GRRM, in retrospect is lucky/smart to not finish his books until after the show ended. Basically anything he writes is going to look like genius in comparison. He's just been immunized against a whole bunch of fan outrage.

True, Tom.

I'm actually tempted to finish reading the series now, to see the different paths the plot took.

For about a half a second I felt like the entire series had been worth it to see Jaime and Brienne together -- for a lot of reasons, for both of them -- and to hear her begging him to stay just killed it. Not that I don't sympathize on a purely "I'm in love and it's new and wonderful!" level, but the idea that she isn't joining the battle herself is just absurd.

Bah. But I guess Arya is off to kill Cersei (with nary a word to anyone in her family? okay), and we'll get Cleganebowl, so ... Whatever?

I feel like when they announced this season would only be six episodes, we should have known the shortcuts and compression was going to result in this. Plot points that would have gorgeously, intricately taken two and three episodes previously are now dispatched in 30 seconds. So stupid.

Burn the ships. Attack by night.

Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight - wait, wrong fandom.

I just can't take Jon as a threat to Dany's rule seriously. It seems like such a non-problem.

It's not so much that he's a threat as the fact that there are no women writing this show is a threat.

Ah. Nail on the head, there, Jess.

Jaime is just, what the hell, Jaime? Maybe he wants to get back into the Kingslayer racket?

I can kind of see Brienne staying in Winterfell to keep Sansa safe, she will certainly be head of her Queensguard when Westeros realizes Sansa is the practical choice.

Jon and Ghost never have one scene together? Yuck.

I can kind of see Brienne staying in Winterfell to keep Sansa safe, she will certainly be head of her Queensguard when Westeros realizes Sansa is the practical choice.

She isn't going to break her oath to Catelyn.

Jamie heading back to Kings Landing seems like a pretty standard "getting the pieces back to starting positions for the final face-off" television move, no? I don't see a lot of character motivation for it beyond that.

How Game of Thrones' onscreen Starbucks cup became a viral metaphor for season 8

Just really sloppy filmmaking.

Oh, that's what that's all about. Sigh.

That's a bonus of deciding to watch on my phone, I suppose - don't notice stuff like that.

A whole lot of people didn't notice, who probably should have.

But I assume the DP will put out a press release shortly stating that if you saw a Starbucks cup in front of Daenerys last night, it's because your TV settings were wrong.