If we include animated series, the three-part Weirdmageddon finale for Gravity Falls also comes to mind.
Good chance to flex every strange muscle the show had and still close out with a genuinely satisfying payoff.

...this is the first time it ever really hit me how the omission of the prophecies really ham-strings this.

‘The dragon has three heads’
For years people had seen this as Dany, Jon, and a third (often thought to be Tyrion)
Griff would fit that and possibly the Mummer’s Dragon warning as well.

Dany, who has come to believe…

I’m still not altogether convinced Stannis’s end will be as anticlimactic as the series made it out to be. The vision Dany saw in the Houses of the Undying with a blue-eyed figure with a flaming sword suggests there’s something far darker in line for him.

Adding to this list - the show has had a decidedly more sympathetic view of House Lannister that could cause several of their arcs to play out differently.
-Jaime has been in a sort of mental freefall since returning to King’s Landing in ASoS that has ultimately been leading him to the conclusion ‘My family is toxic as…

WILD CARD, BITCHES!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAA!

It really can’t be stated enough, when the voice casting in those movies was on point, it was fucking on POINT.

(I will also go to my grave arguing Hans Conried was the better Thorin Oakenshield.)

You are correct. Rankin-Bass’s Tolkien adaptations were animated by TopKat productions, who went on to become part of Studio Ghibli.

Would not be the first time the series made a reference to that movie - Viserys namedrops Vermithrax when discussing dragons of yesteryear back in s1.

While we’re all rolling out the points for Pattinson - more people need to watch Cosmopolis.
He’s playing cold and distant by design there and it works spectacularly.

Especially the ending - the final scene between him and Paul Giamatti is downright chilling.

Fucking THIS.

For all the PR crap they had to jump through because of those movies, I’d say those two would be justified in not having a fond opinion of them, if only for sheer negative memory association.

Same reason I wouldn’t give Kristen Stewart shit if she came forward now and said she hated Snow White & the…

Cut to Anna Kendrick heaving a sigh of relief that most people completely forget she was in those films.

For the record, I’ve still got my eye on those of you who are now trying to act like everything was fine before Disney and want Lucas back.
I FUCKING SEE YOU!

Somewhere along the way, the showrunners decided ‘learning to be an assassin’ = ‘Human Game Genie’.

Which, on the one hand, I sort of get it - Arya’s a popular character and Maisie Williams plays the part well. But after a while, I had a harder time enjoying the ‘badass’ moments, because so often they felt like they…

...and then what happened?

Don’t forget the encore that proves it was a convenience play- when they said Frank Oz was wrong in defending the way Yoda was presented in the movie.

Well, subverting expectations and fanservice.

In the series, I’ll give you, simply because we only had the visual. Textually, I’d argue Martin gave the good payoff. He could have easily shortened it up given we knew the effects of the Strangler already. Instead, he let us have the whole moment, complete with watching Joffrey claw his throat bloody for air.

Gonna respectfully disagree.
GRRM having Joffrey die in agony as a result of a poison slipped to him by one of his in-laws at the height of his dickery was INCREDIBLY rewarding.

What came after got bleak, but oh God, for that shining moment that wedding was a spectacular payoff to his spending the past 2.5 books being a…

Ultimately it’s control. Abstinence is just an aspect of said control (i.e. You are only allowed to have sex after you’re married and only to have children—YOU DO NOT GET TO ENJOY IT!—And if you somehow break that rule and wind up pregnant out of wedlock, well that’s just the Lord punishing you for being a harlot.

...wo…

Ah...damn.

It is nice there’s still options, but like many here, the digital only has me leery.