Unfair, maybe, to rank the penultimate batch of episodes as a genuine season. Thrones followed The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men in the grand tradition of TV-drama phenomena that wrap up with two "half-seasons," and it's possible that the elaborate table-setting in season 7 will pay off (immediately and spectacularly) in season 8. And there's no question that a lot happened in the most recent sequence of episodes – even if a lot of substantive plot stuff seemed largely dedicated to lesser players in the great game. Season 7 practically made an episodic game out of killing whole Great Families of Westeros, starting from the minute-one assassination of House Frey and climaxing with the demise of the freaking Lord Protector of the Vale.

The shrugging reaction to the latter death sums up this season's flaws, unfortunately. By focusing so much energy on eliminating some players, the show seemed to be biding time with the all-important Lannister-Targaryen-Stark trio. Cersei patrolled the Red Keep's corridors, and Dany stood at Dragonstone, and Jon Snow sailed south and north and south again. It wasn't all wheel-spinning, of course: The pairing of Jon and Daenerys was a series-defining inevitability (even if their courtly flirtation lacked the sparks of earlier romances). And if you like dragons, season 7 had dragons – one of them dead, breathing blue fire! But the average viewer probably felt a bit like Arya and Sansa up on walls of Winterfell: Looking ahead to the future, happy to forget the past.