game of thrones season 8 episode 1 length

Two weeks ago, I said that the second episode of season 8 felt like a preemptive wake for the living because we didn’t know if there’d be enough characters or time left afterward. When “The Last of the Starks” begins, we’re actually afforded time doing something no one ever tends to in these fantasy big battle stories: mourn the dead. As a beloved character on another zeitgeist-y property would say, “We’re in the endgame now.” And of the two or three hours of story squished into less than 80 minutes here, the first one is heartbreakingly great. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to like in what is clearly the place-setting episode before the climax. “The Last of the Starks” is so compressed that moments which should breathe (like the blossoming life and death of Jaime and Brienne’s romance), and dawning epiphanies that needed to be gradually accepted (such as Daenerys’ ambition and pride are driving her mad), were conveyed in unsatisfying shorthand and the type of cliché that Game of Thrones and its literary source material are so good at avoiding. Thus enters the fourth episode of the year, “The Last of the Starks,” which clocked in at 79 minutes but still doesn’t feel quite epic enough to carry the weight of all the narrative heavy-lifting that is being attempted.Įasily containing enough material for two or three episodes, it will now forever be a mystery to me why it wasn’t exactly that many installments given the truncated nature of season 8. Well, as it turns out, that was only true for the final four episodes, and even then it’s become something of a double-edged sword. Offering the snow and sunshine together in one bitterly bright day, HBO teased that we’d have to wait almost two years for the final season, but at least each episode would be at or near feature length.

When details about the eighth season of Game of Thrones trickled out, there were sorrows and joys to be had.

Game of thrones season 8 episode 1 length