6/10, and that's mostly just because the brutality of the scenes made me cringe a few times, which means they accomplished something. There was also some really gorgeous scenes with the falling ash. Winter is coming = ash, not snow? Arya was framed in some very powerful visuals.
MVP: Drogan. I don't understand how he got so overpowered though? Does his fire have no limits? He just keep blowing and blowing and blowing...it would have been more realistic to make him need to rest or at least "recharge" to add a little tension.
Jaime was treated like crap. The dude deserved to go out swinging, but really after the writers had him go back to Cersei after...SHE HIRED A MERCENARY TO KILL HIM, I forced myself to distance myself from one of my favorite characters.
Same with Cersei. What a totally anti-climactic way for her to go out. Yes, it was pitiful, and maybe the point was to humble her by making her go out with a whimper instead of a bang, but still after 8 seasons with her as the most consistent big bad, it was very disappointing for me.
I guess I'm not too surprised by Dany though. She has lost everything, and has been outsmarted at every turn, due to her own stupidity or the stupidity of her advisers. She saw she had the clear advantage and she made sure there was no way she was being deceived this time. It doesn't justify it, but she was tired of getting jerked around.
I guess I have no idea how the story is going to wrap up with the Starks winning? (so maybe they won't!) Even the Northern armies were caught up in the brutality and Jon couldn't stop them. It seems they responded favorably to Dany's no-mercy approach, and so how does Jon pull them away from the Dothraki and Unsullied in a single episode? Not to mention, what happens to Drogan if Dany dies? If he goes nuts, no one can stop him. Is that possibly more dangerous than Dany guiding him?
I saw on some Reddit thread that Cercei's death fulfilled the prophecy told by the seer when she was a teenager. I can't remember the prophecy, but if so, that's kind of cool.
I was a little surprised that Cersei wasn't lying about being pregnant with Jamie's kid, after all.
I always expected Jamie to kill Cersei at the end, and their deaths were a little anticlimactic. It would have been much better if Jamie had somehow succeeded in being the one to get the city bells to ring (I feel like there might have been a cut scene?). But Jamie was always going to die, from the second he pushed Bran out the window. And though he got a lot of growth over the series and a lot of opportunity to do some good, (thematically speaking) he was always going to suffer and be humbled in the end for his crime(s) and for generally being somewhat sociopathic, and certainly he was always going to die for/with/because of Cersei, so I'm ok with it. I do think the fight with Euron was sort of pointless, b/c Euron was never a character, just a plot device so that Cersei could have some deluded hope of winning a war.
Re: Drogon...I also started wondering last night about how to control him without Dany. It never occurred to me to wonder before, but it should have.
Re: Dany...this type of ending for her has been foreshadowed through the books and show many times (though not a foregone conclusion, obviously), but it would have been nice to have an additional episode of her unraveling mentally to really sell it. Clarke has been terrific selling it, given what little time she had.
I also appreciated the sick cleverness of the show in giving me tons of something my inner tween girl LOVES to cheer for (woman riding flaming dragon that is destroying shit) and turned it from something triumphant into something terrible and depressing.
Other thoughts: Poor Tyrion, Jon, and Davos. Constantly trying to do good/make the moral best out of situations constantly turning to shit around them or biting them in the ass. I do think it's possible that Tyrion might kill Dany, but it's more likely Arya or Jon has to do it. DH thinks the show will end with Jon (miserably) on the Iron Throne with Davos or Tyrion as Hand, or with Tyrion serving as Sansa's 'advisor/hand' up north, with the implication that those two rulers will eventually be at each other's throats, b/c that's how these things roll and GRRM's view of humanity is dire (much like mine LOL).
Great scene between Tyrion and Jamie. That made me sniffle.
There's some rumors going around that Martin will announce a hard publication date for the 6th book soon after the end of the show. I am skeptical, but I think this would be a great marketing ploy, b/c the interest in the series is likely to drop sharply unless he strikes while the iron's hot. And I could see if (hypothetically) the book was finished, sitting on it until the show was over. That way if the show conclusion is adored (which it has not been), he can ride the wave. And if it isn't adored, people will desperately hope he can 'fix' whatever they are dissatisfied with.