What Can We Expect From The 'Game Of Thrones' Season 4 Finale?

[MAJOR SPOILERS ALERT!]

So, Game of Thrones fans, what do you think - is it possible to outdo the utter mastery that was the penultimate episode of Season 4, The Watchers on the Wall? 50 minutes of Jon Snow in all his glory, brutal fighting and yet, somehow, they managed to slip in a little sentimentality as well. The death of Ygritte was a powerful piece of television, Snow’s brief moment of happiness at seeing his lover again quickly turned to ashes as she was shot with an arrow and died in his arms, but not before uttering her famous words, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

Will we catch up with the rest of the characters in the Game of Thrones season 4 finale?

So the watchers managed to subdue the wildlings (for now) but this episode was most unusual for the fact that it didn’t skip around all over Westeros and beyond. It stuck in one place for the entire 50 minutes, which is the first time that the show has done that, but by gosh, it worked! 

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We were left on a bit of a cliffhanger in various other stories at the end of last week’s episode The Mountain and the Viper. After discovering that Ser Barristan had been secretly reporting on her to Lord Varys in her early days as Khaleesi, Daenerys sends him away, ordering him never to return. We’re hoping in the final episode to see these two build bridges, although it seems highly unlikely. What is much more likely is that Ser Barristan will begin a separate story - will it be one which involves winning Daenerys back around? Although she’s one of the show’s favourite characters she does lack mercy, will she ever make an exception for Ser Barristan?

Will Tyrion really be killed off in the finale?

The biggest cliffhanger of the episode was Tywin sentencing his youngest son, Tyrion, to death. After an epic and extremely gory battle (Tyrion had chosen ‘trial by combat’ to decide his fate, having been accused of murdering his nephew, the king), which Tyrion’s champion, Oberyn Martell, had lost (and in the process also lost his eyes and half his head), we’re now unsure about Tyrion’s fate. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for a major character to be killed off, but is it Tyrion’s time to go? We have a feeling that it isn’t, but just how will he escape imprisonment and where would he go from there? It’s not like he can simply throw on a disguise and disappear into the night…

So, there’s a lot of loose ends to tie up in the final episode of Game of Thrones. We’re still in mourning that it’s already the end of the series, how on earth did that happen? In one sense we like the fact that there’s only ten episodes as the story isn’t dragged out, but if we had it our way it would be one continuous story that ran all year long.

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