Pod Save America - “Pod Save The Realm.” (Game of Thrones bonus!)

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Priyanka discuss the finale episode of Game of Thrones and look back on the politics of the series.

Welcome to Pod Save the Realm. I knew, I was wondering what he was going to do. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy. We figured we'd wrap up our Game of Thrones commentary that was sort of impromptu during the last couple Pod Save America episodes. And talk about the finale, talk about the show. We have Priyanka Arabindi here.

One American who has binged all of Game of Thrones within a little less than a month. so she could make the finale in time i'm so proud of you i have a few questions what do you got what what were our initial reactions to the finale i don't know if i should have started with that one because i can go anywhere but i mean short initial takes i am mostly grateful for eight years of amazing television and i don't want to be one of those fucking people that just whines about a show but the finale sucked you know let's just be real I mean like you agree to suspend disbelief for a show because there are rules that are set up for the the thing that's constructed that tie it all together we we love Game of Thrones because plot points from season two get tied up in season five. And just none of that happened here, in my opinion.

Love it. So I will say the finale was not the worst episode of the season. The worst episode of the season was the fourth episode, which is the worst episode in the series. I thought that the beginning was actually beautifully made. And now I'm not going to rehash the Daenerys turn and use that to color this episode. I'm just accepting that and then looking at this episode in its own terms. And I thought they did a really great job. I thought seeing her as this other force, this outsider commanding this incredible army with this weapon of mass destruction, seeing her in her full Darth Vader

mode, I appreciate it. I liked it. I thought it looked beautiful. I thought they made it work. seeing her in her full Darth Vader mode. I appreciate it. I liked it. I thought it looked beautiful. I thought they made it work. I thought that what happened with Daenerys and Jon made sense. I liked how surprising it was, given how early it happened in the episode. I thought it was one of the most beautiful moments in the series

when the dragon, when Drogon, is so overtaken by grief but doesn't want to kill Jon and kind of just sprays the throne. I thought that was well done. Destroys a metaphor. Yes, I'm avoiding allowing myself to believe that Drogon finally turned on the abstraction of power, but as represented by the chair, I'm taking it as a... Our pal Andy Greenwald over at The Ringer said,

and suddenly in that moment, Drogon becomes Bret Stephens. He just becomes a pundit. And he was just like, after all this time, he's eating goats. He's just like, and then all of a sudden he was like, this is a metaphor that I don't like. So I took it more of like when like, you know,

a character doesn't want to punch somebody. So they punch the wall next to that person. That's how I took it. That's the interpretation I'm most interested in. But then the show devolves into a PTA meeting and holy shit. The scene where Khaleesi is at the top of the steps and the dragon takes off behind her and the wings are momentarily,

but like it was, there were beautiful shots. There were things that were really cool. But yeah, the PTA meeting was. Yeah, I was going to say say i loved the first half i thought that the character arcs for a lot of our favorite characters with a few major exceptions um ended pretty well but um the uh the pta and i even liked the start of the pta meeting the start of the council seemed promising and then then I just, the Bran thing is, my two major problems with the episode are obviously the choice of Bran and the choice of how Jon got back to the North.

I think Jon being in the North at the end was a fine place for him to end, but how he got there made zero sense. No sense. No one gives a shit what Grey Worm thinks. I just want everyone to know too, no one gives a shit what Grey Worm thinks. I just want everyone to know, too, there was a moment. No one gives a shit what Grey Worm thinks.

I also just sort of, what's Grey Worm's mindset? You know, he has this prisoner that was taking orders from the prisoner in the PTA meeting. I will say, we did a live show at the Anthem in D.C., and then the Anthem graciously agreed to show Game of Thrones on the big screen after. So we watched in this empty theater. Just a couple of us. Just a couple of us. And it was really great.

Some of the anthem staff. And so we all just watched it together, which was very fun. And then when Sam gets up to give his speech about democracy, and for a moment, I was starting to literally shake with anger that not only was the show going to end with democracy, but that Jon was going to be right. And I was going to fucking lose it. We were all looking at each other. We couldn't believe it.

And then when they laughed, I felt very relieved. Now I will say to John's credit, they do have, they, they diminished democracy and then actually introduce a kind of nascent feudal Lord selection process, which is better than the, well this guy the air the uh

whatever what's it called when a kid gets it from the parent what's that called succession sure whatever they do that lineage yeah no so this gets to my uh bigger problem with the finale too i i wasn't like excited when sam started giving his speech, I started getting so anxious because I was like, this is the wrong way to do it. Because the reason I was saying, I said when we were talking about democracy that I thought some vague notion of democracy

would come to Westeros is because there is no way, no fucking way, that show could have been set up for mass democracy of just people all across the realm voting like that was silly and i'm really glad that they made fun of it and and uh it made it seem silly but where it should have ended up if they were going towards a more democratic direction

which they did is and where i thought they were going to end up is like i love that sunset gets the north and then all those other people at the council uh gray joy you are a gray joy iron islands had also previously been independent at one point dorn had previously been independent at one point by the way the new king of dorn which is no one knows who he is he's just like sitting there um and hey shout out to the kid from the erie who was uh breastfeeding at age 13 like a total weirdo like three seasons ago. Turned out that worked out pretty well for him. Yeah, he's becoming an upstanding young man. Robin Aaron really turned out well.

No, and so like no one has any objections to Sansa being like, oh, by the way, as people on Twitter were calling it, she went for a winterfexit. So she goes to the north. She gets to be queen. else like fine and then instead of just having like one council and then everyone else having like autonomous kingdoms they're like no no no no bran bran's gonna take this well but here's my problem with like tyrian gives this speech where he recommends bran as the leader and he talks about how that was the vision to break the wheel. But in no way is that breaking the wheel. The wheel was the Lannisters are on top.

Then a Targaryen is on top. Then a Baratheon. Then a Stark. Getting rid of handing it down to your done like succession or dynastic rule is not the wheel. The wheel is that you have these like mini kings. These little feudal lords fighting it out constantly to see who's on the Iron Throne. So what we do then is we name this weirdo who immediately outsources the role of king to Tyrion

to go search for a dragon for some reason who's carrying a corpse still heading east on whatever I-95. And then Tyrion now oversees the realm. And I'm led to believe that when he dies, or maybe he breaks bad too, they'll just fight it out for the next king. I don't think that they introduced democracy in any way. I thought your prediction made a lot of sense. And they maybe tried to deliver on that, but they ultimately didn't.

So I am... Well, I think Bran is the problem with why they didn't. But I disagree. I do think breaking the wheel was. And Daenerys is very specific when she said it's family after family after family and then it's handed down through succession and so no no this is the line lannister targaryen brathy and stark tyrell they're all just spokes on a wheel this one's on top then that one's on top and on and on it spins crushing those on the ground i'm going to stop the wheel i'm going to break the wheel to me that's you're just

rotating the family let me just not their kids yeah but when when because bran can't have kids the next time they vote it's not going to be it doesn't have to be another stark it can be a can be a family that wasn't one of those families that she lists yeah but i don't but like then then i think we're really suspending like whatever we're all suspending disbelief but then we think that the bunch of feudal lords are going to pick someone outside of that group to me that is the wheel it's just that same collection of people choosing among themselves. I'm going to say one more nice thing, and then I'm going to fucking lose it. Okay, last nice thing. I thought the ending was nice. It looked nice. Now to this insane decision to have it go to Bran and this council. So I am choosing

to take a dark ending to all of this, that what we saw is a kind of quiet moment in this kingdom, but what they're actually set up for is just another round of the exact same war. That's what I think. The series began with a king who was disinterested in ruling with no real heirs and a bunch of very powerful houses who decided upon that king's death that the throne belonged to them. That is exactly where we will be when Bran steps down. Now, I think that this episode mostly worked. But the problem is this season has like four mortal sins that are unforgivable. And even though I think George R. R. Martin told them where to go, that this was just sort of a really, they really mistreated their fans,

and they really mistreated the world. One, Cersei, supervillain of the series, one of the great villains in all television, one of the great female characters in this show that I think was a defense against the criticisms of it being so misogynistic towards a lot of female characters, which it certainly was over the years. They had built these incredible female characters. Cersei was given nothing to do this season, a supervillain literally scooching by her enemies as she leaves. Two, if you know, because George R. R. Martin told you that Bran is the ultimate ruler of this kingdom, give him a fucking personality for the last two and a half years.

And then third, mortal sin is the Daenerys term, which I don't think they earned. But all of that to me are the big sins. But it hides the smaller problem, which is all of our great characters became so incredibly stupid. Tyrion, who was just in jail for six weeks, we know because he said, it's been six weeks, goes and says, here's how you pick a king, guys. You need somebody with a good story. That is a subjective reason to pick a king. And they're all like, okay,

we're with you. Who has the best story? Is it Arya who killed the Night King? Is it Sansa who overcame incredible hardship to become a leader in the North? Is it Jon Snow, the rightful heir, who rose from the dead? No, it's Bran. And everyone's like, okay, I'm cool with that. But this is what's so frustrating about it. In a show about stories, the only expert on who has the best stories is us. We all watched it. We are the audience for their stories.

We are 100% certain that Bran's story is not the best fucking one. This all watched it we are the audience for their stories we are 100 certain that brand story is not the best fucking one this is longer than tyrian speech oh my god and less effective um so try to unpack some of that um yeah so if there's a lot of evidence that martin does believe that you know or did plan for Bran to be the king at the end. He starts the first book from Bran's point of view. And there's, you know, book readers will say there's like sort of evidence throughout. You're absolutely right, Lovett. Like if you know that Bran's going to end up the king.

Like, so there's an argument. There's maybe, I'll try to make the best argument for, even though I don't really believe it, for why Bran rules at the end. The real fucked up line that they gave Tyrion is it's the person with the best story. Right. Before that, he does say, who better to do this than someone who knows all of our stories, knows our history, knows everything that's ever happened. And so then you can imagine maybe they do something where it's like, you know, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it kind of trope. And then the person who knows literally every single thing that happened in the realm is useful because they know everyone else's story. But then so that maybe they could have done that if they, you know, did a better job.

But to go right from like it's the person with the best story. Well, you can't say that he has the best story. That doesn't make sense. But also, in addition to your what you just said about brand knowing all of history he could change it he could travel through time and make hodor hold the door right and so if this little i've been upset about this for a while the fact that they did not fucking that that whole thing was just about hodor but beyond that if this silent weirdo could have prevented a genocide why didn't he and then why does that make him the best king?

Right. So look. And then he smiles like, why do you think I came all this way? Yeah, you came all this way to run the- I wanted to tear my hair out. Why do you think I came all this way? I don't know. You were interested in murdering all of King's Landing, you psychopath, you little goth weirdo? I have to say, it doesn't bode well for Branton's governance

that his first act as king is blatant nepotism by allowing his sister to rule the north and no one else gets to. And rat-fucking his brother because Grey Worm wants him to to go defend a wall that shouldn't exist anymore because we were all told the Night King was dead because we saw Sansa shiv the guy five minutes ago. We have no idea. What happened to those kids in the north that make Night Kings?

Where are they at? What happened? With Caster's kids, yeah. I wanted some kind of blue eyes at the end there because they made a big deal in that episode way, way back of Caster's kids of the Night King giving a baby blue eyes, which is not changing a dead person into a white. That's something we hadn't seen before. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. But that meant nothing. What is the Three-Eyed F***ing Raven?

Six episodes of Finale, two of them were chit-chat, setting up characters in their final moments with each other who then didn't die and continued to have moments after. By the way, it's another sort of like the craziest fans. First of all, a lot of fan fiction dialogue where characters are constantly referencing things they said in old seasons, which we remember because it was in a lot of trailers,

but why would they? They're constantly referring to things they said to each other years earlier, whatever. And then you make Bronn, who punched him in the face and threatened him with a crossbow like three and a half hours ago. Like, yeah, you're in charge of the money?

He's a thief. He's a thief and a murderer. He's brawn the cutthroat, and now he's in charge of the money. Makes no sense. What do you think the Iron Bank is thinking right now? They invested all that money in the Golden Company and Searcy, and now the whole fucking King's Landing's burned down?

They're like Deutsche Bank. There is a debt crisis. It's like Lehman Brothers. There's a lot of guys moving their boxes out on wheelie chairs. There is a downgraded credit rating for Westeros. Yeah, the Lannister bond rating is junk. Can we do favorite parts? Favorite parts of the finale.

Good things. Sansa telling Ed Mortali to sit his ass down was fantastic. Maybe the best part of the whole episode uncle sit down uh the only thing that made me feel was a weeping cgi dragon which i don't think speaks well to the rest of the episode but it was really cool well it tells you a lot because first of all you know i think that has something to do with that we're dog owners and so we're a little sappy about stuff like that but what does it say that so many people suddenly felt sympathy for drogon in that moment?

Yeah, love its face right now. It's feeling a lot of sympathy. But yet we're all like, how could Daenerys have done that? I know. He just literally killed. He mass murdered an entire city. I was struck. But it was.

It was very moving. It was very moving. I was just struck by how dirty, how they did did drogon so dirty for so like this poor dragon one of three magical creatures impossible never seen not seen in hundreds of years one of his siblings dies because of a dumb fucking expedition to to do show and tell with cersei that came to nothing another one dies because they didn't look forward and look ahead because the camera didn't look forward no one else looked forward and then your mom dies

because she has a weird character turn that wasn't fully justified and now you're alone and it's just like Drogon I'm sorry for what happened to you I'm sorry that no one treated dragons with the respect that they deserved and I hope you find happiness in Volantis or wherever you go Where is he going? I'd like that.

We have basically just a brand that brands first order businesses to deal with a nuclear weapon that is just roaming around. He's like, this I'm going solo. So I believe he's trialing out of here. I do think Dan and Benji and I were discussing this after the finale. There was an immediate nerd conference call to discuss every episode. And, felt very strongly sad that i missed that timeline you didn't you didn't is john is john on mute uh we uh we were discussing the fact that it seems like when

bran goes to warg to find the dragon that there seems to be there could have been a moment where he successfully found the dragon and we saw some kind of cliffhanger because my view of the end of the series was that we were going to get a sense of these characters as the legends that they were in a world where magic was gone. And that basically happens, right? They present literally a song of ice and fire.

I like that they're like midway through the episode. The magic of gone thing didn't happen at all. There's no magic left in the world. The dragons are the night king's gone the dragons are still roaming around well maybe the dragon went off east it's sort of we don't yeah i mean it brands warging there's all the i mean except for the night king dying all the magic that had been in their world in the past is in the world the faceless men are still running around somewhere like i'm just specifically like right now in the realm there are no dragons there's no threat from the Night King they present a copy of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones for a signature they open it up oh look George signed this the uh which I thought was fine but but um I love that Tyrion

wasn't in there which doesn't actually make any sense they thought a war for Tyrion there was some funny stuff but um the series sort of ends like you know what we're kind of back where we started I kind of appreciate that which meant which made me think that we were going to get a shot of a dragon saying like, yep, this is going to come back. The dragons are going to come back. All the dangers of the world are still there. Laying an egg somewhere. Laying eggs. That's what I thought.

I thought we were going to see some fucking dragon eggs. Because every season of Game of Thrones, I think pretty much, correct me if I'm wrong, I think literally every single season has ended with a meh. You know? And this was the only one that doesn't. So I was a bit frustrated, and it did feel like an odd moment because Bran just sort of rolled out of the room saying, I'm going to go look for a dragon. End of Bran character.

I liked the conversation between Jon and Tyrion. They talked about love being the death of duty and duty being the death of love and all that kind of stuff. Because that kind of conversation is what I wanted more of in the last couple episodes like i could one of the things they did and this gets to the searcy problem is both danny and searcy stopped being point of view characters in the last couple episodes and so you didn't see from their perspective why they were making the decisions they did, why they were doing the things they did. And so that's like Circe's standing there with a glass of wine sort of watching the destruction of the city.

It would have been great for Circe to have a few more conversations with someone. I mean, she had sort of bad characters around her by the end. She's a mute giant. Yeah, exactly. So that's probably why. But like, you know, maybe her and Jamie talking more about like how she lost the kingdom. And then and Dany especially, you would have I wanted to hear Dany talk a little bit more about why she did what she did, because we heard it between Jon and Tyrion. They sort of wanted to hear it from Dany herself. And it was a good scene with Jon.

I mean, I think Emilia Clarke played those scenes fantastically because she wasn't she didn't show that she was totally mad at all it was like half political calculation half mad like there was a lot of mix and she sort of played it well but i would have liked to hurt hear her explain a little bit more why she did what she did you know it reminds me a little bit of how madman ended in that double spoiler this is i'm not going to spoil anything on madman but but they're in the final season of madman he hasn't seen it there's the final season of madman there were just these moments where like hey get our fucking main characters together i want to see peggy and don what are we doing why are they all gone why are they all thrown to the wind like show me my characters together these people that i love meeting and it didn't work well yeah the pta

meeting they also did it at the top of the steps where like aria just kind of sort of saddles up next to john like hey what's going on? Well, she's given a psychotic speech in Dothraki about how she's going to massacre the world. Stay tuned. Where was the white horse? What happened to the stupid white horse? I know, a lot of things that introduced. But also just Cersei talked to another.

Moments of these characters having their final confrontation. And it really felt like they had this arc that they had designed for this final six episodes to just sort of wrap it up and just be done with this series and there's no point in which anyone said hey we're not there yet this isn't done this is under this is a half-baked fucking cake here danny doing what she did makes sense but they introduced ambiguity about whether she was the 50 of her family that is nuts or whether she did it for some political reason or whether she felt betrayed, and we never answered that question. And I think it would have been,

that's the most interesting part of the show are these very complicated characters like a Jamie Lannister, who we've loved, we've hated, we've gotten kind of back into, but he ends by being a total prick and to, what's her face? Brianne.

Brianne, and running back to his sister you know it's like it's a complicated fun character let's talk about let's talk about john who's the other sort of besides brand was my biggest question of the finale like so john is the one true heir to the throne uh a fact that a secret that a lot of people know now because sansa spilled the beans um he was instrumental and if not he didn't kill the night king but getting everyone to focus on the dead and the night king he then kills denarius who's like a threat to the realm and uh and basically're like, yeah, you know what? Grey Worm's a little pissed.

Yara Greyjoy said she was bending the knee to Daenerys, so we got to send you out of here. Even though your brother is the new king and Sansa rules the north, we're going to send you. And no one's even going to raise it. No one's even going to be like, wait, hold on. He's actually the point of order. Like if they had said, even if they had said, like, look, we can't have another Kingslayer or Queenslayer as king.

And so you have to, you know, like, they didn't even give a good explanation for why he needed to go north. Again, Grey Worm and all his people are going to die and not reproduce because they got their jennies cut off a long time ago. Right? So he's not someone I would sweat. Also, Jon Snow's only reaction to literally everything this whole season was furrowed brow and a sniff.

Oh, I'm so sad. His character went from legitimately someone you rooted for and interesting to just boring and annoying. And like, look, okay, maybe we were set up to believe that he was in love with Daenerys and then that's why watching her torch infinity small children

was what didn't turn him in. He needed to hear from Tyrion that he was the rightful heir and that she was bad, whatever. But we've been set up to believe that so many of these characters are in love with Khaleesi throughout the season. Like, for a while, Peter Dinklage was in love with Khaleesi. That was a whole thing we thought was set up. Sort of says that at the end to Jon, too.

Yeah. I thought that trying to convince Jon was like trying to convince one of your friends that their significant other is really bad for them. Jon knew it. Jon knew it through that whole conversation, but he couldn't really get there. But then he got there

because he stabbed her in the heart. Jon Snow benefited this season from the fact that he's been dumb since season one, so he didn't get dumber. He's actually the only character from the fact that he's been dumb since season one. So he didn't get dumber. He's actually the only character in the show that didn't get, like, didn't lose like 30 IQ points between season six and season eight. Tyrion got real dumb. Tyrion got incredibly dumb. Poor Varys.

Poor Varys is like the smartest guy, you know, slinking around King's Landing, playing chess, figuring things out. And he's like, I got a plan. At least he got his told you so through Tyrion at the end. Small comfort to a burnt corpse. Well, he did try to kill her. But in the lamest way possible. He walked around being like, look, I got a weird vibe off her eyes. But like sending out the ravens, telling Tyrion his plan.

So Varys has a big plan to kill Daenerys. And instead of just doing it, he tells Tyrion. And then Tyrion, one of the heroes of the show, the smartest man in the realm, overcame all of the adversity he faced in his life. Walks up to Daenerys and went, Varys is trying to kill you. And I think it's bad. That was the end of Varys. They did Varys wrong. They did Varys wrong.

I don't agree with that one. Biggest unanswered questions biggest unanswered questions everything about Bran yeah what is he going to do what are his powers which we still don't know why was he just laying in wait

this whole time and if he was waiting to be king why is he outsourcing it to Tyrion who are the fucking children of the forest what is the deal

with the three eyed raven why did the Night King turn out to be such a little punk who couldn't win anything? I mean, that to me was really, in looking back at the whole series, I would have loved if the ending was all the various realms coming together to fight the Night King. And that's how we find some sort of democratic accommodation. I think it would have been a better battle. It wouldn't have rushed us through this seemingly invincible enemy with one little, you know, tiny stab. Arya didn't get to do anything cool in the finale.

Yeah. What do you think? What do we think about Arya the Explorer? I like it. I actually think where the characters land, I actually like the shots of behind each of our characters kind of cut between. I thought it was a beautiful and poignant idea that like we end up with a stark to the north and a stark to the south and a stark to the west and in some sense a stark to the east because bran is warging to find the dragon so i

found that poignant and and made sense to me it was just that the speed with which we got there but like it makes sense i guess that given all she's been through the aria is so broken inside that she's like get me out of here and getting on a ship and I'm just going away. But like her family doesn't give a shit. They're like, all right, peace. I guess they're just like used to having her not around. Like I was trying to think of where Arya could have been. Like, does it make sense for her to be Sansa's hand to the queen?

That's just not her. You know, does it make sense for her obviously to be with Gendry, a new lord of whatever he's lord of. You know, I doesn't make sense for her obviously to be with Gendry, a new Lord of whatever he's Lord of. You know, I think, I think it made sense for her. I think it made sense for John to be in the North. What the,

the ending I would have liked to seen is John gets the throne because he is, we've been told the entire series, we've been told the entire series that the person who gets the throne should be like the rightful heir. He is the rightful heir to the throne he you know leads the world against the night king he kills denny and then he could have said that he didn't want it he wanted to go to the north yeah makes the choice to go to the north and then leaves bran and the rest of them as a council and you know and that leaves it to sam who then as king implements his democracy idea whatever

that would have been it would have been cool for Jon to make the choice at the end as opposed to basically them making the choice for Jon because Grey Worm is pissed. Grey Worm's like, shut up criminal and then three minutes later it's like, oh that speech convinced everybody. It's also bizarre that Tyrion Tyrion is, you know, a

prisoner because he supposedly committed treason but Bran makes him hand of the king after he gives a speech and Jon is sent away. Why does Tyrion get a... It's like, I will give you the ultimate punishment, being the second most powerful person in all the land. Everyone's like, wow, that was dramatic irony. Being Hand to Brandt, the Broken King,

that actually might be the best punishment. I was definitely thinking... That is pretty brutal. when he introduces him if there was if there was twitter in westeros when when tyrian goes i introduce you brand the broken everyone be like excuse me why are you identifying him that way that is so unfair to him actually that was like brand the broken fuck you he saved the whole thing how about brand the vision brand the seer no brand the broken because a dick pushed him out of a window a decade ago? Fuck you, Bran the Broken.

Can we brainstorm? Can we come up with a better fucking name than Bran the Broken? There's no detail too small for you. Bran the Broken? I guess it rhymes. Bran the Brave? Bran the Survivor? The early episode, like, cripples, bastards, broken things,

and then there's a play on the broken wheel. I think that's why they called them that. I still don't know why every king needs a nickname. It's better than Condon. Also, didn't they say that like, well, Bran can't even have kids. Didn't they say that in that moment? And I was like, that is

such a specific fucking thing. Like, how the fuck does Sansa know? What a weird thing to know. Yeah, did they test this proposition? There were so many things they just sort of say in passing. And then the other thing is like, well, we need some place to send criminals, so we're going to have a night's watch to what?

Dick around and dig holes? What the fuck? And the night's watch crew is just a bunch of little kids running north. I was wondering where they were going north from. Why were there so many little children? Giant's Bane never gets to meet Brienne and have a nice moment with her. Clearly the one she should have chosen.

Brienne ends by just sort of like writing a love letter to the guy that dumped her. I didn't mind her writing Jamie's Wikipedia entry. I did love the memes about that were some of the best on Twitter. Especially the one that just showed her adding he was also a fuck boy I found that really moving I felt I thought

Gwendolyn Christie I thought she did such a wonderful job in a moment that could have been really maudlin and kind of against the character

to kind of she really did it with such like it did make sense for her character I think well I just think it could have come across

as sort of like I don't know pathetic but it wasn't it was I thought have come across as sort of like, I don't know, pathetic. But it wasn't. It was it was I thought she did it with sort of real. She just carries herself so well in that character, even even though the character itself was given this 30 minute fucking dump thing, which was very strange, which was so rushed. God damn it.

Let's get someone up here who has binged the entire series of Game of Thrones over the last couple weeks to get a perspective. Crooked Media's own Priyanka Arabindi is here. She's been tweeting about it. There's been a wonderful thread on Twitter from Priyanka. Hey, Priyanka, how's it going? Good. You're like the Seth Abrams of Game of Thrones threads. How long is that thing? Oh, no. That is pretty long. Oh, hi, Bundit. Yeah, binging this show was really interesting because there were very few things that, there were very few things that big twists i guess that you probably all were very surprised by like i knew a lot of things going in just because the red wedding everyone that one was interesting because i knew it was going to happen but i didn't really know any of the context so

that was one of the actual surprises of this show because you were tweeting like whoa that scene was terrible yeah and then i was like oh holy shit holy shit, that's the Red Wedding. That's what you guys were talking about. But there was so much that I knew about beforehand, so that informed my perception of the characters. Oh, interesting. And even as this season was going along,

I had the inkling that Danny goes bad because that was what everyone was talking about at work. So it was like, okay, I was behind, but kind of. And we talked about politics. We didn't of we talk about politics we didn't just talk about that we didn't just talk about

that scene did it make you feel crazy being in that world for that many hours in a row no actually um i have binge tips i mean i feel like i really did it on weekends and the first week was really strong so i got through like three seasons in one week wow what did you think about it what were your reactions yeah okay so my like hottest take i think is that i wouldn't have stuck with it if i wasn't binging i think there are definitely peaks there are a lot of valleys that you got to get through and there's like so much exposition it's really cool i appreciate you know like what goes into creating this world and at the end it like really is this huge epic like that's amazing um but there were so many storylines and things that i was like my phone's coming out did you think we maybe spent a little

too much time in dorn oh my god i actually wasn't bothered. Stannis Baratheon I was like no. I'm out on this. Sam and Gilly could not care less. Could not care less. There were just like time went really slowly for stretches and then like the pace rapidly accelerated.

So when people kind of got annoyed I feel like towards the end maybe this was just in the point of the season eight that you guys were in. I felt people being like, I don't like this. Or like the latest couple seasons were weird or different or off. I was kind of like, oh, the action's picking up starting by the end of season six. So I was like, I'm in on this. Battle of the Bastards, cool.

That's fascinating to me because it is funny that the main critique of or one of the big critiques of game of thrones throughout the seasons is there'd be a lot of people who are like why are we following the storyline it's so boring there's not enough action and then all of a sudden in in the end of six seven and eight it's all action right and everyone's like it's too fast which both might be true but it is interesting how that yeah although it does speak to like the sort of rules issue, right? If you're going to make this like season-long journey from south to north and then all of a sudden you're there in 15 minutes, like it's just annoying. They were fucking – they were warping around that map by the end. It's really interesting to hear your perspective on this because I think for a lot of people, certainly for the three of us, we don't have a lot of appointment TV in our life, but this became that.

Totally. You get together with friends and you order food and you have a drink and you hang out and it becomes a thing you look forward to and love. I had my one night of that and it was very fun. I was like, oh, I wish I had been around for a couple more episodes of this. Yeah, we do need, it is now, we are in need for a show

and I think what a show like this is, it has to be violent enough to keep us engaged, but smart enough that we don't feel guilty and then we can all watch it together. What were your favorite moments from the series?

Then we can talk about everyone's favorite moment from the series. Wow, the series. That's tough. I mean, I liked the action. There were things where I feel like anything

that was a surprise to me just because there were so many. Like, I knew it was coming with Jon Snow. Like, I knew it was coming with Ned Stark even in the beginning. Like, that was the big one me just because there were so many like I knew it was coming with Jon Snow like I knew it was coming with Ned Stark even in the beginning like that was the big one where people were like weren't you so like yeah shocked and I was like no I've known that for years um just existing in the internet and like around makes this show really hard to watch and I wonder how people coming in now like I feel like you're not going to be able to. Once the shock value is gone.

Yeah. What is that? Right. But I don't know. My favorite moments probably were like those big epic battle scenes. Less so the last one because the last one you're just like, what's happening? Although when all the torches go out,

that is like one of the better moments in the whole series, I think. When the torches go out. Which where? In the final battle against the Night King. Oh. When when the torches go out in in the in the final battle against the night king oh all the torches that one was crazy like it's very cool that is very cool that was wild i i think that seriously blowing up the sept is that that that episode which i think is winds of winter the at the end the last episode of season six is probably my favorite episode it's an awesome. The end of that season was when I was like,

oh, this is why I've been watching the show. Like finally we're getting to learn John's parentage. Seriously blows. I mean, a lot of things start clicking in that last episode. I thought, you know,

I, there was an article in scientific American by Zaynab Tufekci, which I think everyone should read. I believe Michael sent it to me. Uh, cause he thought I would like it. He was correct. But what she makes this point is that what made Game of Thrones special in the first six seasons was that it was a sociological show, not a psychological show. And part of the

reason the show was so exciting and different and engaging, and part of what George R.R. Martin did was kind of overturn these tropes. And the way he did it was this isn't a show about the individual journeys of characters and their psychological experience of the world. It's about systems and the architecture of power to the point where you can have someone like Ned Stark, who thinks he's doing everything right. And then Littlefinger turns to him, grabs him, says, you shouldn't have trusted me. Or you can have someone like Cersei go after someone like the Tyrells and you have, I know, you've just watched it, Margaery. You can have Margaery Tyrell, someone you love and root for, who knows what's going to happen and deserves a

chance to fight back and fucking figured it out. And she still gets blown up in the sept because that's just how this world worked. And that's who had the power in that moment. And it was what allowed characters to die in the red wedding and the show still feel like it could move forward and how heroes could be cut down in the middle of their stories. And then it shifts in its final season and a half and it becomes a much more traditional psychological show, which I think is in some ways, in addition to the pacing, why it was so unsatisfying and why those early moments are so captivating, because now it's just a show about these hero arcs and their own personal journeys and their own transitions and stopping them or helping them. And that to me made it feel

a bit more ordinary in the end. Yeah, I do think to the extent that this is a show about politics and power and political power, you know, Martin sort of asked the question throughout the show, what makes a good leader, right? Because who should win the Game of Thrones? And he actually goes through with all these characters, the different qualities in a leader, like, is it honesty and forthrightness? Well, no, Ned Stark gets his head cut off, right? Is it, and then he talks about all the things that, you know, like love, right? Like sort of ended up the death of Robb Stark and Jamie Lannister and many other characters, right?

Like, is it someone with the right ideology? Is it like a revolutionary like Daenerys? Like maybe that's the person who's going to free people. Well, you have to be careful about revolutionaries because sometimes they get too much power, and that's corrupting too. So he kind of goes, and basically his answer at the end is, I don't know, go fuck yourself. Well, the answer at the end is there's no right human quality,

there's no right quality for leadership of one person because when you give too much power to one person, there's a problem. But then the problem is, and then because Bran, he ends up with Bran as the leader and Bran's not really human. What is Bran? Bran's just this fucking weirdo

who's basically like the Wikipedia entry for all of the realm. Yeah. And at some point he's going to become a tree, I guess. When does he become a fucking tree? Yeah, I don't know. When does he become a tree? But it was, at its best,

and a lot of these conversations were with tyrian and danny or among the lannisters or people like that were conversations about power and stuff like that and you're right that at the end because it had to wrap everything up we didn't get a lot of that and so it sort of went a little quick you know i think my favorite parts were just the the character developments that happened over a long time like i remember feeling genuinely emotional about the hodor hold the door yeah arc i thought that that tyrian and jamie's little like bro love fest in the end was a genuinely moving that was a great scene and it was amazing to watch where they like especially this is all really fresh in my mind because it's like a month ago for me but like to watch season one and be like oh you hate them season one and it's like

kind of amazing to watch those characters yeah absolutely themselves in your mind early on when Khaleesi was transitioning from the horrible situation with the Dothraki to being the boss that was beloved and like on the up that was an exciting fun time where you wanted to root for her and everyone had a favorite for a while and you're like, fuck yeah, Khaleesi's gonna win this thing.

Yeah, that was, I agree. Like I watched them all leading up to this too and it was amazing to go back and watch the very first episode

because you really see how much was set in motion in those first moments and it's partly why this ending is so disappointing. It's like, you meet all the wolves, you meet this whole world,

you kind of are introduced to all these characters and then you watch them really change and grow which you've never seen on a show before, not like this meet all the wolves, you meet this whole world, you kind of are introduced to all these characters, and then you watch them really change and grow, which you've never seen on a show before, not like this. And like that's, you know, one of the most poignant moments to me is when Sansa hugs Theon, of all people. Because you actually don't know what her reaction's going to be to him, and she's genuinely happy to see him.

And so, you know, another moment I think Duke captures the show is Arya getting so close to seeing her family right before the red wedding. That was awful. And the hound grabbing her and saying, it's already over. They're dead. You know, we had to go. Because it did capture the kind of tragedy of this world where you're not in control

of your destiny, that there are forces larger than you that are operating this world. And then, you know, that is something I do, like, I hope people take that in how I would like to see more of that. I do think that that's why Game of Thrones was ultimately so successful beyond all the magic and the expense and everything else is that it really did say what happens if we explore a world where the politics actually dictates outcomes the way it does in our actual world. And it's not just about heroic individuals. And that it's always messy. And it's messy. And it's not just about heroic individuals. And that it's always messy.

And it's messy. And that's what I did, even though getting there was a mess and there's a lot of weird parts about the finale, Tyrion and the small council sitting around the table at the end, basically having what EJ, who works here at Crooked Media, called infrastructure week. So they're just talking about the sewers and this and how they're going to fix all this. I liked it because it basically, I mean as as you were saying love it maybe all this bad stuff happens again now with brandis king right which is very which they leave as very possible it's not like it's not a happy ending in that like you know now politics is going to be wonderful in the realm right but it does go to show that like there is just the messy business of governing that they get to that is like not

that sexy that they're all just trying to work things out and that they're fallible and they're probably going to fuck up again. And and that's all that makes it all the more powerful and poignant. We're in a world where being a hero doesn't always count, that individuals actually still can shape history and shape things, even despite like despite the power system. like despite the power system, actually, the thing that's on right now, that I think it's, it's odd, but Chernobyl, which is hard to watch, but really worth watching actually explores a lot of this in the same way, like individuals in a broken system, in which the system is dictating all kinds of heinous outcomes are trying their best to help people and be human in a communist Soviet system. And so I just, it's interesting to see other explorations of that same theme, but I do think it's actually part of this moment in peak TV where we're seeing

people try to find other ways to tell stories because we're so saturated by so many different versions of the anti-hero overcoming the odds because they're, you know, trying to sell drugs. And it also is a show that we've had heroes for a long time in television, then we had sort of the anti-hero era, and this is a show that said no one is purely evil or purely good, and that everyone has some evil and some good in them. And the fact that we can go from hating characters, like Jamie Lannister pushes Bran out of a fucking window,

and at the end we're like, this ending wasn't good enough for Jamie. We love Jamie. Theon went on a journey, too. Yeah, Theon, too. That's really good storytelling that you can actually feel for these people. And then Daenerys went the opposite way. I saw Theon getting lunch in West Hollywood. No big deal.

That's cool. Didn't say hi. Didn't want to bug him. say hi didn't want to bug him we saw yeah you know the uh we saw everyone we were on uh we were on uh chelsea handler show we saw sam yeah he was so nice little did he know his pitch for democracy he scoffed at like a mitch mcconnell profile who's dog who's the guy who said maybe my dog will vote for people too oh yeah that was That was Uncle... Uncle Aaron. Uncle Tarly. Uncle Tarly.

Who got shot down given his fucking I'm a general, I have experience. That was so funny. That was great. The fact that given that speech was ridiculous,

the fact that Sansa told him to sit down was so fucking great. The speech, yeah. It felt like a JJ speech. It was good. Any last thoughts from everyone? Oh, yeah.

I'm my biggest, it sounds lame to say this, is my biggest gripe with the whole series. Do you remember the period of time where the dragons were in the catacombs and it seemed almost like Daenerys was scared of them because she couldn't control them. They killed the kid.

Came a long way. She couldn't really, yeah. We never got to see how she actually trained them or got them to do what she was saying. That's like, I don't know. She seemed fairly in control of them. She just kind of ends up on their back at one point and she's flying them around and directing them. There was a point in time where they took no direction and we saw nothing about how they- In my mind, they were teens.

Yeah, but like. Like angsty little acne teens. Yeah, and then they just kind of like, we're like, okay, cool. We're going to shift to like Sam or whatever story is irrelevant. And then we come back and they're like, okay, fine. Like, we're good. They do what we say. Also, arrow avoidance went from very hard to very easy.

And we never really learned why. Yep. But then they figured out how to burn a throne down. Yeah. And then he just flew off with his dead mom i also don't you know yeah then fire fire melts stones and knocks them over like uh like a like a hose yeah the um the variable the elastic quality of dragon uh uh dragon powers and dragon strength is uh was definitely frustrating but i i tried to put that aside because there were so many other things that were worse any other final thoughts i want to say something

nice about the show i do like i loved game of thrones and it actually really bothered people like i can't believe you guys love this show so much why do you care so much like i liked it i thought it was a cool show i said a straw man who says that people you know there's like the twitter voice or like uh are you guys done watching your Dragon show now? You're in your mentions too much. I feel like it's very overwhelming. People love this show. Dragon, didn't you hear he took Twitter off his phone? I thought he put it back on. It's back. Yeah, of course it is. But no,

it really is. And I know I made fun of them a bit. But like, Game of Thrones was an incredible achievement. And it does, it is worth like, even though I think the last season was a fucking disaster, like it was an incredibly difficult and amazing thing that they pulled off like this was an almost unadaptable book and story and I think part quite literally since it's not done yeah yeah it's not even done and I think probably George RR Martin is struggling to give it an ending that it deserves so I I do do think

that they did something incredible and it is an incredible world that they built and I loved it and I'm glad I got to watch it and we should all find something to watch together again yeah and i think that part of the reason that you hear so many complaints and uh is because people care about the show so much if if people didn't care about it or love the show no one would give a shit if things didn't make sense right yeah we love these characters we wanted it to tie up in a way that felt smart and creative and uh i think kind of paid off our fandom over the course of a decade and I don't think it delivered on the latter point

and that's why people are a little bummed, but I loved the show too. I'll never regret watching the show. No, I loved it and I could see myself watching the whole thing again in a couple years. Wow, binge. Maybe not as fast as Priyanka did, but I could get into it again.

I'd love to go, I almost want to go back and read the books. you know i don't read so that's probably not gonna happen i'm gonna read the books if george rr merton finishes the books i'm gonna read the books but i'm not gonna read the books until another book comes out that's smart because i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be sitting there waiting for a couple years yeah i'm not gonna do that come on george you're in santa fe type type type all right it's all the time we have for today next episode we go back to uh talking about american politics but obviously if you want to help if you want to get involved go to vote save westeros.com slash donate there's a um a jerry there's a it's a fuck jerry fund dragon it's because of fuck lord jerry off the reach if you want to bring John back to the throne. Now we have two hours to buy votesaverestaurants.com.

Did we do it? Find out. All right, everyone. Bye.