We’re coming up to the last episode of this season of Game of Thrones, and we know it’ll have some stunning twist or much-talked-about moment. But we also know that it won’t be nearly as intense as this week’s episode. We know that in some ways it’ll mostly be a wrap-up. Loose ends will be tied off. We’ll figure out how Arya is gonna get to Westeros and what she’ll do when she gets there. Maybe we’ll find out whether the Hound is still with the Brotherhood. Maybe Bran will be shown coming into his powers. Possibly Dorne will be featured (not that anybody cares).

This is something Game of Thrones does really well. I remember the episode after the Red Wedding, for instance, which starts with Joffrey dispensing favors to all the lords who supported him. Too many shows ignore this. Or they attempt to start a season by doing the wrap-up to last season’s finale, which is completely backwards, since the beginning of a season is for the beginning of things and not the ends of things.

I honestly think the best part of any long narrative is the wrapping-up. I live for this. I want to know who married who and who ended up where. I want to know if they were happy in the end, or if everything sucked. I can enjoy and respect a finale like The Good Wife, which essentially said, “You’ve watched the story of somebody’s transformation, and what’s happened is that she’s gonna keep being the person she’s become.” But when I write a story I usually give it a finale like Parks and Recreation had, where they jump fifty years in the future and you see everybody’s fate in exhaustive detail.

Game of Thrones is a show that respects loose ends. We see Bronn again. We see Podrick again. We even see Bronn hang out with Podrick. Hell, we see Osha again! We learn why Hodor is Hodor. We meet Samwell’s shitty parents. Everything circles around, if we wait long enough, and I think it’s fucking awesome.