Warning: This recap contains nothing but spoilers for the last episode of Game of Thrones. If you are reading this before seeing the episode “The Iron Throne” or whatever they’re calling it, you are doing it wrong.
[Editor’s note: Also this is being posted late because the PCS HBIC hadn’t seen the episode yet & editing a piece full of spoilers sucks but also it’s hard to spot errors]
Well, we did it. It’s been eight years since Game of Thrones first aired and twenty-three since the book was published. In the last seven days, we read a thousand think-pieces about Dany’s uncharacteristic and/or inevitable mass murder. The dipshit industrial complex managed to garner over a million signatures on a petition to reshoot the entire season using Todd’s superkeen fanfic (“Okay, so Ghost gets noseboops and Jon Snow like, REALLY kicks the Nightking’s ass all by himself before having dragonsex, and then he turns into a dragon. Like, a really sexy dragon? Also, Tony Stark is King in the North now, and Pepper is dead, cuz blech, wimminz!”).
Hey. Guys? I love you. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s watch this mofo.
Scene the first! Ash is still falling like snow and the sound mix is so low we feel the shellshock as Tyrion walks through the burned out streets. He leaves Jon and Davos to go catacomb spelunking, where he’ll find his siblings crushed under a fuckton of masonry, total messing up Maggy the Frog’s prediction.
Jon and Davos try to intervene with Grey Worm’s Lannister cleanup. He is under orders to kill anyone who worked for Cersei, which has to make a few vintners very nervous. Jon goes to talk to the queen while Grey Worm kills the prisoners. (Don’t worry, Ed Sheeran isn’t one of them. Drogon burned his eyelids off last season, so I think he’s retired. Or most likely dead of an infection. Because no one has invented antibiotics.)
Arya shadows Jon’s approach to Dany. Where the fuck did all these Unsullied and Dothraki come from? Is there a respawn point? Drogon lands and his mommy addresses her troops. Turns out, we are not done with burning babies. We are going to be conquering all the known world, from Winterfell, Maine to R’hilor’s Taint, Arkansas.
Tyrion arrives to face his punishment. He resigns first, and is hauled off by the Unsullied. Arya warns Jon that his queen will always be threatened by him and Sansa. In lockup, Tryion tells Jon that Dany is going to give the whole world countless reiterations of the ol’ Kings Landing Barbeque. Jon is, of course, as Jon as Jon could ever Jon. Kids, I’m beginning to think he’s not that bright. Tyrion answers every complaint from the Dany subreddit with a point-by-point recap of her previously “acceptable” atrocities. He reminds Jon not only of his oath to all mankind as a Brother of the Night’s Watch, but that his sisters are probably next on the hibachi.
Jon awakens Drogon, who is sleeping under ash, or snow, or a combination of both (snash?). He passes the sniff test and is allowed to see Dany in the throne room. She loves that throne, yo. She tells Jon a sweet childhood story and he’s like, yeah, um, WHAT THE FUCK WITH THE MURDERBURNING? Turns out you can’t incinerate countless omelets without incinerating a million eggs. So… he stabs her in the heart. Yup, half an hour in and Jon has killed Dany, in the throne room, with the dagger. She bleeds out into what I’m really starting to think is proper snow, and we hear Drogon lose his shit. He flies through the missing wall, stares down Jon, then burns everything but him. The titular Iron Throne melts into rivulets as Drogon destroys the thing he knows really killed his mother. Jon watches as the last dragon flies away with the last Targaryen corpse.
A rather unkempt Tyrion is hauled out of his cell by the Unsullied. This is deathrow cell number three, for those counting at home. It’s less drafty than the Aerie and has better lighting than the the last King’s Landing cell. The sun is shining and we learn it’s been months since Dany’s death. Grey Worm brings Tyrion to the Dragonpit to face the last of the great houses of Westeros: Edmure Tully, Sansa Stark (with Arya and Bran), Yara Greyjoy, Gendry Baratheon, Samwell Tarly, Davos Seaworth (who isn’t sure if he counts), some Martell lookin’ motherfucker, Robin Arryn (who hasn’t starved to death even without milk), Brienne of Tarth, and a few old guys the closed captioning named men 1-4. After laughing down Sam’s proposal of a proper plebiscite, they vote to elect Bran as King of the Six Kingdoms. Six? Yeah, Sansa is not asking the North to kneel agan, so Bran will be short a kingdom.
Bran names Tyrion as Hand, which doesn’t please Grey Worm. Jon is to take the Black to please the Unsullied, Arya is going to be the Leif Erikson of Westeros, Sansa is Queen of the North… Holy fuck, guys.. The Starks got a happy ending!
New Kingsguard commander Brienne updates the Book of Brothers to amend Jaime’s short entry. Tyrion meets the Small Council, with Brienne, Davos, the newly named Master of Ships, Bronn, Master of Coin, Samwell, the new Grand Maester. Sam reveals that Archmaester Ebrose can finish A Song of Ice and Fire twenty years quicker than George RR Martin. Tyrion tries not to be annoyed that has been written out of history. The council start the work of rebuilding the kingdoms and Bran actually smiles.
Up north, NOSEBOOPS FER DAYS! Westeros’ goodest good boy reunites with his stupid man and they travel past the wall with Tormund and the Wildings. Sansa is crowned Queen in the North, and Arya sets sail on the Dawn Treader to explore what would be a sweet spinoff series.
What did you think? Sure, we still have a rogue dragon flying around somewhere, and there is a huge pack of man-eating wolves led by Nymeria loose in Westeros, but we feel good about this ending. As Jon rides forth into the forest and the chorus rises, we have to thank the old gods and the new that no one was playing a Journey song.
