SPOILERS for the finale of Game of Thrones, Episode 8.6, “The Iron Throne.”

Even the last episode clearly should have been two f–king episodes, and the only reason it wasn’t was because Dan Weiss and David Benioff are terrible people. In the end, people got so invested in this show for eight years and countless hours of watching, reading and conspiring that we forgot that the main job of mediocre white dudes is to perpetuate power amongst themselves. I mean that for the writers and I mean for the boundaries of the show. Honestly, I wasn’t AS disappointed with this finale as I was with Lost, but to be clear – this finale sucked. Let’s get into it.

Queen of the Ashes. Once again, we’re being told how to feel by seeing the crispy AF Kings Landing through Tyrion’s perspective. Jon Snow trails Tyrion as they walk through what’s left of the city. Jon gets into it with Greyworm about killing Lannister soldiers (who have surrendered) and Greyworm is like “they had a choice.” It’s true. Tyrion tells Jon that he needs to go inside alone.

Tyrion wasn’t looking for Dany. He goes inside the ruins of the Red Keep and he finds Cersei and Jaime’s bodies in the basement. Tyrion weeps. I mean… I felt nothing? I don’t get why that was supposed to pull at our heartstrings. Cersei should have died a more horrible death than that. She’s a f–king psycho and Jaime was nasty-ass for loving her.

The Dragon Queen. The Dothraki and Unsullied wait for Daenerys’ conquering speech, which she gives in the Dothraki language and High Valyrian. She’s basically like, today Kings Landing, tomorrow the world. We’ll break the wheel EVERYWHERE. Drogon is there too, listening to mom’s speech and he’s like “LET’S DO THIS.” Jon has made his way up the steps beforehand and he watches from a short distance. Tyrion comes up behind Dany during her speech and he tosses away his Hand pin and calls her out for slaughtering women and children. She’s like “bitch you still committed treason a million times.” She orders Tyrion to be put in whatever makeshift jail. Arya appears – with her ninja skills – beside Jon and tells him that Dany is a stone-cold killer if she ever saw one.

Jon makes a series of sadfaces. Jon first goes to see Tyrion and they talk through some sh-t about who Dany really is and Tyrion does the hard sell on trying to convince Jon to kill Dany. Jon weeps. He’s still like, I can’t defend everything she did but she’s still my queen. At this point, I’m also wondering… why the f–k hasn’t Dany killed Tyrion yet? She should have killed him the second he threw away his Hand pin.

The Throne Room. Was it snowing in Kings Landing, or was it ash? Or both? Jon makes his way to the throne room, but not before a snow or ash covered Drogon surprises him (Drogon was taking a nap, as he’d had a busy day). Dany is staring with wonder at the Iron Throne, which is now in a roofless, half-sunlit ruin. Jon and Dany get into it – Dany makes the same defense I made for her: Cersei was the one who used women and children as human shields, preying on Dany’s mercy. Dany asks Jon to come with her on this journey, of breaking the wheel everywhere, of liberating the world. We were supposed to think Dany has broken from reality, I guess, but it just clarified something else for me: she was never a queen or a conqueror, she was always a revolutionary, like Che Guevara. She was the one with the big ideas (“slavery is bad” and “break the wheel of existing white male dominated power structures” and “kill everyone who doesn’t agree with me”) and a big dragon to carry out her big ideas.

Jon did THAT. I was half-expecting Jon to be persuaded by Dany’s ideas and for him to be like “let’s make a baby to cement our new partnership.” Instead, Jon took her in his arms and wept, telling her that she was his queen… and then he stabbed her in the heart. Dany – like Ygritte – died in Jon’s arms. It is his fate, to have the loves his life die in his arms, even when he’s the one to do the stabbing.

King Drogon. Drogon felt in his soul that his mom had been murdered. He comes into the Throne Room and that was the part that made me legit tear up – Drogon sniffing Dany, jostling her body to see if she was gone. Jon stands there, willing to accept Drogon’s punishment, and I thought for a second that we might see if Jon is fireproof like Dany too. But no, Drogon seemed to understand everything, and he understood that the Iron Throne was to blame. So Drogon burned it. No more Iron Throne. Drogon then picks up Dany’s body and flies away.

Time passes. How much time has passed? Who knows. I would say a month or a few months, long enough for a very strange assembly of lords and ladies from the Seven Kingdoms to assemble in Kings Landing. Sansa, Arya and Bran are there. Yara from the Iron Islands. Robin Arryn is there. Ser Davos. Newly installed Lord Gendry Baratheon. Edmure Tully from Riverrun (lol). It’s the assembly of the Kings Landing Senate or something. Greyworm brings Tyrion down and Sansa is like “we want to see Jon too” but Greyworm insists that Jon is still his prisoner and he’s not going anywhere.

Dudes accumulating more power to maintain status quo power structures. The peeps are like “well, f–k, who should be the king or queen of Kings Landing? And Edmure Tully is like ME! And Sansa tells him to sit down and STFU. Tyrion has had time to think and he’s decided that the person with the “best story” in the assembly is…Bran Stark?? BRAN STARK has the best story? ORLY??? Tyrion is basically like, we’ll call him Bran the Broken and he’s a great historian so he’ll be a good king. Sansa is like “he can’t have children!” and Tyrion is like “that’s fine, whenever Bran dies, we’ll just elect someone else from this group.” Which makes no sense, but whatever.

A deal is made and it makes no sense. Sansa is basically like F–k This Noise, The North Is Back To Being Independent. She basically crowns herself Queen of the North right then and there. Bran the Broken become King of the SIX Kingdoms. And… Jon Snow will be sent to the Night’s Watch, which still exists for some reason. And even though Greyworm is peacing out of Westeros, they all felt like they needed to keep their word to Greyworm and for-sure send Jon off to the Wall.

So, the end. Queen Sansa rules in the North, King Bran rules in the six kingdoms, Brienne is writing Jaime Lannister’s knightly hagiography, Bronn is the master of coins, Samwell is a maester, Davos is in charge of the navy and Pod is in charge of wheeling Bran around. Arya decides to travel to America (or sail “west”). Greyworm peaces out, and heads to Naarth, Missandei’s homeland. Jon goes north to the Wall… where Tormund and the Wildlings are hanging out. Jon and Ghost are reunited, and basically Jon is exiled north of the Wall with the Wildlings forever. Or something. I can’t.

The last three episodes of the final season were so dumb, my lord. A show where women consistently outperformed, survived and showed their greatness and the show boiled down to “dudes figure out a way to maintain their power.”

Photos courtesy of HBO/Game of Thrones.