1. Season 8, episode 3 was the greatest single episode of television ever. I understand the criticisms, but I think they are misguided, and think that was the most amazing hour and a half in TV history.
2. This is not a spoiler - I have no inside info. Just my guess. I think I know who ends up on the Iron Throne....
......
Sansa Stark. Think about it - the logic is the same as in the last episode: the person who has gained the capacities to pull it off gets it. Danaerys, whom I would follow in real life (liberates slaves, brings equality to women, kills powerful rich people with dragon fire, what's not to like?), has grown and learns from her mistakes, but she is too focused on it, and keeps making new mistakes. Plus she has alienated a lot of people in the coalition. Jon will always do the right thing but rushes into things. Cercei will outsmart him every day, just as Bolton did.
Sansa has trained for this - she learned from Cercei, from her own mistakes and illusions, from Littlefinger, from Bolton (can't even remember his name now, as the song goes...and as she predicted to him...), from Jon. She has gained governing experience, and she, and only she can outwit Cercei, and somehow that will be the lynchpin of the last episodes. Tyrion has divided loyalties, just as she told him - he is torn in four directions: her, his own family, Danaerys, and the best thing for everyone. Like Hamlet in the end he won't be able to choose. That was the point Shakespeare wanted to make about intellectuals I think, they see every side of every issue (to be or not to be should be a no-brainer to anyone else). Varys has been totally wasted by the show for two entire seasons now. Sansa is now the smartest person in the room.
Her on the throne, Tyrion as hand, maybe as husband, and Arya as head of her Queen's Guard. That is my prediction. And the roles of the two sisters align with Shakespearean politics too - the real answer to the problem posed by Hamlet is Edgar in King Lear. He has been a noble, then a homeless vagabond, iterinant wandering migrant worker, soldier, diplomat and in the end only he has the life experience to sit on the throne after everyone else (SPOILER ALERT FOR KING LEAR AND HAMLET !) are dead, just as they all die in Hamlet as well because there is no Edgar there.
Read the Autobiography of Malcolm X to understand fully what Sansa, Arya and one or two other characters maybe have become. From a plummet into the depths, they have gained the life experience to permit them, like Edgar and like Malcolm X to become leaders at the world level or play a major role in the world. That is what GOT is REALLY about.