I've read both good & bad reviews of last night's episode. I'll read a good review & think, "Yes! That's right!" And then I'll read a bad review & decide, "Oh, yeah... that's bad."
However, last night, I liked the episode well enough while I was watching.
I thought the Varys story went too quickly, but, then, this whole season has been very fast-paced. Like I said earlier in this thread, nothing this season has been given a chance to slowly build to a crescendo as in previous seasons. Things happen quickly & often off-screen. Characters aren't given long enough to react emotionally & then change logically/sensibly. (And like the PP said, the story feels a bit empty w/o the inner thoughts & machinations of the characters.)
Varys, from season 1, has said he's on the side of the realm & that's the way he died - on the side of the realm. He hoped he was wrong, but Dany proved he wasn't. I thought the way Tyrion touched his arm at the end was lovely. (Also, as an aside, it's an interesting, but not surprising, juxtaposition, how Tyrion was not willing to betray Dany for Varys but did betray her for Jamie.)
And the image of Drogon coming up out of the shadows behind Dany to torch Varys was excellent!
The last scene between Jamie & Tyrion made me teary! It was so well-done & brought back both when Jamie was imprisoned by Catelyn Stark & when Jamie freed Tyrion. The brothers truly loved each other.
And Jamie had to go back for Cersei. They had to die together in some fashion.
I was mesmerized by Cersei while she watched the city being attacked by Dany & Drogon. She didn't have a lot of actual spoken lines, but her face said so much - just as much as Dany's face said in the last episode after Missandei was killed. But, while Dany's face went from grief to rage, Cersei's face went from a calm & smug pride to an abject realization of finality. That one lone tear was perfection.
All along, I've had a love-hate relationship w/ Cersei. She's done some really bad things, but she's had reasons. She truly loved her children. And, from the beginning, she's been a woman having to overcome a man's world - from her father to her husband to her brothers to the King's counsel to the High Sparrow. She scraped & schemed & revenged her way to where she was. She wanted to matter & be significant.
At first, I thought she needed a more "Wow!" death, something more violent & dramatic. The way she stared across King's Landing to Drogon, I thought that Dany should take her out right then & there. But, then I remembered Arya & how she wanted her revenge too. (And, personally, I've thought that Jamie would be the one to kill her.) Instead, she got a relatively quiet death in the arms of Jamie. And I've decided her death was really rather fitting. The Mountain abandoned her for his own fight. Arya decided that living was worth more than her revenge - that Cersei wasn't worth it. Dany went on to continue her random destruction of King's Landing - knowing that Cersei would fall eventually. And Cersei died a death as insignificant as any other random person in King's Landing - buried under the rubble. In the end, she didn't matter.
(And, as an aside, in my mind, the only truly evil for no reason at all thing Cersei did was kill Missandei. Just about everything else was revenge for something done to her or her children. And, while Arya wanted to kill her as revenge for her father, Cersei actually never intended for Ned to die.)
And Jamie died the way he lived - "The things we do for love."
And I'm really, really glad that the writers didn't go the way a lot of people had speculated - that Arya would kill Cersei wearing Jamie's face. When Jamie found Cersei, after being stabbed twice by Euron, my initial thoughts were "Oh no! It's really Arya." So, when the scene switched to Arya wondering the streets, I was relieved. I just didn't want Cersei (& Jamie) to go that way.
Regarding Dany, I wish there had been a scene where Jon saw her all haggard looking & despondent & grieving - where we, as the audience, get to see Jon see why & how Dany flips.
But all along we've seen signs of Dany being every bit as crazy & vengeful as her father. Like Varys said, "Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods roll the dice." Her older brother, Rhaegar, was the sane one - not Dany. (And, incidentally, Rhaegar, the sane one, is Jon's father.) From Dany saying "he wasn't a dragon" about her brother Viserys w/ that look in her eyes to burning the witch in season one, all along there's been some reckless, vengeful crazy in the Dragon Queen.
I read an interesting review that reminded viewers of that dream-sequence where we THOUGHT Dany was in King's Landing w/ snow falling all around because winter had come - really, it was the ashes from her burning the city.
So Dany was going Mad Queen from the beginning - I just wish we had gotten a little bit more story & progression.
But she was right - She had no one left who loved her. She wanted to rule w/ love, but realized she was going to have to rule w/ fear instead. The Mad Queen isn't who she set out to be, but it was who she was made to be.
And I actually thought the way it was written in the episode last night was really well done - the bells ring & she's sitting there on Drogon on the rooftop, & she's crying. There was a hearbeat where she could have called back Drogon & accepted the city's surrender, & you see in her face that she wants to do that - she wants to be like Jon & be loved by her people, instead she's her father's daughter. And, there's this "flip" where her tears turn from sorrowful to angry, & she can't accept the surrender - suddenly, she & her dragon are one, vengefully destroying the city. Her brother wasn't a dragon, but she is.
It was interesting to me how the writers chose not to show Dany's face again after showing her crying & the choosing to ignore the bells. (No, I don't think she became truly one w/ her dragon, but I like that Dany herself wasn't shown again.)
This is now waaaay too long of a post & I haven't even said anything really about Jon & Ser Davos who were being who they've been all along - trying to do right & getting stuck in the middle of the mess. And Arya was once again trying to escape King's Landing. I love how she said "thank you" to Sandor & called him by his name.
There were some missteps - like why could Dany suddenly destroy the Iron Fleet but couldn't in the last episode? What was Tyrion doing while Dany was attacking the city?
My current prediction (& I'm probably wrong) - Jon Snow kills Dany. Tyrion gets the Iron Throne. What's one dwarf's life next to thousands of citizens? He drinks & he knows things. He'll rule w/ the people in mind. Jon goes back to the North w/ the Wildlings (& Ghost!) where he wanted to be all along. And Sansa remains Lady of the North. I have no idea about Bran - I've really never liked the character. Maybe he gets the Iron Throne?