After a beautiful opening scene following Samwell and Tyrion as everyone readies for battle, we don’t get any points on the board until Melisandre shows up and joins our alliance. (+10) I’m awarding her an arbitrary +10 points as well for walking RIGHT INTO A BATTLE FIELD WITH NO FUCKS GIVEN. She then lights a ton of swords on fire and gets a promotion to official Winterfell Magician (+15).
Melisandre nets another +10 for a prophecy and goes to wait around until she can be useful after staring at Arya
Drunk on fire swords, the Dothraki blindly attack the army of the dead. It’s a great looking scene, but somewhere down in hell even Custer is all like, “You fools. Noooooo!” But then Custer was probably like, “Oh wait. I am VERY pro-genocide. This is great.”
Melisandre nets another +10 for a prophecy and goes to wait around until she can be useful after staring at Arya
Drunk on fire swords, the Dothraki blindly attack the army of the dead. It’s a great looking scene, but somewhere down in hell even Custer is all like, “You fools. Noooooo!” But then Custer was probably like, “Oh wait. I am VERY pro-genocide. This is great.”
RIP the Dothraki. You were right to have never sailed across the Salt Sea. I award you no points and may you God have mercy on your souls.
Since the battle has started, let’s dole out some maximum Wight Shirt killing points for the following: Arya, Beric, Brienne, Dany, Drogon, Gendry, Grey Worm, Hot Pie, Jaime, Jon Snow, Jorah, Melisandre, Pod, Samwell, Theon, The Hound, Tormund, Rhaegel, Viserion. +25 all around!
After watching her Dothraki dudes get lit up (or, rather unlit up?), Dany quips to Jon, “The dead are already here” (+5) and takes off on Drogon to wreck the undead army that is about to start overwhelming the Unsullied, the Wildlings, and the Brienne Crew. The dragons are whipping ass until the Night’s King summons an ice storm. How about an arbitrary +10 for actual good military tactics?
Arya gets in a quick one-liner by telling Sansa to “stick them with the pointy end” and we’re getting some great Season 1 Arya callbacks early.
The Lord Commander of the Nightswatch, Dolorous Edd, kills 2 wights for sure (one off screen) for +10 points. Unfortunately, his watch ends after he saves Sam. That’s a full +25 for a memorable death, Edd.
The Wildlings under Tormund wisely fall back into the castle while Grey Worm watches the Unsullied get cut down. The retreat plan was not a good one, but I’m giving +10 to Grey Worm for keeping his dudes disciplined and making the retreat even possible.
With the dragons unable to see, Melisandre does some more magic and lights the trenches on fire, earning her all of those Wight Shirt points. That was a lot of toasted wights and gives our Winterfell crew some momentary hope.
We get a break and head down to the crypts where Varys is looking terrified and Tyrion is anxious and wants to go fight. Sansa correctly tells him he would be murdered in like 3 seconds. Varys gets +5 for saying “At least we’re already in a crypt.” Tyrion gets +10 for drinking booze. Double-fisting!
Former spouses Sansa and Tyrion start fighting like a divorced couple arguing of sports schedules until Tyrion, impressed, jokes that they should have stayed married. (+5) Sansa retorts “you were the best of them,” (+5) which is such an impossibly low standard that even the writers who wrote the Sand Snake dialogues could have met them. Except for the guy (and it was definitely a guy) who came up with the line about that bad pussy. He’s worse than Joffrey. Tyrion rightly jokes that it’s a terrifying thought (+5). Sansa tries to shit on Dany, but Missandei walks off the scene with a metaphorical bat flip noting how Dany is saving their asses right now. (+10)
Back outside, Bran takes a mental vacation and turns into a bunch of ravens. Between his blank face and his eyes rolling into the back of his head, Bran is basically me after I do burritos for lunch. Except my, “I’m going to go now” means something much different.
The Night’s King gets bored and summons his dead army to smother Melisandre’s flames with their bodies so the rest can cross. Another +10 for superior battle tactics. This allows the dead to scale the walls wand infiltrate the castle.
After some nondescript battling where Red Shirts are killed by the dozens and our heroes continue to survive, we get some more typical zombie action with Arya slipping through the maze-like castle interior. Eventually she is saved by Beric and The Hound after Beric inspires The Hound to start fighting. +10 for Beric for an inspirational speech. Unfortunately for Beric, he ends up sacrificing himself for Arya and The Hound. A full +25 for Beric. And I’m going to award him another +7 for his obvious Jesus-the-cross-pose while he was sacrificing himself.
Lyanna Mormont gets sent off in a very fan servicey way and her death earns her +25. She kills a Giant, which isn’t exactly a Wight Shirt, but isn’t exactly a magical animal. I’ll give her half magical animal points for that for another +25 even though I don’t feel great about it. And if anyone from the Giants’ Union of Giants out there is offended, you can find me on Twitter @timsneighbor and drag me there for calling you half-animals.
We get a chat between Melisandre and Arya. Arya is feeling pretty down and confused, but Mel comes through with an inspiration speech about shutting blue eyes and asking what we say to the God of Death (+10).
Viserion kills a ton of Winterfell Red Shirts before we get an awesome dragon battle. Viserion has a huge advantage here since he’s dead and doesn’t give a shit about pain. Drogon rips Viserion’s throat open, which later gives us an awesome shot of blue flames pouring out of Viserion’s neck. +10 to Dany and Jon for good battle tactics and unseating the Night’s King. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Dany tries to burn the Night’s King with dragon flames, but it fails. The Night’s King gives us a smirk (+10) and then does that awesome raise the dead move when Jon tries to attack him. Another +10 to the Night’s King for superb tactics. +5 undead points to Edd because I love that guy and we needed more of him. No zombie bonus for Lyanna because we needed less of her.
Back down in the crypts, zombies bust out and start breaking concrete and shit. The old starks obviously suck at making concrete, but I guess they were never predicting that the bodies inside would be busting out like The Bride in Kill Bill.
Back outside, Dany saves Jon but pulls a Black Hawk Down and keeps Drogon on the ground for FAR too long. She is nearly overrun and killed by wights after Drogon is like, fuck this shit and peaces out. But Ser Friendzone deus ex machina’s the shit out of the scene and saves her. Eventually, this is his final stand as her protector. He earns a full +25 for a memorable death.
Back inside Winterfell, Jon finally makes a smart decision and keeps his eyes on the prize: being there for Bran when the Night’s King comes calling. He gets a +5 for ignoring Sam being smothered by wights. Low standards, I know.
Speaking of Bran, he’s still taking a nap or whatever. Is he supposed to be a metaphor for kids and the internet or something? Anyway, Theon is waxing wights left and right with his bow and arrows.
Back down to the crypts, Sansa and Tyrion share a moment as Ramin Djawadi’s masterful The Night King begins to play. Tyrion nets +10 with a dramatic gasp and away we go to the episode’s climax. Our heroes don’t stop fighting. Tormund is standing on a pile of the dead. Tyrion and Sansa protect the women and children (and Varys). Even Dany has picked up a sword.
The episode wisely keeps Jon Snow impossibly bogged down and frustrated, causing the viewers in turn to be frustrated. Jon eventually channels our frustrations and screams at the dragon as he can’t think of anything else to do.
Back to the Weirwood as the Night’s King has joined Theon and Bran. Bran wakes up from his nap and tells Theon the one thing Theon desperately needed to hear. He tells Theon that he’s a good man. +10 for Bran for giving Theon peace in life for the first time. Bran thanks Theon for what Theon is about to do (+10 for prophecy here). +500 to Alfie Allen for absolutely acting the hell out of this moment.
Theon charges the Night’s King and is unable to bring the him down. Instead, he is unceremoniously killed with his own weapon. +25 to Theon for the memorable death and +20 to the Night’s King for killing a named character. We get a slow walk from the Night’s King as Theon slowly expires. We get Jorah on his last legs. I really can’t say enough how much this scene set to Djawadi’s score works on my here.
As the Night’s King reaches out to Bran after they have a moment, Arya comes in to save the day with the same Valaryian steel dagger that Bran gave her in Season 7. I’m giving +10 to Bran for that premonition. +25 to Arya for acing the Night’s King, who underestimates his opponent here. Ultimately, the Winterfell battle plan works since they do succeed in getting the Night’s King out into the open+25 to the Night’s King for a memorable death. But the death doesn’t stop there. Arya kill shot also kills all White Walkers (max +20), wights, and Viserion (+50).
Our final points go to Melidandre for walking off into the snow to die for another full pointed memorable death score (+25).
A plus 15 for all the characters in battle who survived as well, including those in the crypts and GHOST!
Episode MVP:
Of course, Arya is our episode MVP. Masie Williams brought some excellent physicality to the role this episode and gave us some depth to show that Arya isn’t a superhero. I’d like to know where she flew in from, from Arya nets a bonus 25.
I will say that the Red Lady did come close for me here. She really got a lot of this episode going. Ultimately, she just didn’t do enough.
Episode Analysis:
Grade: A-
As I said on the podcast, this episode worked on me. I loved the chaos of the battle scenes and how it made the viewer feel hopeless. (I also didn’t have any problems seeing the screen.) I didn’t need more people to die, but the amount that survives does seem a bit off from GoT standards.
The deaths we do have are effective emotionally, though. And a few of them are leading to a bigger plot point: Dany is losing everyone around her. Jorah, the Unsullied, and that Dothraki are gone. Does this battle give her the love of the North? The previews say yes, but the wedge between she and Jon still needs to be addressed.
Since the battle has started, let’s dole out some maximum Wight Shirt killing points for the following: Arya, Beric, Brienne, Dany, Drogon, Gendry, Grey Worm, Hot Pie, Jaime, Jon Snow, Jorah, Melisandre, Pod, Samwell, Theon, The Hound, Tormund, Rhaegel, Viserion. +25 all around!
After watching her Dothraki dudes get lit up (or, rather unlit up?), Dany quips to Jon, “The dead are already here” (+5) and takes off on Drogon to wreck the undead army that is about to start overwhelming the Unsullied, the Wildlings, and the Brienne Crew. The dragons are whipping ass until the Night’s King summons an ice storm. How about an arbitrary +10 for actual good military tactics?
Arya gets in a quick one-liner by telling Sansa to “stick them with the pointy end” and we’re getting some great Season 1 Arya callbacks early.
The Lord Commander of the Nightswatch, Dolorous Edd, kills 2 wights for sure (one off screen) for +10 points. Unfortunately, his watch ends after he saves Sam. That’s a full +25 for a memorable death, Edd.
The Wildlings under Tormund wisely fall back into the castle while Grey Worm watches the Unsullied get cut down. The retreat plan was not a good one, but I’m giving +10 to Grey Worm for keeping his dudes disciplined and making the retreat even possible.
With the dragons unable to see, Melisandre does some more magic and lights the trenches on fire, earning her all of those Wight Shirt points. That was a lot of toasted wights and gives our Winterfell crew some momentary hope.
We get a break and head down to the crypts where Varys is looking terrified and Tyrion is anxious and wants to go fight. Sansa correctly tells him he would be murdered in like 3 seconds. Varys gets +5 for saying “At least we’re already in a crypt.” Tyrion gets +10 for drinking booze. Double-fisting!
Former spouses Sansa and Tyrion start fighting like a divorced couple arguing of sports schedules until Tyrion, impressed, jokes that they should have stayed married. (+5) Sansa retorts “you were the best of them,” (+5) which is such an impossibly low standard that even the writers who wrote the Sand Snake dialogues could have met them. Except for the guy (and it was definitely a guy) who came up with the line about that bad pussy. He’s worse than Joffrey. Tyrion rightly jokes that it’s a terrifying thought (+5). Sansa tries to shit on Dany, but Missandei walks off the scene with a metaphorical bat flip noting how Dany is saving their asses right now. (+10)
Back outside, Bran takes a mental vacation and turns into a bunch of ravens. Between his blank face and his eyes rolling into the back of his head, Bran is basically me after I do burritos for lunch. Except my, “I’m going to go now” means something much different.
The Night’s King gets bored and summons his dead army to smother Melisandre’s flames with their bodies so the rest can cross. Another +10 for superior battle tactics. This allows the dead to scale the walls wand infiltrate the castle.
After some nondescript battling where Red Shirts are killed by the dozens and our heroes continue to survive, we get some more typical zombie action with Arya slipping through the maze-like castle interior. Eventually she is saved by Beric and The Hound after Beric inspires The Hound to start fighting. +10 for Beric for an inspirational speech. Unfortunately for Beric, he ends up sacrificing himself for Arya and The Hound. A full +25 for Beric. And I’m going to award him another +7 for his obvious Jesus-the-cross-pose while he was sacrificing himself.
Lyanna Mormont gets sent off in a very fan servicey way and her death earns her +25. She kills a Giant, which isn’t exactly a Wight Shirt, but isn’t exactly a magical animal. I’ll give her half magical animal points for that for another +25 even though I don’t feel great about it. And if anyone from the Giants’ Union of Giants out there is offended, you can find me on Twitter @timsneighbor and drag me there for calling you half-animals.
We get a chat between Melisandre and Arya. Arya is feeling pretty down and confused, but Mel comes through with an inspiration speech about shutting blue eyes and asking what we say to the God of Death (+10).
Viserion kills a ton of Winterfell Red Shirts before we get an awesome dragon battle. Viserion has a huge advantage here since he’s dead and doesn’t give a shit about pain. Drogon rips Viserion’s throat open, which later gives us an awesome shot of blue flames pouring out of Viserion’s neck. +10 to Dany and Jon for good battle tactics and unseating the Night’s King. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Dany tries to burn the Night’s King with dragon flames, but it fails. The Night’s King gives us a smirk (+10) and then does that awesome raise the dead move when Jon tries to attack him. Another +10 to the Night’s King for superb tactics. +5 undead points to Edd because I love that guy and we needed more of him. No zombie bonus for Lyanna because we needed less of her.
Back down in the crypts, zombies bust out and start breaking concrete and shit. The old starks obviously suck at making concrete, but I guess they were never predicting that the bodies inside would be busting out like The Bride in Kill Bill.
Back outside, Dany saves Jon but pulls a Black Hawk Down and keeps Drogon on the ground for FAR too long. She is nearly overrun and killed by wights after Drogon is like, fuck this shit and peaces out. But Ser Friendzone deus ex machina’s the shit out of the scene and saves her. Eventually, this is his final stand as her protector. He earns a full +25 for a memorable death.
Back inside Winterfell, Jon finally makes a smart decision and keeps his eyes on the prize: being there for Bran when the Night’s King comes calling. He gets a +5 for ignoring Sam being smothered by wights. Low standards, I know.
Speaking of Bran, he’s still taking a nap or whatever. Is he supposed to be a metaphor for kids and the internet or something? Anyway, Theon is waxing wights left and right with his bow and arrows.
Back down to the crypts, Sansa and Tyrion share a moment as Ramin Djawadi’s masterful The Night King begins to play. Tyrion nets +10 with a dramatic gasp and away we go to the episode’s climax. Our heroes don’t stop fighting. Tormund is standing on a pile of the dead. Tyrion and Sansa protect the women and children (and Varys). Even Dany has picked up a sword.
The episode wisely keeps Jon Snow impossibly bogged down and frustrated, causing the viewers in turn to be frustrated. Jon eventually channels our frustrations and screams at the dragon as he can’t think of anything else to do.
Back to the Weirwood as the Night’s King has joined Theon and Bran. Bran wakes up from his nap and tells Theon the one thing Theon desperately needed to hear. He tells Theon that he’s a good man. +10 for Bran for giving Theon peace in life for the first time. Bran thanks Theon for what Theon is about to do (+10 for prophecy here). +500 to Alfie Allen for absolutely acting the hell out of this moment.
Theon charges the Night’s King and is unable to bring the him down. Instead, he is unceremoniously killed with his own weapon. +25 to Theon for the memorable death and +20 to the Night’s King for killing a named character. We get a slow walk from the Night’s King as Theon slowly expires. We get Jorah on his last legs. I really can’t say enough how much this scene set to Djawadi’s score works on my here.
As the Night’s King reaches out to Bran after they have a moment, Arya comes in to save the day with the same Valaryian steel dagger that Bran gave her in Season 7. I’m giving +10 to Bran for that premonition. +25 to Arya for acing the Night’s King, who underestimates his opponent here. Ultimately, the Winterfell battle plan works since they do succeed in getting the Night’s King out into the open+25 to the Night’s King for a memorable death. But the death doesn’t stop there. Arya kill shot also kills all White Walkers (max +20), wights, and Viserion (+50).
Our final points go to Melidandre for walking off into the snow to die for another full pointed memorable death score (+25).
A plus 15 for all the characters in battle who survived as well, including those in the crypts and GHOST!
Episode MVP:
Of course, Arya is our episode MVP. Masie Williams brought some excellent physicality to the role this episode and gave us some depth to show that Arya isn’t a superhero. I’d like to know where she flew in from, from Arya nets a bonus 25.
I will say that the Red Lady did come close for me here. She really got a lot of this episode going. Ultimately, she just didn’t do enough.
Episode Analysis:
Grade: A-
As I said on the podcast, this episode worked on me. I loved the chaos of the battle scenes and how it made the viewer feel hopeless. (I also didn’t have any problems seeing the screen.) I didn’t need more people to die, but the amount that survives does seem a bit off from GoT standards.
The deaths we do have are effective emotionally, though. And a few of them are leading to a bigger plot point: Dany is losing everyone around her. Jorah, the Unsullied, and that Dothraki are gone. Does this battle give her the love of the North? The previews say yes, but the wedge between she and Jon still needs to be addressed.