An Important Discussion About The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 4 Finale

Season 4 of Game of Thrones comes to a close tonight. This much you already knew. The season has been pretty great on a number of levels, and it continues to be the most fun show to follow along with on the Internet by a pretty wide margin, so having it exit our lives and disappear for a not-insignificant number of months is, quite frankly, going to suck. But let’s not focus on that right now. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that we still have one more hour — 66 minutes, technically, as HBO announced the episode will have an extended run-time — full of double-crosses and dragons and such, and enjoy the hell out of it. After all, there is a ton going on in the show right now, with lots of things up in the air for lots of characters. There’s good reason to be excited.

Anyway, I imagine you have a few questions about all this. Please, fire away.

So is this episode gonna be awesome or what?

Well, it’s certainly shaping up to be awesome. There’s been a lot of table-setting going on in the last few weeks (NOTE: more table-setting should involve head-squishing and giants riding mammoths, IMO), so depending on how much of that they choose to pay off Sunday and how much they choose to hold for next season, there could be — and this is an industry term — a heckabuncha stuff going down.

Also, there’s this…

“It’s the best finale we’ve ever done, bar none,” Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss said in a statement. “The performances from our cast, the direction from Alex Graves, the VFX work, the new [music] cues from Ramin Djawadi—all of it came together in perhaps the finest hour we’ve produced. We’re immensely proud of ‘The Children.’ And a little intimidated by the episode, because now we have to get back to the business of season five and figure out a way to top it.” [EW]

So, yeah. I’d say it looks promising.

Yeah, but don’t the creators kind of have say that? I mean, they’re not going to come right out and say “Eh, the finale’s okay. Not our best work, to be honest, but whatever,” you know?

Normally I would agree with you that there’s a certain amount of marketing to that statement, but in this case, it appears Benioff, Weiss, and HBO are putting their money where their mouths are. Or rather, their potential awards where their mouths are. Although that makes it sound like they’re going to try to eat an Emmy, which seems impractical. How would you even digest it, what with all the pointy metal parts and whatnot? You’d be in the hospital for weeks.

My point here is that they seem confident about the episode.

HBO is clearly banking on it, because the Emmy ballots were released yesterday, and wouldn’t you know it: The season finale is the only episode HBO has submitted for Best Writing, and one of three episodes its submitted for best directing (the other two are this week’s “The Watchers on the Wall” and the sixth episode, “The Laws of Gods and Men”). Not for nothing, but the season finale has also been submitted for Best Prosthetic Make-Up.[Pajiba]

Does that help?

It does. So what do you think is gonna happen in this potentially great episode?

That’s an interesting question…

Thank you.

… because Game of Thrones has source material, unlike, say, Mad Men or True Detective, which makes speculating about future events kind of weird. Like, I could sit here and say “I think Jaime will save Tyrion and then they’ll meet up with Brienne and Pod and all of them will run-off to Vegas to start robbing casinos just for the thrill of it,” which would both ruin the show forever and be amazing, but there are lots of bookreaders out there who would happily point out the many errors in that prediction, because they already know what will happen. Hell, you can even go on Wikipedia and find out right now. It would take five minutes. I know because I’ve done it at other points in the series during moments of weakness.

Why in the name of Ser Pounce would you spoil Game of Thrones for yourself on Wikipedia?

Because I am a self-destructive impatient baby, basically. But that’s not the real issue here. The real issue is that I could tell you what I think will happen now that Tyrion’s Trial by Combat went poorly, and Jon Snow decided to go full John McClane, and Dany’s dragons be misbehavin’, and so on and so forth, but the whole thing would be a pretty pointless exercise because either I’d be correct and accused of spoiling it for newbies or wrong and called an idiot by the experts. It’s a lose-lose. Better to just direct you to the preview and then sit back and enjoy.

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Uh, okay … but if you don’t want to talk about the episode, what do you want to talk about?

The O.C.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Again? Didn’t we just talk about that when you posted that “Mmm, Whatcha Say” mash-up from when Ygritte got shot?

Yup, but it turns out I have more to say. See, that little run I went on comparing characters from the shows — Jon Snow is Ryan; Olly is Marissa (still hilarious); Ned, Catelyn, and Robb Stark are Sandy, Kirsten, and Seth Cohen, respectively; Cersei is Julie Cooper; Joffrey is Oliver — opened up a floodgate and now it is all I can think about. It’s not healthy, really.

Anyway, here are some more:

  • Tywin Lannister is Caleb Nichol – Wealthy, domineering patriarch who controls everyone through threats and manipulation. Secretly having money troubles. This one is perfect.
  • Jaime is Luke – Just hear me out here: 1) Like you couldn’t see a young, two-handed, cocky Jaime punching someone and shouting “Welcome to Casterly Rock, bitch!”; 2) Hair, especially in Season 1.
  • Littlefinger is Jimmy Cooper – But, like, a competent Jimmy Cooper. Wait, no, scratch that.
  • Littlefinger is Early Taylor Townsend – Season 3 Taylor Townsend. Always scheming and sneaking around. This works. Don’t question it.

Okay, that’s all I have for now.

You’ve put entirely too much thought into this.

No argument here.

Anything else you wanna get off your chest?

Nope. I’m good now. Enjoy the finale!

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