Game of Thrones review: Season 8 finale won't please everyone but this is a satisfying ending - spoiler-free

The HBO hit is finally coming to an end
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After eight years, 73 episodes, and a huge boost to the bank balances of character actors across the UK, Game Of Thrones came to a satisfying, unshowy end today.

The tone of the final episode, broadcast at 2am, was sombre, the pace measured. Storylines built up over hours and hours of television reached their remorseless, inevitable conclusions.

Ignore the one million sad souls who signed a petition demanding that the entire final series should be rewritten. This was a largely satisfying conclusion. One could quibble over a couple of plot points, and argue about the reassertion of the show’s regressive gender politics. But a piece of entertainment as complex as this was — like the business of ruling the seven kingdoms — always going to involve some compromise.

It began with Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister trudging past charred corpses in the ruins of King’s Landing, destroyed by Daenerys Targaryen and her sole remaining dragon. Tyrion, like the rest of us, wanted to check whether his siblings, evil Cersei and dimwit Jaime, had really died when Daenerys dropped the roof of the Red Keep on them.

Family: The Stark siblings in the Game of Thrones finale
HBO

This was just a prelude, though, to the real business. The showdown between Daenerys and Jon Snow was always going to be awkward. It’s tough when you find out your lover is your aunt. And that you have a better claim to the Iron Throne than she does. And when she reveals herself to be a tyrannical psychopath.

Emilia Clarke’s icy Dany put on a gothic black outfit she had clearly kept in reserve for the day she’d ascend to the throne by committing mass murder. The long-suffering expression of Kit Harington’s Jon went into overdrive. Westeros wasn’t big enough for the both of them. For the sake of those still waiting to catch up, I’ll leave it there.

In an episode necessarily short on action and long on portentous dialogue, Dany’s dragon had the most dramatic and emotional moments, while Tyrion and Maisie Williams’s Arya Stark had the best lines. There was even an in-joke about George R R Martin’s original books, from which the show has sometimes diverged.

Game Of Thrones has been a huge televisual achievement, a milestone in popular culture. For me, the sense of loss at its ending is tempered with relief. Phew, no more cliffhangers, twists, and painful anticipation. But what are we going to watch now?

​Game of Thrones concludes on Sky Atlantic at 9pm tonight and is available to stream on demand on NOW TV and Sky Go.

Game of Thrones: TV Series - In pictures

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