage to the source material.

But look, that finale was not horrible, and there was, at the very end, a distinct whiff of Game of Thrones about the end-game for most characters, even if the show didn't earn those ends as it should have.

As one of this seasons most fierce critics - and again, that's not to say I didn't take enjoyment from it - the finale managed to cross the finish line better than I expected based on E04 and E05. The fact is was so horribly rushed really takes away from it, but it was pretty OK.

Edit: major brownie points for Jon actually petting Ghost; Brienne completing Jaimes entry in the ledger. Those both really swung me around to liking it, simple man as I am to please.