Where to begin with the review of this episode. Aside from the very literal darkness of the visual content and somewhat struggling to make things out in time, it was an action packed ninety-minute episode. Beginning with Melisandre making a surprise appearance and literally lighting up all of the Dothraki swords with flames in order to take out the dead. She then later becomes pretty damn imperative when the dragons – who were supposed to light the spokes that encircles the entire of Winterfell in fire that would prevent the White Walkers from crossing the barrier fail, because they nor Daenerys can see the signal through the stormy weather..
Quite possibly my favourite one-liner from the entire episode was Varys’ baroque joke about their impending doom and death, dark humour tends to go down well in my household:
Most heroic and badass death and takedown goes to Lyanna Mormont:
Just when all appears to be lost, the weak who were hiding in the crypts of Winterfell are being over-run by the dead and the White Walkers, Daenerys and Sir Jorah Mormont are fighting off dozens, unsuccessfully as Sir Jorah is injured, and Jon Snow is about to be decimated by The Night King’s Dragon fire*. (which we learned cannot in fact kill or even harm the Night King) Arya comes in from left-field and takes him down.
One of the most interesting conversations/ moments to take place that warrant further exploration or speculation is the conversation between Arya and Melisandre – when they discuss …………… “One pair of brown eyes, one pair of blue eyes, and one pair of green…” To me, this is discussing the past whist predicting the future – Arya has already killed someone with brown eyes, she, in this very episode personally takes down the living embodiment of blue eyes: Night King. Lastly, Cersei Lannister has famously green eyes, one fan theory that I love the sound of is that Arya will be the one to kill Cersei – in flashback narrative we see Cersei’s future being told to her, and she is warned that she will be killed by a brother, Arya wearing the face of Jaimie Lannister in order to get close to Cersei and enact her revenge would be a pretty badass and heavenly way to end the series.
Although previous to the episode coming out show runners had told that this would be ‘the battle’ episode, I think its safe to say that most viewers were surprised to see the entire battle with the Night King and his armies concluded in one episode that was the half-way bench mark of the whole season.
Confirmed deaths:
Sir Jorah Mormont + Lyanna Mormont,
Eddison Tollett
Theon Greyjoy
Beric Dondarrion
Melisandre
The Night King
It was a hit and miss with this episode. I loved the suspense and the scope of what was being done, I loved the death scenes for Jorah, Lyanna, and Theon, and I love the fact that Arya cemented herself as one of the greatest assassins in fictional history.
What I hated is that we didn’t get to see Jon Sword fight with the Night King at least once, the poor lighting, the fact that Melisandre didn’t bring an army of Red Priests, that Ghost didn’t do anything (again), and the lack of actual tactics in the battle.