Here are some of the problems with this episode:

• So much happened off-screen. Missandei's capture, the reveal to the Starks...and we didn't get to see any pay-off on the latter. We've barely gotten to see Jon dealing with the news, and now we don't even see his family's reaction.

• Missandei's death is the show at its racist and misogynistic worst. They literally put her back in chains before chopping her head off to further the plot of other (white/male) characters.

• Cersei, someone who is brutal and ruthless, didn't just kill all her enemies when they were right in front of her??! It makes no sense.

• Jon knows how to keep a secret when it matters. When lives are at stake. Just look at his time with the wildlings beyond the Wall. His character has become more and more two-dimensional and the show is suffering as a result.

• GHOST. Ghost is SO IMPORTANT to Jon and yet he's not only sending him off with Tormund, he didn't even say GOODBYE to him?! The Jon Snow whose LAST THOUGHT before he died was of Ghost (in the books, at least)?! Jon Snow would NEVER.

• Between Arya's "she's not one of us" and Sansa going all Littlefinger and planting information with Tyrion, the Starks are not exactly acting heroic these days. We're still supposed to love them, and yet they're acting exactly like the characters we most despise.

• Daenerys just helped save the damn North, at great loss to herself and her people. But no one gives a fuck, and Sansa is still being petty? Sansa is better than this.

• Speaking of Sansa, she was STRONG FROM THE START, and having her suggest it was good that she was RAPED AND TORTURED is really fucking fucked.

• The whole “Dany as the Mad Queen” thing is suuuuper forced. Dany isn't held to the same standards as other characters by a long shot. The fact that Tyrion and Varys are turning on her, when they are the ones who thought she was the Last Great Hope, makes no sense.

• Meanwhile, Arya really left her family just to pursue her list again after all that?! That's really what they're going for with her?!!

• AND JAIME LEFT BRIENNE after they finally got together?! To go back to Cersei??! He better be going back to murder her, otherwise...what character development???

• Rhaegal's death was purely for shock value and made no sense. How did Daenerys, flying through the sky, not see Euron and his fleet? If Euron was able to hide from sight, he didn't have a clear shot of Rhaegal. Yet he manages to hit him multiple times. Meanwhile, every single shot misses Drogon even though he winds up much closer? What is logic?!

• Euron Greyjoy is a boring, flat character who has had no effective development on the show but is brought in as a convenient plot device whenever he's needed. His impact on the plot is completely unearned and unsatisfying.