The final line before the episode begins, over a shot of Dany's disgusted expression at Cersei's public execution of Missandei ( Nathalie Emmanuel), comes from Dany's long-dead brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd), her first tormentor: "You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" The seeds of Targaryen hubris had been planted throughout the show. The episode's "previously on" prologue ends with voice-over from many characters talking about the Targaryens over the course of the series. Yet Dany's destruction of King's Landing doesn't come out of nowhere. My complaints about the abundance of convenience and predictability in "The Long Night" are mostly redeemed by "The Bells," the ultimate zig where viewers were expecting a zag. Man, I love "The Bells." It is the glorious, bloody, world-shaking climax that Game of Thrones deserved. This approach does pay off in some spectacular sequences, such as Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Dany pursuing the Night King on dragonback above the clouds, or the Dothraki riding out with their flaming scimitars to face the horde, only for their torches to disappear one by one in the overwhelming darkness.
Weiss sought to portray an elemental battle between life and death, darkness and light, ice and fire. By contrast, Sapochnik and Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. The Lord of the Rings has never been far from Game of Thrones' mind, but in this case the show eschewed the approach Peter Jackson had taken to filming the nighttime siege of Helm's Deep, where all the fighting is clearly visible in bluish light. Every subsequent rewatch has improved my impression of it once the general arc is clear, it's easier to enjoy standout moments.
#GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 SUCKS TV#
Filmmakers like cinematographer Fabian Wagner insisted that viewers didn't have their TV settings dialed correctly, but the simpler truth is that the episode is just extremely chaotic.