Seven Takeaways From the Behind-the-Scenes Documentary ‘Game of Thrones: The Last Watch’
The show may be over, but there’s still much more to learn about how Season 8 came together
Who says Game of Thrones content had to end when Jon Snow led a procession of free folk into the forest north of Castle Black? Not HBO, certainly, which is busy preparing at least one Thrones prequel—if not more—and aired new material just a week after its finale, “The Iron Throne,” set network ratings records last weekend.
On Sunday night, HBO debuted Game of Thrones: The Last Watch, a two-hour feature documenting the making of Season 8, from first table read through final shot. Last Watch didn’t contain any grand revelations about some of the final season’s lingering questions—sadly, Bran remains an inexplicable king, and Drogon is still missing—but it offered new perspective for Thrones viewers who are perhaps still frustrated about the show’s end. Here are seven nuggets about the end of production of “the biggest and most popular TV show ever,” as the documentary’s opening credits bragged (though M*A*S*H might have reason to quibble with that particular assessment).
Even Amid Plot Stumbles, the Crew Deserves Tremendous Credit
Much of the unsettled discourse around Season 8 focused on the observable story of the show: the writing, the pace, the plot. But Last Watch mostly steers away from these points, and from Thrones’ known faces; showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss don’t give interviews, while the prominent actors and actresses speak just a few times. Instead, the documentary is a love letter to the Thrones folks whose names don’t appear in the opening credits: the production organizers, the cast extras, and the various crews—costume, makeup, set construction and design, and so on—who helped create the spectacle of the final season. “I’m a conductor of fine musicians who basically just waves his arms around,” says David Nutter, who directed episodes 1, 2, and 4 this season. The documentary centers those fine musicians’ stories and work.
That work is notable because, stray 21st-century coffee cup aside, that spectacle was present and extraordinary throughout the uneven final hours. “Every episode has as much in it as any one feature film, but we have to do it quicker and for less money,” producer Christopher Newman says early in the doc. That effort included 11 weeks of night shoots for the Battle of Winterfell, a seven-month construction project to build the to-be-destroyed section of King’s Landing on an unused lot in Belfast, Northern Ireland—for some reason, the authorities in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which hosts much of the King’s Landing scenery, didn’t want a dragon to ravage their city—and the continuous work of Del Reid, the “Head of Snow,” which is a job title that makes him sound like the leader of a group of Northern bastards.
Even during “The Bells,” as viewers questioned the suddenness of Daenerys’s choices, they couldn’t deny the splendor and the cinematic experience of the television episode. Last Watch displays just how much planning went into that final product.
Adding Episodes Might Not Have Been Feasible
One of the common criticisms of Season 8 was the rushed pace and progression of key plot points (see: Daenerys’s turn to villainy). In retrospect, it seemed, Thrones had committed a significant misstep by transitioning from 10-episode seasons, as it had been structured through the first six years, to a seven- and six-episode format for the final two seasons. More screen time could have helped smooth some of these wrinkled edges.
But more screen time also could have stretched the show’s production past the point of feasibility. “The schedule is impossible,” production designer Deborah Riley says. “I think this season, we’ve certainly found the limit of what’s able to be achieved.” Four more episodes needn’t have included anything like the Battle of Winterfell or Daenerys’s sack of King’s Landing, but Thrones already took nearly two full years off between seasons 7 and 8, so additional demand on the crew might not have worked within any reasonable time frame. It’s a better excuse, anyway, than Benioff and Weiss’s contention that they had “always believed it was about 73 hours.”
Kit Harington Reacted to Jon Snow’s Killing Daenerys Just Like Much of the Internet
Actors received scripts three days before the first cast read, and while some chose to read in advance, others like Harington saved the surprise for the table. Here he is, as he hears that Jon Snow stabs Daenerys mid-embrace:
Notice, too, Sophie Turner’s smirk at the thought of Daenerys’s death. Sansa wins once again.
Vladimir Furdik Stole the Show
One actor who did feature throughout the documentary was Furdik, the man beneath the Night King’s makeup and a lifelong stuntman and choreographer. Because of his varied experience, Furdik’s work wasn’t over when the Night King died—he helped prepare Rory McCann (the Hound) and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (the Mountain) for their Cleganebowl duel, for instance, and said he was “looking forward” to doing more stunts himself after his character perished.
Furdik’s best moments in the documentary are ruminations on fame, and the difference between working in front of versus behind the camera. He’s used to helping other actors shine, he says: “I prepare them to look good in front of the camera, and always, I was [the] shadow behind them. Nobody saw me. Now I’m in the front line, so I’m like, ‘Wow what am I doing here? Why me?’”
And when various members of the cast stroll by a crowd of fans and paparazzi in Spain, Furdik is the one to approach the onlookers. “I would like to see if they recognize who I am, you know?” he tells the documentary camera. When the crowd does indeed recognize him, he raises his arms in the air like the Night King and cheers, “Ah, yes! Where is my army?!” before signing autographs and taking pictures with viewers. Make this guy king; who has a better story than him?
Euron Also Had Some Questions About His Crossbows
This snippet of conversation is tucked into a montage of scenes from the set, but it caught the ear after all the confusion about Euron’s remarkable success with the Bigger Crossbow plan. As a team of workers operates the giant weapon, Pilou Asbaek, the actor who played Euron and has mentioned some frustration about his character’s lack of depth, asks how long it took to make one bow. “Forever,” a crew member responds. “I’m still making it.”
Luckily for Euron, slayer of Rhaegal the dragon, the industrial infrastructure in King’s Landing is so far advanced beyond that of 21st-century Europe that he could mass-produce the weapons before Daenerys’s arrival down south. What fortune!
Secrets Were Paramount, to the Point of Trickery
For obvious reasons, the production tried to keep a tight lid on all its material, from plot details to actor movements. A preseason Entertainment Weekly feature described how crew members needed special “Episode 6” badges to approach the set when scenes from the finale were filmed. The documentary shows even more tactics: After the cast’s table read, supervisors shredded the scripts, and signs forbidding nearby drone flight peppered various Thrones sets.
Although the documentary didn’t confirm other rumors like fake script pages or fabricated filming, it did address one particular bit of subterfuge. When filming in Spain, which hosted the Dragonpit summit, the production flew in Harington, even though Jon was imprisoned and didn’t appear in that scene, to serve as a decoy. The actor who played Jaqen H’ghar and the actress who played the Waif joined the cast in Spain as well, even though their characters didn’t return for Season 8 (and the Waif was dead), as did Furdik, who was already in town for his behind-the-scenes work. We at The Ringer were fooled in at least one aspect of our forecast, accordingly. Oops.
Even in Meta Form, Thrones Is Still Stuck on the Battle of Winterfell’s Lighting
Cinematographer Fabian Wagner defended the darkness of that battle after the episode, claiming that the fault lay with those who “don’t know how to tune their TVs properly” and thus couldn’t properly view the action. He doesn’t appear in the documentary, but with one pointed music choice, Last Watch director Jeanie Finlay seemed to make her stance on the controversy clear. About halfway through the two hours, as a montage of “The Long Night” filming flashes, Leonard Cohen’s voice rises to accompany the footage.
“Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name,” he says—the first line of the chorus of “You Want It Darker.” Thrones might have abandoned many fantasy elements in Season 8, but at least one mythical creature remains in the end: Last Watch knows how to troll.
Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.
