Talk to anyone about HBO’s Game of Thrones and they are likely to say the same thing. “They ruined it with the ending.”
After the finale of Lost, Game of Thrones is considered one of the most egregious endings to a series. While Lost was unfairly maligned, it is hard to find many redeeming qualities of the GoT series finale. However, it wasn’t the first sign of trouble for the epic fantasy series. In fact, both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have had their fair share of failures or final episodes that just broke fans’ hearts. There may not be many, but the real disappointments are the ones that stick with us. Three episodes in particular stand out as some of the worst of the worst. These stand out in memory not because they are bad episodes (at least not all of them), but because they fail as a finale. Many viewers come into final episodes with high expectations, and being let down in a series so highly regarded is one of the worst experiences a viewer can have.
Game of Thrones, season 5, episode 10: “Mother’s Mercy”
Season 5 of Game of Thrones was the first significant downturn of the series. Up until this point, showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff (AKA D&D) could stick to the source material with confidence. But as the show quickly caught up with the books, the series started to show a drop in quality. “Mother’s Mercy” was the first gasp of mediocrity that left a lackluster finale. Fans already had to endure one of the most painful departures from the book that was Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner).
Despite Sansa having a genuinely compelling arc of being a master manipulator in The Vale, D&D instead combine her with Jeyne Poole, who marries Ramsay (Iwan Rheon). This move results in the vicious sexual assault and torture of Sansa, a character who has already been through too much. Instead of sticking to a cerebral story where Sansa comes into her own, she was instead relegated to victimhood. D&D always struggle with developing female characters without this level of trauma, but Sansa’s abuses were the worst.
The finale also revolved around the other Stark sister, but Arya’s (Maisie Williams) story was instead a sin of boredom. Still with The Faceless Men, Arya’s separation from her family drags on for far too long and with no real payoff. Once again, D&D can’t decide how treat their female characters. They disregard all feminine qualities in Arya and instead make her a one-note killing machine. This episode was not the worst finale Game of Thrones ever developed, but it was a portent of what was to come.
House of the Dragon, season 2, episode 8: “The Queen Who Ever Was”
The season 2 finale of House of the Dragon wasn’t necessarily a bad episode of television. It was just a bad finale. Many moving parts finally came together to make an interesting hour. Daemon (Matt Smith) and Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) finally mend the fissures in their relationship and set off to war. Rhaenyra’s conversation with Alicent (Olivia Cooke) was an emotionally resonant scene. And Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell) finally gets the chance to claim a dragon — even if she abandons Rhaneyra’s children to do so.
But after an entire season of build-up with no payoff, this is not exactly a finale worth celebrating. And one of the most unfortunate additions to the episode was Daemon’s dream about Daenerys being the future of House Targaryen. Following everyone’s bitter feelings about Game of Thrones, this was a miscalculation. Showrunner Ryan Condal defended the action to The Hollywood Reporter, saying that he felt there needed to be connective tissue between both shows.
“The connectivity for us is specifically in and around the dragons … The connectedness between this family and the family to come … We know who Daenerys is watching that image, but Daemon has no idea — that could be his future daughter with Rhaenyra … So for that reason, I think it was important that it was Daenerys the image.”
He also supported the lack of action in the finale, wanting to build up to the Battle of the Gullet. And while admirable, it is a shame that it had to be at the expense of Smith’s talent, who was largely by himself this season.
Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 6: “The Iron Throne”
The series finale of Game of Thrones is, sadly, a wound that will never heal. A big part of this is execution. Many may point to the fact that Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) turns into a Mad Queen as the downfall of the series. But this could have been rectified, if only the show took the time to go in that direction. The real tragedy of the show was employing fan service in an effort to close the book on Game of Thrones. Popular couples like Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), and Gendry (Joe Demspie) and Arya get together only to be ripped apart. Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) becomes king, for some reason. And Jon’s (Kit Harington) Targaryen lineage doesn’t ultimately matter.
Even forgetting that Azor Ahai was never really proven one way or another, the finale was an emotional disappointment. The Stark kids fight tooth and nail to get back together and ultimately are separated once more. For a series as ambitious as this, sticking the landing was paramount, and the ending was a black mark on one of HBO’s most successful series.