The Big Flop - Shame of Thrones: How GOT Season 8 Imploded with Ronnie Karam and Ben Mandelker | 48

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Game Of Thrones entered its final season as the undisputed king of TV. Every Sunday, millions would take a seat in the church of HBO in hopes of witnessing another Battle of the Bastards. Creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss needed to deliver a finale so grand it would make King’s Landing look like the Iron Islands. But when they were met with grueling night shoots, sloppy production mistakes, and no source material to base their ending off of, the final season basically Red Wedding-ed itself. Listen to The Big Flop on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/the-big-flop/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Art department whiz Deborah Riley steadies herself from falling. One wrong move and she could be face-down in the horse manure and fake blood that's decorating the exterior of the fake castle she's standing next to. But there's no time to dwell on that possibility right now. It's almost dusk. Final touches to the set must be completed before nightfall for the pivotal grand battle in the final season of Game of Thrones.

Shot over 55 grueling nights, the culmination of eight incredible seasons, this record-breaking feat demands nothing short of perfection. All 700 cast and crew members are relying on Deborah's meticulous eye to bring this monumental episode to life. It's Deborah's job to make sure it all looks good. But whose job is it to make sure everyone makes it out alive? Already, an actor has fainted, and one crew member has been hospitalized with an asthma attack because of all the artificial smoke. Debra snaps out of her pessimism as she's jostled aside. Her team scurries around her, arranging clumps of fake corpses in battle-worn armor and knotted-up wigs on the ground. To her left, the smoke machine hisses to life,

sending vaporized paraffin and fish oil swirling around, filling her lungs with candle wax. Truly, this has been a nightmare. The weather, the logistics, the physical discomfort, but it will all be worth it. Once audiences see her efforts on screen, like as long as the director lights the show properly and people can literally see what she's done, she'll get that fifth Emmy. For sure.

Now to the massive reaction to that Game of Thrones finale. This shocking series ending sent fans into a frenzy. He had messed up the most obvious storytelling possibilities. I've read the books. I have reason to expect, oh, I've got a journey here. In fact, I'm going to have more to do. I'm going to get my teeth into something. How many millions of dollars do you think they wasted on ridiculous faith in you guys?

But now that our watch has ended, will HBO be dethroned as the king of cable? Bring me his head. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and mother of dragons at Don't Cross a Gay Man.

And today, we're shaming Game of Thrones. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch Saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like.

We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus shorthand episodes

exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. Now y'all, I'm so excited because on our show today, we have some returning guests, Ben Mandelker and Ronnie Karam from Watch What Crappens, because they have been covering House of the Dragon on their wonder-y show Winter is Crappening now in its second season. Welcome back to the show, you two. Ben Mandelker Thanks for having us. Hi. Jaren Hello.

Ben Mandelker So good to see you again. Jaren I guess before we get into the story of the finale of Game of Thrones, do you have a favorite Game of Thrones character? Cersei for life. Cersei should have been queen. Cersei has the biggest nuts in that group. She should have won everything.

I was pissed off. And then if you're gonna kill her, kill her better. That's what I say. Justice for Cersei. Yes. Yeah, I agree. What about you, Ben? I totally agree. Like Cersei. Yes. Yeah, I agree. What about you, Ben? I totally agree. Like, Cersei, I think, is probably my favorite.

Although I always had this, like, strange love for Grey Worm. I don't know what it was. I just thought he was so cute. I just want to put him in a little pocket or something. Well, onto the topic of the day. We're focusing on the controversial eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, widely regarded as a disappointment. By the way, there's going to be a ton of spoilers in this episode, so you've been

warned listeners if you haven't caught up. So Game of Thrones changed the TV game. Despite its flaws, it was a trailblazing show that netted record-breaking ratings. And more viewers committed the history of Westeros to memory than would ever crack open a textbook on the English monarchy. Ain't that the truth? I know. When you go online and you read about plot points and stuff and people start talking

about the geography alone, just like, well, this is 1400 miles from this place. So how did they get to this place from that place in two hours? I'm like, what the hell? Do you even know where Hawaii is? Like, point it out. Speaking of, I traveled around singing on cruise ships before I did social media and podcasting. I'd love that for you. And I went to Dubrovnik, Croatia, where King's Landing was filmed, a bunch. And I've also been to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, where they filmed a lot of stuff.

Whoa. Yeah, so cool. Wow. But I love that you like sing show tunes there too, probably. Don't cry for me Argentina. Let's start all the way back in 2006 when Hollywood is still glamorous. David Benioff, one of our two heroes, is a novelist and working screenwriter with a promising career.

He's got a great track record of getting hot actors to strip down on screen. A few years earlier, he got Brad Pitt to bear his midriff by writing Troy. And then he got Hugh Jackman to show off his six pack by writing X-Men Origins Wolverine. So we love him, stan him. Doing great work. Doing great work. So while contemplating which celebrity hunks abs to put on screen next,

Benioff has a transformative experience. He reads the engrossing first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. It's titled A Game of Thrones, of course. So Benioff thinks it will make a great TV show. To help him with the pitch, Benioff enlists the help of his friend Daniel Brett, aka D.B. Weiss, and the duo go to work wooing George R.R. Martin for the screen rights to his books. So Martin has always been an author, but he's worked in TV before as well. Before penning A Game of Thrones, he wrote for sci-fi classic The Twilight Zone in the 80s and

a show called Beauty and the Beast. Oh, Linda Hamilton. Okay. Now, according to IMDb, the show follows the adventures and romance of a sensitive and cultured lion man and a crusading assistant district attorney in Manhattan. Yeah, I remember this and I'm shocked that that was George RR. I had no idea. Yeah. That's wild. Well, after a few gigs, Martin, like any self-respecting writer, starts developing pilots

and gets nowhere. So he quits Hollywood. Ronnie, could you please read Martin's Hollywood skeptic rant? I always wanted to do something in epic fantasy, but not just rehash Tolkien. I wanted to do something to make it my own. I would always turn in my first draft or whatever network or studio or producer I was working for and the reaction was inevitably, George, it's a wonderful read, thanks, but it's three times our budget. We can't possibly make it. It's too big, it's too expensive,

and you can't put Linda Hamilton in everything. BOTH LAUGH That's so good. So, by the time Benioff and Weiss come calling, Martin has been approached by movie producers already and he's turned everyone down. Why? Well, his story is vast and trying to fit all of those lovely details and characters into one movie just wouldn't work. But HBO, where each book could be its own 10-episode season and the budgets are hefty, could work.

So let's hear a clip of Benioff and Weiss telling Jimmy Kimmel about meeting Martin. We had a four-hour lunch, and at the very end of lunch, he was sitting there kind of looking between the two of us, and he said, -"Who was Jon Snow's mother? Oh. And it was a test question.

Ah. I'll always remember this. And George had a little bit of butter in his beard. And I'll always like, it's just one of those images that gets, you know, stanched in your brain. We'd invested so much of ourselves and so much hope in this. We had luckily, weirdly, we had both talked about it.

You can kind of tell who John Stowe's mother is. Wow. Would you have passed that test? Do you know the answer? Oh, hell no. I know the answer. I just can't remember the names. Everyone's name is like Lissandra Belandra, Belandra Valtrex. And I'm like, I don't... Valtrex. Everyone has the same name. Actually, you probably could pass the test. You just sort of say a name and you have like a 95% chance. Like, is it Agon?

It's Agon, isn't it? Yeah, it's Jon Snow's mom, but I always forget her name. It's Lynn, Lynette? It's Lianna, yeah, Lianna. Lianna. I know Lynette sounds like a silly guess, to think that there'd be someone named Liannette in the show,

but like, Lianna's like not my bad. We're reality TV watchers, and whenever a scene changes or they go to a new person, especially on Housewives or something, they pop up the name like Ramona. And then you see Ramona posing, you know, with her children in the background. And so you know exactly what you're doing.

We're Game of Thrones is like, here's a hundred characters in five minutes, bye, have fun. So after his epic lunch with Benioff and Weiss, Martin's convinced that they, unlike most of the Hollywood snobs he's met, actually get Game of Thrones. But do Benioff and Weiss get Martin? TV moves fast, and there are still a few more books in the series to finish, each one taking five to six years on average to complete. And since there are a few books in the can, for now, that's not a problem. For now.

So Benny Ovenweiss, who've never run a show, by the way, sweet talk the execs at HBO into making this behemoth of a series with them at the helm. And they mess up the pilot. Ugh. Being green, they fail to translate hugely important parts of the story. But with a few extra million bucks, they try again and the rest is TV failing up history. So for a little refresher on Game of Thrones, let's play a game. For five whole seasons, Benioff and Weiss are churning out some of the highest rated television of its time. So I'm going to ask you some trivia questions about Game of Thrones. And whoever gets the most correct gets to live. First one, how much does each episode of Game of Thrones cost to make?

$40 million. $80 million. Oh, not quite. It's estimated that each episode for the first five seasons is around $5 to $6 million. Oh, you know what? We weren't factoring in the economy. I mean, bread is $90. Yeah, you're right.

We're in 2024 right now. Yeah, you said we're We weren't factoring in the economy. I mean, bread is $90. Yeah, you're right. We're in 2024 right now. Yeah, you said we're talking 2024 money. Yeah. So that's about 50 or 60 million per season. Wow. Second question. According to Game of Thrones costume designer,

what was Jon Snow's iconic fur cloak supposedly made from? Oh, like an Ikea rug or something. Yes. What? Ding, like an Ikea rug or something. Yes! What? Ding, ding, ding! Yeah. $80 Ikea rugs. Wow.

Yes, they made it out of Ikea rugs. And I remember that because I went through a phase a long time ago where I would just try and make Ikea rugs into furniture. Like, I would try to make furniture covers out of it, and I could never get it right. And so when I read about it, I was like, how do straight people do this?

Like, honestly, that's my biggest question of the show. Like, I never gave straight people enough credit. Yeah. All right, next one. This is a doozy. Coined by critic Miles McNutt, this term means providing a bunch of backstory while sexy things happen on screen. I totally have heard this, and that's killing me that I can't...

Dextracting? Dextraction? That some guy named McNutt came up to a sex position. I mean, that guy's name, it's in it's his destiny to come up with that. All right. How many Emmys does Game of Thrones win over its full run? Oh, gosh, I'm going to say, let's see, eight seasons and it probably takes home. I'm going to say one hundred and forty three. I'll say 40 because I'm imagining all the creative art. I'm imagining 20 per year. Somewhere in the middle, it was 59. Okay, I'm vastly overestimating all the answers.

So I would win if this was Price is Right, right? You sure would. Last question. What are the two famous languages invented for Game of Thrones called? High Valyrian. Yes. Thrones called? High Valyrian. Yes. And Spanish. Low Valyrian.

LOW VALYRIAN. LOW VALYRIAN. So there is high and low Valyrian, but that's all lumped into one. The other one was Dothraki. Of course. Dothraki. Yes.

Yeah, fun fact that has 3,000 words. And another fun fact, you can learn Valerian on Duolingo. And as of 2022, 100,000 people in the UK have signed up to learn it. Wow. Wow. Nerds. Yeah. So, from the first episode, Game of Thrones is a hit. It's television made on a heretofore unheard of scale.

But then, problem. Remember how Martin hasn't exactly rushed himself to conclude A Song of Ice and Fire? Well even though the TV show takes forever to produce, after five seasons the show catches up to the books and the content spigot runs dry. One huge event in the final completed book is the death of Jon Snow. There's no answer as to what happens after. But Benioff and Weiss are forced to make something up. They're writers, right? So how hard could it be? Turns out, very hard.

They immediately resurrect John Snow without any consequence, leading folks to ask why they killed him in the first place. Keeping this world alive is hard work, And after years of working on the show, everyone's a little tired. Benioff and Weiss would like to retire from the show and take a break, pretty please. But HBO execs are not happy about this. Mouths drop as they lay out their exit plan.

Not two more seasons, not one more season, but three movies. Oh, wow, I forgot that they were gonna do that. Yeah, I remember everyone was really upset about that. Yeah, it was an immediate no-go for the network. So HBO, Benioff, and Weiss settle on 13 episodes. This will be divided between season seven and season eight. That means by the

time Benioff and Weiss get to hang up their swords and end their showrunner watch, they'll have produced 73 episodes of Game of Thrones. But first, they have to create the most anticipated finale season of all time. Hopefully, they've bought Martin some time to finish the book, too. Spoiler, he does not finish it. That's why you can't give people success like that. You cannot give them success until it's done. Listen, the man had butter in his beard in the first meeting, which I'm not ever going to forget because that makes me freaking crazy. He still hasn't finished this damn thing. And he will still do five interviews a day

about it. And it's really hard not to get pissed. You got me in this car. You are going to drive until we get to the destination. George, get in there and write that shit. You better not die before that's done. I'm going to be so mad. Yeah, I just feel like if I were a Game of Thrones, like hardcore fan, like reading the books, I would be pissed because Elden Ring came out like two years ago and he wrote all of that. So he wrote a video game, but he can't finish his own book. I would be furious. Jared Ranere Same. Georgia King My name is Georgia King, and I am thrilled to be the host of And Away We Go, a brand new travel podcast on Wondery+,

where we'll be whisked away on immersive adventures all around the world. Where we go, what we do, what we eat, drink, and listen to will all be up to my very special guests. We've got Ben Schwartz taking us on a whirlwind trip around Disneyland. We'll eat a bowl of life-changing pasta with Jimmy O-Yang in Tuscany, Italy. And how do you feel about a spot of sugaring off with Emily Hampshire

in Montreal? And Away We Go will immerse you in some of the wonders of the world. We're going to be seeing some yellows and vibrant oranges. And the shoes clicking against the cobblestone. If you're looking to get somebody in the mood, have them look at the Chicago skyline. You can listen to And Away We Go exclusively with Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Georgia, do you know what joy sounds like? I think I'm hearing it right now. So, Game of Thrones Season 7 starts airing and it appears the Boy Wonders have done it

again. Well, sort of. The critical reception for Season 7 of Game of Thrones is alright. The story seems a little rushed. Like Benioff and Weiss are certainly moving the plot along, but they're not spending as much on the intricate characters like Martin Wood. For instance, Jon Snow and Daenerys instantly hate each other,

but join sides very quickly because winter is coming, you know? And some of the beloved characters make questionable decisions. For example, Littlefinger, the show's political mastermind, thinks pitting sisters Arya and Sansa against each other will work. He's very wrong.

So, more or less, Season 7 isn't anyone's favorite season of Game of Thrones, but it'll do. Are there any moments from the season that you thought were silly that you can remember? You know, I have to say, before the silly, it took me a while to get pissed off. I have to be honest. That season, I still liked it. I loved that they finally met and I loved that sister versus sister thing because that could work.

I mean, I've watched so many soap operas and I still watch Housewives and listen, you enter some power into it and let people fight over it and they will fight over it. So I don't think that was the worst idea in the world. It wasn't until later on that I was like, wait a minute. Also, I loved watching Littlefinger get what's coming to him and all that good stuff. So I don't know, I wasn't so bad. I remember defending it because I always feel like these penultimate seasons of shows, I always just say they're just setting it up for the finale.

Yes. I'm still defending it because I think people really don't understand what we have until it's dead. Yeah. Bisha, I just remembered the thing from season seven that made me the angriest of all. It was at the very end of the season when Jon Snow and his group are in the north and they're like in this lake and they're surrounded by the skeletons. The skeleton's like, oh, well, we can't go attack them because there's water. So they're afraid to move forward.

And they're just sitting there. And then the hound picks up a rock and just throws it at the skeletons. And the skeletons realize, oh, wait, oh, we can actually cross an attack. And I was like, why would anyone do that in that situation? This was purely contrived to make a terrible battle for these people. Loved it. Isn't that weird? I literally loved it.

Because of course that guy did that. That guy was just that kind of guy who's just like, oh, huh, huh, and then he points and laughs to make fart jokes, and then he dies. Like every horror movie has that guy. And of course it was that fucking guy. I mean, just so frustrating. Silly decisions and flaws aside,

people are chomping at the bit for what will most definitely be the show's thrilling conclusion in season eight. Will Arya get her revenge? Will Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth finally hook up? And who's gonna sit on that cold, rigid throne? Also, will they add cushions to it? Thank you.

The pressure's on. So, a month after the release of the Season 7 finale, production on Season 8 revs up. Episodes will be a bit longer, around 90 minutes a piece, and budgets increase to a whopping $15 million per episode. About 700 cast and crew descend on tomb in Northern Ireland to film season eight. Their goal? To shoot the equivalent of six movies in nine months. The logistics have taken the entire previous year to lay out.

That's wild. Yeah. Can you imagine the poor production coordinators? Yeah, that's so much. That's kind of why I still respect it and like it. When you watch the end credits go and it takes 20 minutes, it's like next week by the time they're finished, I'm like, these poor people are all getting dragged through the mud. They showed up.

They showed up to Tomb. I remember being a PA on a sitcom at Paramount Studios, and the production coordinator there was frazzled. I'm like, and that was just for a 30-minute single-cam sitcom. I can't even imagine six movies set, like, internationally, for Game of Thrones. So, production is intensely secretive. Actors are notified that their scripts are ready for viewing on a locked app that digitally

self-destructs the scripts 24 hours later. Oh my god. You gotta learn those lines quickly, huh? You better learn those lines very quickly. It's like soap operas. I'm waiting for that version of Grindr. Yeah. Now, you might be thinking that this is overkill, and you're wrong.

Paparazzi were literally doing everything they could to get inside scoops. They're hiding out on rooftops, hanging off construction cranes, flying drones into enemy territory to see what human eyes cannot. And the production crew has to construct walls to keep them out, stacking shipping containers into giant barriers. Get out. That's wild. Yeah. I mean, the media was hungry for content. At one point, Kit Harrington, who plays Jon Snow, accidentally leaves his curtains open in his room and steps out of the shower to

find a drone sneaking past his window. Well, where's that footage? Where is the footage? Yeah. Media, you act like you try so hard, where's that footage? Where is the footage? Yeah. Media, you act like you try so hard, but you're lazy. Where's Jon Snow's penis? Like, if you weren't worth a damn, I would have it in my inbox by now. Yeah, poster in my room.

So not only are the stars more famous than ever, but the scenes and sets are wildly ambitious. One of the season's centerpieces is going to be episode three, named The Long Night, in which winter finally arrives. The Night King, aka the leader of the White Walkers, unleashes his undead army against the army of the living. Over 55 nights of filming happened. That's three months of filming. Whoa. I would lose of filming. Whoa.

I would lose my mind. Yeah. This battle is twice as massive as anything they've done before. The shoots, they're miserable. Everyone's working off of five hours sleep. The bitter cold nights reach negative 10 degrees. Everyone trudges around the boggy ground mud reaching up to their ankles.

And on that shaky boggy mud, a drainage system is built to keep the set from waterlogging. Fake smoke is pumped onto the sets made from a disgusting mix of fish oil and paraffin wax. Oh. That is harsh. What happened to CGI? Come on. Come on.

Fake snow is carted to set by an army of people, and this prop snow is made from pulverized paper. So if it does actually snow or rain, the paper gets wet, clumps together into paper mache globs. We're in Northern Ireland. It rains. So crew members, they have to put the fake snow back into their carts and take it away,

adding hours to the shooting schedule. And of course, a huge storm rolls through and sets filming back even further. I mean, at this point, why don't they just film it in Valencia? They've already carting in all this fake stuff. Right. Just shoot it in the desert and just fix it all in post. Yeah, there is something like you were saying, what happened to CGI? I know you were kidding, but when you watch the behind the scenes stuff now, you know, they they're literally they're on a broomstick pretending it's a dragon and it's just blue screen everywhere and little, you know, the little dots

that the sensor dots everywhere. So what the hell, what are we doing with paper? You know what I mean? Get them in there. Well, let's talk about dead bodies because the battle requires lots of them. Fortunately, they're not using lowly extras and forcing them to lie face down in the mud.

However, they do have to make fake people and dress them up with armor, wigs, fake blood for maximum realism. And bodies left out too long get waterlogged, making them heavier to move by the crew. Fake blood is also apparently very expensive, and production managers have to sparingly use the good stuff while using cheaper fake blood for everything else. And all of that has to be cleaned because it'll stain the snow bright orange if left out. I'm so stressed. This is very stressful.

I know, so stressed. The production takes a physical and psychological toll on the actors and crew. One actor faints from standing for too long. A crew member has an asthma attack and is taken to the hospital after breathing in too much fake smoke. Ian Glenn, who plays Sir Jorah, describes shooting Game of Thrones Season 8 as, quote, the most unpleasant experience I've had on Thrones. Ben, could you please read the rest of Glenn's statement

to Entertainment Weekly? Would love to. A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake up at midday, you're still so spent, you can't really do anything, and then you're back. You have no life outside it. You have an absolute fucked bunch of actors,

but without getting to method acting about it on screen, it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world. Okay, Queen. I mean, whatever, actors. I'm so over it. It's like $15 million an episode, someone fainted from standing too much. Get the fuck out of here. You know what hurts more? Waiting tables, okay?

Be quiet over there. Hello. Well, it is funny hearing like a principal actor, you know, complain like, ugh, it was terrible and I would just go back to my warm trailer and put my feet up and just think about how rigorous this shoot is. While meanwhile, the people being paid five cents as the extras were face down in the mud, because I'm sure some extras were face down in the mud.

They're the ones who are truly going through it. Mm-hmm. The unbelievably anticipated season eight of Game of Thrones hits the airwaves and, um, chokes up streaming connections. 17.4 million viewers watched the premiere episode. That's 11.8 million watching live on HBO and the rest through streaming and encore broadcasts. But the pacing for episode one and all subsequent episodes is weird.

Something's off. In previous seasons, everything took forever and people liked it. For example, in season one, it takes three episodes for the Starks to travel from Winterfell to King's Landing. That's right. I'm sure they talked about that on the Reddit threads. This is accurate. That's what it was.

That's like the travel complaint. You know, the whole last season just became travel complaints. People were really upset that Daenerys was able to actually save Jon Snow from the Hound stupidity in like a second. She got her dragon up there to the north in like, you know, five seconds. But I'm like, you know, I think dragons can go faster. She's like flying like the Concord of dragons. So it was all good for me.

So the showrunners are clearly trying to get somewhere and fast. And the critics, they're taking note. Then a more benign but strange flaw comes in the form of some celebrity cameos. What do you think? Is that corny or great? Do you like seeing celebrity fans have their dream come true or is it too distracting?

I didn't recognize a lot of them. The one that really got to me was Ed Sheeran. Why? I was like, why though? You know, I'm not even an Ed Sheeran hater. I know that there are a lot of them. The one that really got to me was Ed Sheeran. Why? I was like, why though? You know, I'm not even an Ed Sheeran hater. I know that there are a lot out there, especially in this room right now that we're in. His name rhymes with Schmin.

But you know, I'm not an Ed Sheeran hater. I love a looper. I think he's so talented. But sitting around a campfire, I was like, kill him. You know, I don't think you should feel like that, for poor Ed. I think that like after Ed Sheeran made his appearance on the show

and sang that little song, no cameo could really faze me at that point. The show's already kind of jumped the shark. That should have been the canary in the coal mine for all of us. Sure. So, episode two, titled A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, only nets 15.9 million viewers, almost a 9% drop from the premiere. It's also the

episode where Arya Stark, who viewers of the show have literally watched grow up on screen, has sex for the first time. Oh, I didn't like that. I forgot that that even happened. She banged the sword maker guy, right? Yeah, the bastard son of Baratheon, right? Yeah. Of course, there were defenders of the scene who argued that one, it's consensual, and that's not always the case for this show. That's true. That's a big improvement for this show.

Well done there. And two, even characters who aren't sexualized want to have sex, especially before they might die in a scary battle. You know, let her get it. So then it's time for episode three. The much talked about Long Night airs and those fifty-five nights of shooting result in a very dark episode. Not thematically, like just physically very dark. So let's take a look.

I feel like I'm under the covers. So can you describe what you were seeing, if anything? I don't know. I feel like I saw it better at home. Don't stand up for it. Damn it. Why am I standing up for this episode? I love this episode. I loved a good long battle. So this one I was okay with, but yeah, it was, you couldn't see

much. You could not see anything in this episode. And I remember I really liked this episode and it was so exciting and so stirring. And honestly, I've always hated the big battle episodes, but I remember being like, I can't see anything. Like you can see, you can see like a little bit of moonlight, like reflecting off like the shoulder pads of the armor, but you can't see anything. Like, you can see a little bit of moonlight reflecting off the shoulder pads of the armor. But you can't see anyone's faces, you can't see who's talking. It's ridiculous. And why would you spend all that money in production and not turn a light on? Yeah, so crazy. I mean, filming at night

and lighting the episode almost exclusively by fire seems like a fun artistic choice choice until you see it in action and you can't see any of the action. Yeah, so much of this show really does have to take place kind of in the daylight, you know? Like all the drama takes place in the day because literally there's no lights. Like, what are you going to do?

But also like, why do we need realism now on a show that has like dragons and people coming back from the dead and a witch and this and that. And like all of a sudden now it's like, wait, but this coming back from the dead, and a witch, and this and that. And all of a sudden now it's like, wait, but this has to be very... You're literally fighting zombies, but you have to do it realistically. Can't Melisandre do some sort of spell and have a glowing orb in the skies, that way things could be lit?

Well, some argued it was poor compression, and others say it was a screen issue. But director Miguel Sapochnik gives the best insight into filming his unwatchable episode. He says, quote, everything I make, I've made to be seen in the largest format possible. The Long Night is made to be watched in a cinema and I don't have a solution for the problem that arose out of it.

I literally hate him. Did he not know he was making a TV show? I hate him too. What an idiot. It's like, hey, my new car keeps breaking down. Yeah, I designed that to fly. So, the long night, it's a big misstep, but it's the middle of the season. There are three more episodes to go, and Benioff and Weiss can surely stick the landing, aka the most important part of the show. No, they can't.

They're tired, remember? They're so sleepy. They're tired by now. However, Benioff and Weiss, it's pretty clear they don't think it's going to go very well. And so let's hear a clip of them on Jimmy Kimmel again. Where will you watch the finale? Where will you be together? Oh, we're not. We are going to take our wives to an undisclosed location. But you will be together? We'll be together.

We'll be together, four of us. Oh. Yeah, we'll be together. And we're just gonna turn our phones off, drinking tequila and coming back when it's over. All right, all right. Man, it's like they've already murdered somebody. Yeah.

We're just gonna go hide out, turn our phones off. No, they're basically like, look, we told Miguel he's gotta use at least one light bulb and he's just been pissed at us. So we just don't wanna get those texts from him. Yeah. So episode four, The Last of the Starks airs and some of the 17.2 million viewers

spot something strange in Winterfell on the table next to Amelia Clarke. It looks like a Starbucks cup. That's when they lost me. I didn't notice the Starbucks cup there. But when I read that the next day, I was like, you guys, I'm trying to stand up for you. I'm trying.

But a Starbucks cup, come on. I was so mad that I did not see it myself. Like, I was so mad that I woke up the next day. And it was all over the internet. And I was like, I missed a Starbucks. I feel like I have Starbucks star. And I could spot it anywhere, but I failed. I failed entirely.

Fun fact, despite endless internet memes poking fun at the cup being from Starbucks, production crew have said it's from a local Irish cafe. So support local business, everybody. That's nice. I love that they're more worried about being seen as not supporting the local economy of TOOM. Get the fuck out of here with that.

What do you carry around a Starbucks cup to pour it in? Get out of here, compilers. Now, I wish that was the only out-of-place beverage of the season, but no. The production coordinator must have been passed out from huffing wax fumes for the finale as well. So here's a photo. Oh, right.

So for the listeners at home, there is a plastic bottle underneath one of the chairs just visible by an actor's feet. That was the final meeting, right? When they were all deciding who was going to be the king. Yeah. Yeah. They're big council where they had to pull out all the like the fold out chairs of Westeros to decide who's going to be sitting on the iron throne Yeah. So, I mean, they don't seem very concerned about microplastics. No, not at all. But by the way, that was from a local Irish convenience store.

Who locally bought plastic, okay? So, fans, they've put up with a lot. They've been forgiving whenever possible, trusting the process and holding out for the perfect story ending to make up for the boring or confusing choices thus far. But that forgiveness ends here. When did you turn on the show? The sitting around all night episode was when it was done for me because I love the battles. The Battle of the Bastards is one of my all-time faves. So I loved all the battling. And then they just stopped.

It's like the biggest war of the whole show. It's all leading up to this. And they all just stopped to sit around and decide, like, whose feelings were hurt about not banging Brienne, or like whatever all of that was. I didn't even get it. I was like, why are we feeling things? You're Hunt Game of Thrones. I don't want to see you feel things. Go decapitate a zombie. Here's where I lost my faith in the show.

It was episode four and we'd spent more than half of this final season in gloomy Winterfell when there's this entire rich world of locations. And furthermore, that Cersei was like a nonentity. Like how is it that we have our final victory lap for the show and Cersei is doing absolutely nothing? I don't wanna watch Jon Snow moping around episode after episode. Jon Snow is actually one of my least favorite characters. He does nothing, he's bland, he's uninteresting.

Cersei is doing cool shit and she's in the big city. I wanna go there. And we got literally none of it. That's exactly it. I think that most people, they agreed it was bland, even though we're talking about feelings, it was somehow emotionless. And then I think the biggest fault was the characters

no longer acting like themselves. And for example, like Daenerys, she was always the most, shall we say, progressive candidate for the throne thus far, but then she makes that full heel turn and she turns cartoonishly evil over that one episode. I don't know. I kind of get that just because she'd been through so much and blah, blah, blah. And really, if you think back on her character, she was always burning

everybody alive. Like they made it seem like, oh, this is so crazy. Everybody was like, I can't believe Danny did that. Danny literally did that every time she had a problem. Also, what do you think about Jamie Lannister? Because he started off as the most hated character on the show, who spends seven seasons becoming the good guy and dumping his evil, sexy sister, and then possibly falling in love with an awkward warrior lady just to return

to his co-dependent twin to die needlessly. Yeah. What a weird arc. That was a weird arc, and I also felt like sort of wrapped up in that too was the death of Jamie and Cersei was very, it was very meh. I felt like especially for Cersei, given that Cersei really did very little this season, except, I mean, she cut off Missandei's head. But you know, that's like, that's like going to Starbucks for her, you know, she's like, Oh, it's Tuesday. Okay, behead someone and's like going to Starbucks for her, you know? She's like, oh, it's Tuesday.

Okay, behead someone and then I'll have a latte after that. Thank you. Then I'll leave the cup under a chair while we shoot. Overall, people think it's a mess, and the dissatisfaction with the show reaches critical mass. Everyone hates it, even the actors. Isaac Hempstead, who played Bran, he thought the final script was a joke when he first read it, because it said that he'd be the king. He literally thought everyone got a script

as a joke saying that they were going to end up on the throne. Like the movie of Clu. Like the movie of Clu. Yeah. It's that multiple ending. We called it in our recaps right at the start that Bran was going to be the king and it was as a joke, but we were like, they're probably going to have Bran as the king because that's how politics works.

We all glamorize things and we start rooting for people, but it's always like the most basic bitch who wins. And Bran didn't have a ton of charisma, but he did, you know, he did have magic and he was probably the crow person or whatever the hell that was. And he did get dragged along the kingdom on a cardboard box or whatever the hell.

Like, he kind of earned it. BOTH LAUGH But he wasn't the only one who was surprised. Conlith Hill, who plays Varys, can be seen throwing down his script in frustration in the behind-the-scenes footage. Kit Harington or Jon Snow was surprised he wasn't going to kill the Night King,

but he did stand up for Benny Offenweiss saying, quote, the critics can go fuck themselves. Yeah. And by the way, I love that it was Arya who did it because Arya was on such a long, prolonged journey of becoming a little warrior herself that like if she didn't do anything significant with that by the end of the show, that would have been like very frustrating. I don't know. I feel like everybody just wanted to put everything on Jon Snow and just make Jon Snow the hero because he's like the hottest and he's the love interest and like Jon Snow automatically wins. And I like that the nerd writers were like, no, guess what?

The quarterback doesn't always win, you know? Like some little girl ends up killing the Night King. Jon Snow gets screwed over by someone who would rather have power than him and you know, then spends the rest of his life crying. I really liked that. That was one of my favorite moves of the writers, actually. And people didn't like that Arya kind of flew at the guy. They were like, that is so unrealistic that Arya did that. That's so unrealistic that that girl could jump higher

than what would normally be physically allowed when killing an undead person who has the ability to make skeletons reanimate. LAUGHS Well, the lasting legacy of Game of Thrones, the biggest show of all time, is its terrible ending, kind of now. I mean, it makes sense, since going back to rewatch

the earlier seasons feels kind of pointless. Because you're reminded that Jon Snow's parents, the big mystery of the franchise, barely adds anything to the story, especially his ending. If anything, it just makes his brief and awkward incestuous romance with Daenerys slightly grosser. It wasn't even worth it. The incest wasn't even worth it. Wasn't even worth it! I mean, there's also the whole Night King, who was sitting on the sidelines for the entire show,

adding dead soldiers to his zombie hordes and growing powerfully scary. His whole deal is wrapped up in one episode. So, I mean, winter came and it was mild, I guess. Now it's spring. And what was the Night King trying to do? What was the Night King's real objective? It's like, okay, I'm going to annihilate the land and have skeletons everywhere, and then what?

Now you still have all the same administrative issues. You have actually even worse, because the skeletons will just keep on piling up. So immediately following the finale, the Metacritic audience score for season eight drops to 4.5. Today, it's at 4.1, while Rotten Tomatoes' audience gives it just 30%. There was a Change.org petition that was also launched to remake Game of Thrones Season 8

with competent writers. It currently has almost two million signatures. Wow, that is nuts. That would be great though if they did that. I mean, I don't know how they could, but they, you know, why not? You know, just erase that part and just redo it. Animation. Weirder things have happened. Do you have any opinions on what could have helped Game of Thrones? Lighting.

Lighting, I think it starts with lighting. Yeah, I think if they took their time, I think that actually separating out the big White Walker battle, having that so far ahead of the end of this, that should have been pushed up. It should have somehow been like a one-two punch with a fight for the Iron Throne and needed more heft, it needed more time. They needed to flesh out all these things to make it feel like the true culmination of a series. And ultimately, I think the blame has to go to George.

Like dude, you can't just cop out on finishing. That's crazy. And I get that there's probably some level of, oh my God, is this going to be good enough? And now this celebrated and it must be so hard to get it up when everybody's looking at you shirtless at the pool suddenly. You know what I mean? And I get it. But if it's based on source material and then you run out, you ultimately got to blame the source who stopped giving it to you, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think their biggest

issue was time and that these two stunt queens, Benioff and Weiss, just didn't hand it over to somebody else. Exactly. Why not? Why not hand over to other showrunners? It's unclear. Maybe they just couldn't let go of their creation. But they had to leave because it's announced that they're going to go off and do Star Wars. I have to say, honestly, I thought the last season was, like, it was fine. But I was not nearly as mad as everyone else

was on the internet. And I had just chalked it up to me being, like, a relative newcomer to the whole series. I was like, it was fine. But now as you say all these things, I am like livid. Yeah. I am so mad. Well, let's do a little where are they now?

George R.R. Martin hasn't finished book six, The Winds of Winter. He said he went into hiding in a remote mountain location to get away from the pressure of finishing the book and just never figured out how. Instead, he wrote a prequel called Fire and Blood in 2018, which serves as the source material for HBO's new show, House of the Dragon. Get paid, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, House of the Dragon. Get paid, right? Yeah, yeah.

Well, that one's good. I mean, I love House of the Dragon, and I think it's harder for that show because people are still so mad about Game of Thrones, and they don't really give that show a lot of respect, but I really like it. So I'm hoping that it does last for years because ultimately I still love Game of Thrones.

I mean, it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I would watch it all again, even hating the ending. Well, like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez at the end of Geely, Benioff and Weiss rode off into the sunset making their dream Star Wars series. That's a lie. The two never end up traveling to a galaxy far, far away. The duo later claimed to have left Star Wars because Lucasfilm was too hands-on and or didn't like their script. Eek. Yikes.

Ouch. Yeah. Benioff and Weiss also tried and failed to produce a strange HBO project called Confederate. This was insane. An alternate history show where the Civil War was run by the other side. I missed that one. So understandably, people were upset by the premise and had no interest in a speculative story where America still had legal slavery.

That was absolutely insane that that was going to happen. I could not believe that. I almost felt for them, not for that one, because that one's like an insanely stupid idea, but the one where they went to Disney and then got kind of smacked down. That one's crazy to me because of course, Disney's not going to give you the same freedom. They've got, Star Wars is a huge industrial complex, you know, you're not going to just get to waltz in there

and do whatever you want, especially after what you just did to Game of Thrones. So I don't know, I hope you, I hope you still feel crappy about it, gentlemen. Well, the pair aren't doing too bad after all this. They did go on to secure the bag with a $200 million producing deal with Netflix. And so far, they've produced The Three Body Problem. Right. People like that a lot, that show. Right. People like that a lot, that show.

So here on The Big Flop, as you know, we like to be positive people. So are there any silver linings that you can think of that came from the series finale of Game of Thrones? I think that the silver lining was that it made me appreciate so much more of the series. I watched it and I really enjoyed it. But then, you know, it made me really reflect, like, oh, I actually have been on quite a journey with this show.

I didn't even realize. And it does actually just even talk about this make me want to go back and, like, dive into this world with all these characters and all these people. And it really makes you appreciate how difficult of an endeavor it was to make this and so the fact that they had their big flop only at the very end is kind of impressive. You know, I was also thinking it had nearly a thousand people on the payroll for years.

Yeah. Oh yeah. A big time employer. It was great for the economy, the industry economy. I like that it opened the door for so many other shows like it, so many fantasy soap opera type shows, because that's such a perfect mix for me. And so many great shows and so much great content has come out of that for years, for decades now.

And it looks like it's just going to keep coming. And really, that was the golden age of television. I mean, television still has not risen back to that, what it was, you know? But they are still trying. They're all still trying to beat that one. Even though everybody pretends it sucks and they hate it now,

everybody is still trying to find that high again and everyone's still trying to recreate that high again. So, you know, it keeps people on their toes. So I'm grateful for it. Same. Well, now that you both know about the Game of Thrones series finale, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop or a mega flop? I think it's a baby flop.

You know, if you're going to put it on the scale of Abby Lee Miller and Nero, like this is a baby flop. And I think it was just like, it just kind of fell apart. But also, it's kind of what happens to TV shows at the end. There are very few shows that can maintain quality over eight seasons. Was it a great last season? No. But I think there are worse TV flops out there, so I'm going to give it baby flop.

I would say Game of Thrones in general, not a flop at all. Season finale, the last half of that end, huge flop. One of the most colossal fuck ups of all time, and they should be ashamed of themselves. But for the rest of it, loved it, will always love it. Same. Well, thank you so much to our very own TV critics, Ben Mandelker and Ronnie Karam,

for joining us here on The Big Flop again. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review. We'll be back next week with another flop that definitely made a splash. It's Ocean Gate. Bye. Bye. Bye. If you like the big flop, you can listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins and Tina Turner, written by Anna Rubinova, engineered by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova. Engineered by Andrew Holzberger, with support from Zach Grapone. Our story editor is Drew Beebe. Our managing producer is Molly Getman. Our executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Melnati for At Will Media. Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, and Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rudder.

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