Game of Thrones Season 4 Finale Review

This review contains spoilers so read on at your own risk...

This season of Game of Thrones has been like no other, never before have we seen so much action and so see many main characters meet their demise. It will come as no shock then that the season finale would continue that trend. It may not have lived up to the hype that the showrunners created for the episode but it was a suitably dramatic end to the season that once again saw the show drift a bit further away from the books. 

We finished last week’s episode, ‘The Watchers on the Wall’ with Jon Snow heading out to meet with the King beyond the wall, Mance Rayder and that was where we started in the finale. Jon told Mance he was sent to negotiate, Mance told Jon that no one else would be killed if they opened their gates and let them pass, Jon probably didn’t believe Mance but he was telling the truth I believe, after all, all the Wildlings wanted to do was escape the White Walkers, but the Night’s Watch was stopping them from doing that. 

Then out of nowhere while Mance and Jon were still talking, the Wildling’s were under attack, men on horseback were charging in formation in to the Wildling camps, so who had come to the rescue of the Night’s Watch? Stannis! It was easy to forget that after Aemon sent letters to the five kings during the war asking for help against the White Walkers, Melisandre told Stannis that the real war was north but that was the last we heard of it. But after getting his loan from the Iron Bank, he finally set sail for the wall and his timing could not have been better. I loved Stannis showing up but my question is; why didn’t this happen at the end of episode 9? Episode 9 was brilliant but it did finish somewhat anti-climactically, ending the episode on the reveal that Stannis had saved them could have made it the best episode in this season in my opinion.

Jon would reveal his identity of Ned Stark’s son to Stannis and as Ned died because he tried to give the crown to Stannis instead of Joffrey, Stannis clearly respects Ned so it will be interesting to see what sort of relationship he and Jon have in season 5. Melisandre may well have plans for Jon as well as we see her and Jon staring at each other through the fire as the Watch burn the bodies of those who fell in the battle.

It was also nice to see Daenerys has a meaningful segment which has been a rarity this season, she allows former slaves to sign contracts with masters because that will obviously end well. She is also brought the bones of a 3 year old girl killed by one of her dragons, Drogon. She decides to lock up her other two dragons with Drogon missing so they can’t harm anyone, she walks away in tears after she locks them in the catacombs in one of the most emotional scenes in the finale.

As we reached the middle of the episode we got our first look at Bran since ‘First of his Name’, he may have been nothing more than an afterthought in this season but his segment stole the show in the finale. They had just about reached their destination in their attempt to find the three eyed raven but were ambushed were some skeletal Wights and were struggling to fend them off only to be saved by the Children of the Forest who we got to see for the first time, they were too late to save Jojen though who died thanks to multiple stab wounds to his stomach from a Wight. The Children took Bran to meet the three eyed raven who turned out to be an old man whose body was fused to the weirwood tree. The raven tells them Jojen died so Bran could find what he lost, Bran naturally thought he meant the ability to walk but the raven tells him he will never walk again, but he will fly. 

They didn’t reveal too much about the raven and will likely go in more detail about him and how he’ll affect Bran’s story in season 5 but it was a fantastic couple of scenes, the action with the Wight’s was great and Jojen’s death came as a surprise to everyone, especially book readers.  Season 4 has been huge for each of the remaining Stark children, Sansa has had a complete transformation in the Vale with Littlefinger, Jon helped lead the Night’s Watch to survival against the Wildlings, Bran reached the raven and Arya, well Arya is heading to Braavos now.

Heading for the Vale in search for Sansa and Arya, Brienne and Pod stumble in to Arya and the Hound. Arya and Brienne actually had a really nice moment before the Hound questions them. Pod points out to Brienne who he is and she realizes that the girl she was bonding with is Arya. A brutal fight between the Hound and Brienne ensues, it was your standard fight until mid-way through the music stops and it turns in to a brawl, they both had the upper hand at points but it was Brienne who landed the fatal blow and left the Hound on the verge of death. Arya chose not to give the Hound mercy and instead left him to likely suffer a long painful death. 

The season would later end with Arya as she gives the coin given to her by Jaqen to the captain of a ship heading back to Braavos and the last thing we see is her on the boat sailing off to Braavos where she will hopefully become a main character in her new life because she really wasn’t used enough this season. 

After being sentenced to death in 'The Mountain and the Viper', Tyrion had given up all hope, but that was until he was freed by his brother with the aid of Varys. After being freed Tyrion went in search of his father but instead found Shae in his bed calling out for her lion, Tywin. Tyrion manages to kill the woman he once loved by strangling her with her own necklace. He would find his father in the privy, and Tywin masked his surprise well and tries to manipulate the situation for himself as always but Tyrion wasn’t going let him win this time, he fired 2 crossbow bolts in to his father, killing him, before meeting Varys who smuggles Tyrion on to a ship before joining him after realizing what Tyrion had done. It was nice to see Tywin die after finding out the truth about Cersei and Jaime’s relationship earlier in the episode, he deserved to know the truth about what his family actually is. He may have been one of the most hated characters but he’ll no doubt be missed, just like Joffrey was. It’s hard to imagine Game of Thrones without Charles Dance.

The Alex Graves directed finale was a solid end to the season (despite a certain scene being absent) with some great action scenes to go along with the usual exceptional writing creating the drama and tension that fans of the fantasy thriller have come to expect. Benioff and Weiss are doing a fine job at taking the series forward and hopefully that will continue for the foreseeable future. The finale sets us up for the next season very nicely, which is likely to be very different to this one. It wasn’t the best episode of Game of Thrones we’ve seen this year but the standard has been incredibly high. 

Game of Thrones will return for season 5 in 2015 on Sky Atlantic and HBO, so with no episode preview we’ll instead show you Inside Episode #10, courtesy of the Game of Thrones YouTube channel.