To make things short, this episode was awesome, I was petrified with shock, fear and awe up as the credits rolled. THIS is why we love Game of Thrones. Before you continue reading, this review is heavily filled with spoilers so readers beware.

Though this episode is probably among the best in the Game of Thrones series, it definitely has its problems and I feel that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (the writers and creators of the show) are having trouble to move the story forward since they no longer have material or any significant direction from George RR. Martin (writer of the novels this show is based on).

I will start with (in my opinion) the low points of the episode with the forced drama between the Stark sisters. We first see Arya and Sansa standing in the balcony of the training ground in Winterfell. Arya tells Sansa a beautiful story about how she practiced with the bow and arrow for hours and hours unable to hit the target, until one day she hit the bulls-eye and her father smiled and proudly clapped at her. Arya then proceeds to accuse Sansa of helping the Lannisters murder her father by reading her he letter she was forced to write by Cersei Lannister back in season 1. Arya then threatens to show the letter to the lords of the North, which would cause mayhem among them and perhaps label Sansa a traitor and lose her head. Sansa is understandably shocked, and tells her that she was the reason they were able take back Winterfell since Jon and the freefolk had lost the battle.

Later in the episode, Sansa and Little Finger are talking about the problems that Arya could bring if the information of the letter is released. Here we see the true sly and malevolent games Little Finger is playing with the strained sisters. He subtly (but not too much) suggests that if Arya were to try to hurt or bring her down, she could use Brienne to quietly make the problem disappear. This is where the episode completely lost me, as far as we are aware Bran is still in Winterfell and I would imagine that by now, Sansa and Arya would have some remote idea that perhaps her brother with the power of medieval internet would be able to quickly clarify things for them. But I guess they didn’t because… ummmm… drama?

After that we see Sansa sending Brienne away since she is afraid the Lannister might run a ploy to kidnap her again, and because she knew that Jamie wouldn’t hurt Brienne. (Or maybe she was afraid Little Finger might try to use her to murder Arya). The last scene between the sister was cringe-worthy. There is no other way to put it, the writers of the show are forcing high-school drama in Winterfell. Sansa is looking in Arya’s room for the letter, she sees the masks (faces) and she is terrified. Arya then enters the room menacingly and ultimately threatens Sansa with the Valerian dagger. I honestly don’t know where this is heading but it doesn’t look good, and someone is definitely going down.

We also have a decent scene between Tyrion and Dany, they discuss some strategies, she talks about how she thinks brave men are stupid, but Tyrion points out that all the men that have fallen for her are nothing but brave. He then points out how Jon looked at her longingly, where she replies (with a subtle blush) that Jon is “too little for her”. Does she mean age wise? his stature? or perhaps his pecker? who knows but is was a nice little jab. They then talk about how it is too risky for her to go into open battle, Tyrion makes the point that if she dies and since she can’t have any children, then Cersei would go unchallenged for the throne. He also mentions that perhaps since there might not be any successor after Dany (except for Jon Targaryen) they should adopt a system like the night’s watch the Ironborn (Yay Democracy!!). Dany takes this as an offense and questions why Tyrion is so obsessed with her death, raising suspicions that he might betray her. At first. I thought that Dany was wrong to react this way. Tyrion has served her well and he has shown her the utmost loyalty. But upon a second watch it seems reasonable for her to be weary. It almost seemed like a sabotage when Tyrion lost her the Tyrells and the Greyjoys, so I am not truly bothered by her precautions.

Now folks we get to the good part; and I mean GOOD. The scenes beyond the wall are truly fantastic, The icy mountains and the subtle mist in the ground is truly breathless. The aerial shots are simply a treat to the eye. We see our heroes beyond the wall, fully covered in heavy layers of wool and each carrying their unique weapons. We see them talk and make japes at each other expenses, and they truly bond throughout their journey beyond the wall. The writers have stepped up the humor in this season immensely; Tormund and the Hound both killed it in this episode I literally laughed out lout at their interactions with one another. We see Jon and Tormund talk about Mance Rayder refused to bend the knee and his pride killed thousands of his followers (hinting Jon to bend the knee). We also have a very heart-warming moment between Jon and Jorah; Jon mentions how Jeour Mormont was and how he was betrayed by his own men. Jon then offers Jorah Longclaw (his Valerian steel sword), because his family had owned it for centuries. Jorah looks at the sword with a minute hint of sadness and decides to forfeit his right to the sword since he brought shame to his family. He tells Jon to keep the sword so he can pass it down to his children (hint hint). This episode was filled with great moments like this, but my personal favorite conversations are between Tormund and the Hound. Tormund infatuation with Brienne is simply hilarious, he says he want to make babies with her and that their babies would take over the world (no doubt about that!). The Hound then explains to him how he got his scars and Tormund tells him that he has sad eyes and that deep down he is a good man. The Hound, of course, returns the compliment by tricking Tormund into saying that he likes dick (because he didn’t know what it meant), and this truly stole the show.

The next scene with them in a heavy blizzard, we see a silhouette in the distance and someone pints out that whatever it is it has blue eyes. Next we hear a ringing growl and a gigantic undead polar bear lurches to attack them. The limited visibility and the wind makes things much more difficult and some random freefolk end up dead quite quickly. They all manage to hurt him in one way or another but it seems they can’t harm the bear at all. At this point is where Beric Dondarrion set the bear ablaze with his sword, which then charges towards the Hound (who is literally petrified) and Thoros pushes him out of the way, resulting in severe injuries. They managed to kill the beast but at the cost of one of their fighters.

Next we see the Hound mention how a mountain resembled the visions he had back in the first episode (meaning that the White Walkers are close). The gang sees a small amount of wights with a white walker leading them (scouts perhaps?). Jpn and his company ambushes them in a very intense but short battle; when Jon manages to strike the white walker, all of the wights collapsed immediately except for one. They quickly restrain him but the wight lets out a screech alarming the others. Then we see a very thrilling scene when the snow around them start to tremble and a wave of wights start chasing them. They pick up the captured wight and tell Gendry to run back to the wall to send ravens back to Dany because they needed support. The rest of them then run towards a frozen lake and they stopped when they saw how fickle the ice sheet was, but as soon as they saw the wave of wights they ran for safety towards a rock in the middle of the lake. A massive number of wights encircled them and as they approach them, the ice sheet collapses and hundreds if not thousands of wights fall into the lake. Then we see hundreds of thousands of the dead completely stop around the lake.

Gendry manages to reach the wall at night time, and it seems that the next morning Dany receives the letter and she hastily flies over to the wall against Tyrion wishes. We then go back to our crew and they have just woken up, but sadly Thoros had passed away during his sleep. Beric says a few prayers to the lord of light and he sets his body on fire. Jon and the others discuss how killing the Night King would make all of the wights die too, the Hound then throws a rock to one of the wights shattering his jaw, he picks up another heavier rock and he missed and hits the newly frozen lake. The wight looks at the ground and starts walking towards them.

This is where the fun begins, little by little a swarm of wight rushes at them and we see our badass crew mow down wight after wight, there are a lot of amazing kills in the scene but they are simply overwhelmed and not before long, the wights pushes them into a corner and we see a slow motion moment where Jon assesses the situation and realizing that they are all royally screwed. My only complaint about this fight scene is that the writers used a very cheap trick many other TV shows constantly use. They make us believe that Tormund is about to die in a sadly horrific way, only to be rescued at the last second; draining emotional mourning from the audience.

As the gang is getting overwhelmed we see Dany arrive out of nowhere and she completely eviscerates most of the wights within seconds. She is riding Drogon who lands next to them and they quickly get on the dragon except for Jon. Viserion and Rhaegal are attacking the rest of the wights in the meantime, we see a white walker (who looks a little bit like Craster) hand a lance to the Night King. He aims carefully at Viserion and he manages to strike him in the side causing an explosion and he instantly landing as blood is pouring out of him. Drogon cries as he sees his brother one last time before he sinks to the bottom of the lake. Everyone is in shock and Dany freezes for a few seconds. Jon stares at the Night King and tries to reach him only to be struck down by wights. The Night King picks up another lance and it’s looking straight at Drogon. Dany is hesitantly forced to flee after Jon is sunk into the lake by some of the wights.

The next scene is Jon slowly trying to get out of the lake, he is completely frozen barely able to move, when the wights see him he tries to lift his sword to fight but he is unable to do so, this is when Benjen shows up and puts Jon on his horse and sends him back to the wall, only to give his life and be utterly demolished by the wights. After this Jon is sent to a boat to be treated for his wounds, he and Dany have a nice and sweet romantic moment holding hands, and Jon tells her that he will bend the knee for her. The very end of the episode is a shot of the wights pulling Viserion to the surface with chains, the Night King approaches him and touches his nose and Viserion in brought back to life with blue eyes.

This was a great episode, lots of action and a lot of losses too. The scenery was great, the battles beautifully brutal and the pay off from all the setup was worth it. I truly want to give this episode a 9/10 but sadly the fake drama and the cheap writing tricks really does a disservice to an otherwise fantastic episode. My final score is 8/10. And I can tell you this will be among the best moments in the series.

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