A few years ago (actually 2014 - 2017), HBO aired an original series titled The Leftovers. The basic premise was that in a rapture-like global cataclysm known as The Sudden Departure, 140 million people instantly vanished off the face of the Earth without a trace. But rather than be about those 140 million people, the show instead considered those who remained, the leftovers, focusing in on one particular family, the Garveys, of a small town in upstate New York.
We liked the show and considered it one of the best things on television at the time. The scripts were highly inventive and unusual and the show seemed to pride itself on the unexpected twists and turns the plot would take. It was one of the most imaginative series we'd ever seen. And it was so well written that after three seasons, we felt like we actually knew the characters, in particular Kevin Garvey, his new romantic partner Nora, his daughter Jill, and others.
But as good and as interesting as the show was, the writers completely destroyed it in the last few episodes of the final Season Three. For reasons unexplained, the writers had the characters all turn bitter toward one another and act in egocentric and self-destructive ways, and after we grew to like and to care for these characters, it was quite distressing to see them be so rude and so nasty to one another, to themselves, and ultimately to the audience. It felt like we, the audience, cared for these characters more than they cared about themselves and certainly more than the show cared about anything. It felt like audience abuse, like we were being bullied by cynical and mean-spirited writers. "You care about Kevin and Nora, do you? Well, listen as they say the awfullest things to each other in these final episodes, and then watch them self-destruct in the most uncharacteristically suicidal of ways."
Yes, it pulled the rug out from under our expectations - the show was always about being unpredictable - but it did so in the most unpleasant way possible. After the penultimate Episode 7, our honest reaction was, "We really wish we hadn't just seen that," and then watching the final episode the next week literally felt like a chore, an obligation. There was no joy in anticipating where things were going to go after the events of Episode 7, and Episode 8 made us feel even worse for having watched it.
So, there. A good show ruined by the writer's decisions for the last episodes of the last season.
The reason we bring this up is because right now Game of Thrones is kind of doing the same thing, albeit in a different manner. Tonight will be the penultimate episode of the last and final Season 8, and the writing, the plotting, and the storyline so far this season has been so poor as to almost be insulting. Yes, Episode 3 did have a massive battle, allegedly the longest battle sequence ever filmed for television or cinema, but there were so many gaping plot holes and unexplained actions that after our pulse finally calmed down and all the excitement of the big battle faded, we were left thinking, "Yeah, but what was that? And how did that happen? And where did she just suddenly appear from and why did no one seem to think that charging ahead into total darkness against an unseen enemy wasn't a good idea?" It made us feel manipulated. It was an insult to our intelligence, but the writers and showrunners knew they'd get away with it and that we'd be back the next week (we were) because it's the final freaking episodes and after eight seasons over 10 years, there's no way anyone's going to drop the show now.
Last week's episode, the one after the big, epic battle, was even stupider, and just like The Leftovers, bordered on audience abuse. "Watch us have a beloved character killed off for no apparent reason. It doesn't advance the plot any and there's no dramatic reason to have her killed - and so cruelly - but we guess people expect that this show will have unexpected deaths, so here's a random one just to get everybody talking around the coffee maker at work tomorrow." It's lazy scriptwriting and it's a disservice to the legacy of the show.
The problem here is that we had once enjoyed the show, we liked the characters and the endless speculation and theorizing on how it will all play out at the end, but in this final season, the writers are just phoning in a hackneyed storyline and after all these years we're now starting not to care about the ultimate outcome. We'll watch - we'll invest two more hours of our lives in this long-running program - but when it's all said and done and the show is finally over, we're probably not going to admit to having been fans.
This season is really just that bad.
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