Game of Thrones season 8 is being considered as one of the most awaited TV series season of all time. The season aired after a break of almost two years from season 7 and fans were pretty hyped to see all the characters back again. But most importantly, we wanted to see how the showrunners will try to conclude the story which we all have loved from the last eight years. But to be honest, it looks like HBO's Game of Thrones has failed to impress most of the fans.
Before we go into details, let us see what are the ratings of the episodes from season 8 of Game of Thrones. According to HBO, a record 11.8 million people have watched the initial broadcast of episode 4 "The Last of Starks," which was down to about 200,000 viewers from the 12.02 million viewers who sat right beside their screens to watch "The Long Night." It must be noted that episode 3 was the longest episode in the series' history and it featured a disappointing end of Night King, more about it in some time.
But what should be noted here that the ratings of episode 3 and 4 are still less than the ratings of Game of Thrones season 7 episode 7 "The Dragon and the Wolf," that brought 12.07 million viewers. It means that surely something has gone south with the content otherwise with a fanbase this strong and a production team that dedicated, it was hard to imagine that fans will be left to want something more from the season 8 episodes.
From the very beginning of the show, we were kept on hearing this: "There is only one war that matters. The great war, and it is here." But the great war stayed for only one episode. Ever since the first scene of the first episode of the first seasons, winter was coming. We all laughed at the meme featuring Ned Stark saying Winter is Coming but for Game of Thrones fans, winter came and it ended in only one battle. It didn't even kill anyone that will bring tears to us. Yes, Ser Jorah Mormont and Theon Greyjoy's deaths were heartbreaking but not shocking — not even close to the deaths which we all endured during the Red Wedding episode.
Moreover, ever since we first saw the Red Priestess, we are hearing the prophecies of Azor Ahai — The Prince That Was Promised, and the Lord of Light. But where are those prophecies? Are we going to see them in the remaining two episodes? We have absolutely no idea.
If this was not enough then the recently released episode of Game of Thrones "The Last of Starks" showed actually nothing. For the first 20 minutes of the episode, we witnessed all the Starks, Wildings, and other Northerners celebrating the end of Night King. The celebration was necessary but this is the final season and we needed much more content than learning the fact that Sansa Stark is not afraid of The Hound anymore.
Previous seasons of Game of Thrones had a sincerity and the content drove the narrative forward and it did not feel like that the fans were taken for granted. In season 8 of Game of Thrones, we had expected something more — we needed to see the materialization of all those prophecies, we needed to see some major deaths in the early episodes only. Now as we are headed for the last two episodes, we know that some major deaths are on their way but those deaths won't be able to affect the narrative as there will not be any more story left to say.
