Purchased a month of HBO last week to get caught up with the show. Last night was the season/series finale. The entire season was good - great at times. Some episodes were HUGE and they felt like feature films and not a tv show. I can understand why it took so long to release them. With that said, the ending felt rushed. By ending I mean the entire season. We had such a slow build up over the past 7 or 8 years and I feel that the story moved way too fast this season as compared to the last. That might be because Martin was not involved in it. I think that on its own, it would have been fine, but with what we had, the end story was told much quicker than the entire build up.
Overall, this was a halluva show. I want to pick the books up (I think I stopped midway book 3) - so that I can see what Martin does with the story
SOME SPOILERS NEXT
The other thing that felt different from the way Martin tells the story, is the lack of shocking twists. The way the Great War ended - the defeat of the Night King; Bran the Broken and the entire last episode. Maybe the twist was that there was no twist?
Daenerys' decision in episode 5 was somewhat surprising, but only because it was a major change in character from what we know from previous seasons; however a move like that was expected as she kept losing all her advisers and Jon.
So now I still have a few weeks of HBO - I need to catch up on Westworld - I hope S2 is as good as S1 was.