Will Game of Thrones be crowned the worst television finale? That's a debate now raging on social media following the HBO fantasy drama's conclusion Sunday night.
"The Iron Throne," directed and scripted by show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, was poorly received by critics on Rotten Tomatoes. There the finale now stands at 57% "rotten," a punch ahead of the series' penultimate episode, "The Bells," the worst-received episode in series history at 48%.
But Benioff and Weiss may have not yet witnessed viewers' reactions to the finale, both good and bad: the showrunners previously admitted to EW they planned to avoid social media entirely.
"We'll in an undisclosed location, turning off our phones and opening various bottles," Weiss said. "At some point, if and when it's safe to come out again, somebody like [HBO's Game of Thrones publicist Mara Mikialian] will give us a breakdown of what was out there without us having to actually experience it."
Added Benioff, "I plan to be very drunk and very far from the internet."
Still, "We want people to love it," Weiss added of the finale, a conclusion the series has headed towards since its third season, according to Benioff and Weiss.
"It matters a lot to us. We've spent 11 years doing this. We also know no matter what we do, even if it's the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions," Weiss said.
"There is no version where everybody says, 'I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this' — that's an impossible reality that doesn't exist. You hope you're doing the best job you can, that this version works better than any other version, but you know somebody is not going to like it. I've been that person with other things, where people are loving something and I'm going, 'Yeah, that's okay. I was hoping for more.'"