What to Watch After Game of Thrones Ends
Don’t ask who Game of Thrones is for; these are thrones for you. This weekend, Game of Thrones , the TV show that invented death, is finally ending. Now you can move on, at least until the beginning of the prequel . What should you look next to scratch your itch? It depends on what you will be missing in Thrones .
Breaking Bad , Mister Robot , House of Cards, and The Americans create tension around double lives, secrets and violence. Six Feet Under kills someone in every episode. The walking dead lead their characters through hell and then resurrect them for evil. The crown dramatizes the pressure of the royal family. Orange Is the New Black follows the ensemble’s massive cast and empathizes with villains. Virgo Jane (also close to the end) brings shocking revelations at you with both hands. You can get the Thrones Fix with Lost , Rome , Heroes , The Tudors , Borgias , Westworld , Wolf Hall , The Last Kingdom , True Blood , American Gods , Outlander , Abbey Downs , Boardwalk Empire, or The Wire . Here’s what the Lifehacker staff recommend you watch next and why.
A. A. Newton, Author: Deadwood
Do you miss the convoluted, profanity-riddled dialogue, overwhelming gloom, and semi-historically accurate political maneuvering of the early GoT? Well, then Deadwood is for you. Based on the real-life Deadwood, South Dakota, and the historical characters who lived there, the series follows Deadwood’s transformation from a dilapidated mining camp into a real city. It features intrigue, violence, power struggles and a myriad of sex positions, as well as old racism and misogyny that people love to defend for their historical accuracy – just like Game of Thrones !
Abu Zafar, video producer: Medici: The Masters of Florence
Want more political intrigue and dynastic rivalry? Do you miss Rob Stark? Look no further than Medici: The Masters of Florence from Netflix. Set in 15th century Florence, this historic drama tells the story of the hardships and tribulations of one of the richest and most influential families in Renaissance Italy. In the first season, Richard Madden (Rob Stark) plays the ruthless and effective head of the Medici clan, Cosimo de Medici. The second season is dedicated to the most famous of the Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent. The show does take a lot of liberties with historical facts. But the real Medici story is rife with murder, betrayal, politics and forbidden love, all of which are present and explained in the series.
Virginia K. Smith, managing editor: The Sopranos
It has nothing to do with Game of Thrones , but now is the time to revisit The Sopranos . Especially if you watch it the way I do, that is, every time you watch it, to make a themed evening. Grab some red wine on deck and a plate of meat / olives / GABAGUL, or spaghetti and meatballs, or an Italian sandwich, or any other Artie Buco-approved red sauce dish. Stuffing smoked meat in your face while you watch Tony do the same is an oddly satisfying experience that I’m not going to go into or explain in too much detail.
Claire Lower, Food Editor: I Think You Should Leave
Stop watching big-budget soap operas and just drink ” I Think You Should Go” is the most deliciously absurd collection of sketches I’ve seen in a long time. I put it on whenever I need a clean, silly escape from reality, neatly packed into 16-minute episodes. I’ve watched it four times already. The fifth episode with the skeleton song is my favorite.
David Murphy, Technical Editor: Chef’s Table and Nailed It
I’m going to do 180 and break away from the fantasy world for a while. That means it’s time to get back to Netflix ‘s greatest show, Chef’s Table, or a new street food spin-off. I hope they show an elegant, slow-motion 4K shot of someone pulling a hot dog out of the hot water basin of a street cart – accompanied by some beautiful music from Mozart, of course.
Who am I kidding? I’m going to watch the third season of Nailed because it brings me joy, and Nicole Bayer’s boundless enthusiasm (for Wes) is exactly what I need now that my entire all-star Game of Thrones team is dead. Sigh.
Lisa Rowan, Finance Writer: Killing Eve
I never made it to Game of Thrones because I was too busy watching The Americans , The Black Orphan , Mr. Robot, and just about any other show that required increasing the brightness on my TV. If you also want to leave your screen alone for a while, play Killing Eve , an amazingly funny spy versus spy thriller with Sandra O and Jodie Comer. Maybe the death toll on GoT is higher, but I’m sure you will acclimatize perfectly. By the end of Season 2, you’ll have plenty of time to catch up.
Nick Douglas, Staff Writer: Borgen and It All Thicker
Instead of watching Thrones , I read books because I am an intellectual. Most of all, I enjoyed watching how everyone was fighting for position – my favorite characters were Varis and Littlefinger. I don’t need sex or violence, I need more dexterous maneuvers.
That’s exactly what you’ll get from the first few episodes of Borgen , the Danish counterpart to The West Wing . Like the West Wing , the series boils down to issues of the week and family drama, but it begins with the Tronesian struggle for control of the Danish parliament, which takes place in a multi-party system that you will want to pay attention to. Wikipedia.
But if you don’t want to read the signatures, try The Thick of It , the British predecessor of the Veep, which is sharper, angry and full of people ruthlessly (albeit figuratively) stabbing each other in the back to advance in government.
Megan Uolbert editorialist: “Acute visors”
I am the one who wrote How to Survive the Last Season of Game of Thrones If You’re Not a Fan, so you probably don’t want to know my opinion. Instead, I asked this fan GoT (my husband) and he immediately offered another show that I have never seen, “Sharp visors.” IMDb informs me that this is “a family gangster epic set in 1919 in Birmingham, England, about a gang that sews razor blades into the lances of their caps.” My husband describes his attractiveness like this: “Tons of twists and turns, it has an aspect of violence that some people really like, the rollercoaster relationship, it’s dirty and messy with amazing accents.”
Heather Huss, Creative Producer of A Song of Ice and Fire audiobooks
I recommend to sentimental people who are not yet ready to give it up. For those of us on our final nail-dragging episode, check out the audiobooks. The narration is excellent, each of the five books is designed for 30-50 hours. Plus, in the books, you really get into the heads of each of the characters in a way you can’t while watching.
In between listening, watch behind-the-scenes HBO footage of each episode. It should keep us busy, and if we can save an hour every Sunday night, we could potentially stretch it out for years.
After that, you will be able to watch all the films in which any of the characters have ever starred. Daenerys: I’m up to you. Sansa: X-Men: Apocalypse. Dog: Hot fluff. Arya: Fall. Cersei: 300. Missandei: Furious 7. Jon Snow: Testament of Youth. Jorah: Tomb Raider. Tyrion: X-Men: Days of Future Past. Brienne: The Force Awakens. Gendry: Skins. Ned Stark: The Lord of the Rings. Bran: Awakening .
When you have nothing left to do with GoT, and it’s time to move on, go to bed, look at the ceiling and listen to this .
Joel Kahn, Senior Video Producer: Barry
If you need to watch something after GoT, why not the show that HBO is putting on right after it on its schedule? It’s Barry , of course, who (although it’s a 30-minute LA comedy) will satisfy your GoT addictions. To quote another character Bill Hader, Barry has EVERYTHING: shocking deaths, bloodthirsty warlords, complex thoughts of good and bad, and black dry humor. Plus Henry Winkler!