Last Week
Pretty much every effing character from every effing place in all of effing Westeros convened in Winterfell—the shit-ass, assing-ass town where it all began and where Ned Stark done got his head chopped off. Reunions were aplenty as events like the knighting of Brienne (at the hands of Jamie), the sharing of Jon and Daenerys' related-ness and the boning of the moon-faced Arya Stark and the hairless Gendry went down. Davos served a couple measly bowls of soup, Samwise Gamgee swallowed hard and looked befuddled and Cersei was conspicuously absent due to her elephant-free business back home.
It was decided that Bran, the new Five-Eyed Raven (which is like a less exciting Dr. Strange) would act as bait once the Night King arrived, and just when everyone thought they couldn't be any more bummed out, the ice zombies cometh'd and the whole dang town prepared to die. We're back, and we're still confused.
The Gist
Knowing that the newest episode is longer than 90 minutes put a real damper on our plans for the evening, but also knowing that every character our annoying friends love will probably die soothes the hurt just a little bit. We'd also point out that there was no "previously on …" segment at the opening, so you just know the producers aren't fucking around anymore.
Anyway …
A cold wind whistles through Samwise's hands as everyone who can hold a sword or spear tells him to get the heck outta the way—they've got dead people to kill. Sam, who once killed an ice zombie (or boredom, probably) walks with purpose, though, as does Tyrion, whom we find hanging around looking dour as Theon/Reek wheels Bran out to the field of battle like the fucking worm he is. Davos paces along the wall; Sansa breathes heavily as dragons take to the sky in flame-breathed anticipation. It's quiet. A little too quiet. And we can't help but feel the episode could've easily been under an hour and a half if they hadn't insisted on an opening that slowly pans over the faces of every damn character we already caught up with last time. Oh shit, but there's that huge wolf, though. We don't remember what its deal is, but it's there, lookin' all huge and shit.
Up on a hill, super far from everything else, Jon and Dany just hang back with the dragons. Presumably, they're smart enough to not fly down into the shit. Because we can see the shadowy outlines of the ice zombies, and it looks awful.
Just then, the red witch whose name we forget and who brought Snow back to life rides up to offer Dothraki advice. Those horse guys tremble with excitement, because all they know is shanking, even if it's cold as fuck. It's doubly exciting, too, because Red Witch utters a spell that gives everyone fire swords through magic. Jorah likes this, especially because fire melts ice. Are you following? Fire melts ice, which would probably be useful against dead people made of ice. Red Witch wanders inside the Winterfell walls, lowers her hood and is all like, "Oh hey, Davos, what's going down?" It's an awkward exchange, but one that's cut short as the Horse Guys all gallop off into the night, shrieking and grunting as they go. Catapult ammo is lit on fire as well and lobbed in the general direction of the baddies, but it's all for naught because, wouldn't you know it, all their cool new fire weapons go out. Turns out fighting a nighttime battle is some bullshit for people who can't see in the dark (namely, all not-cats), and the only survivors of the first wave of good guy attacks are, like, a couple horses.
"The Night King is coming," Snow says to Daenerys.
"Yeah, no shit," she answers, rolling her eyes so hard it's audible. "That's what we've been talking about for the last eight fucking years!"
And so the army of dead attacks in true World War Z style; that is, so damn many of them mob everyone else that it's sheer, unstoppable chaos. At least until Dany and Snow show up on dragons. As they spew fire on all them zombies, Sansa and Arya stand on the Winterfell wall and wonder why they hell they didn't just start with the zombies before killing the entire population of Horse-Guy-o-polis. Arya tells Sansa to get the heck outta there with a little sword advice she once was given from Snow: "Slash fools," Arya says. "Slash their fucking faces."
And then it's just, like, a real shaky montage of people slashing zombies, principal characters coming close to slashings of their own and Sam taking the eff off rather than fighting—an action we were all waiting for, even if we secretly hoped he'd cowboy the fuck up. Sansa does indeed get the heck outta there, to the crypt, where all the children and women and Tyrions hide like the punk-ass punks we know them to be.
Outside, Snow sucks huge at dragon flying, and even Dany has trouble controlling her leather-winged sky beast. There's some kind of magical fog messing up their flight plan, but before we can even begin to deal with that, Brienne and Braveheart tell everyone to fall back to the city streets … y'know, where the kids are. Seems incredibly short-sighted to us, but whatevs. Either way, the lighting is far too dark and we cut back and forth between Dany's subjects getting got and Snow living out his Neverending Story fantasies while flying through the icy atmosphere.
It's at this moment that Dany is supposed to use her dragon to light an oil trench on fire so as to give the town some breathing room, but she can't see because of … reasons, and the whole plan starts to fall apart. Lucky then that Red Witch can do over three spells, like the fire sword one before, and now the fire trench spell. It lights. Handy for seeing, handy for burning, handy for s'more of that ice melting we mentioned earlier. Clegane is down as fuck, even if the zombies stand on the either side staring like a bunch of fucking creeps.
Back in the crypt, Varys makes dry jokes to Tyrion about how they're already in a crypt while Tyrion waxes on the possibilities of his strategic mind. Sansa shits all over that plan, emasculating him in front of the children and preparing herself for an untimely death. They flirt a little, which is really weird, and Sansa shits all over Daenerys. She's really getting her jabs and gibes in will she's still alive. She's scattin' and be-boppin' all over everyone. It's maddening.
Meanwhile, Theon make amends to Bran as if anything any of them does matters, and Bran keeps it going with the scary stares and shitty tone of voice he's been using since back when he learned to be the master of time and space. Using his mind birds, Bran locates the Night King and taunts him. And as if that weren't wack enough, the ice zombies decide they're gonna start walking into the flame trenches as part of a corpse bridge feat of engineering. It's smart, really, and even Snow has to admit it's probably the most metal thing he's ever seen in his life, and he was there when Ramsay Bolton got ate by a bunch of dogs.
Inside the wall, Jamie barks orders like he's in charge and Gendry replays that time he and Arya boned down in his mind over and over. Without all that pesky horniness weighing him down, he can really slash fools; ditto Brienne, Sam, Jamie, Little Hey-Hey, Magnus, Arlo and Tony the Shrimper. All the same, they're still wondering why those fucking dragons only spewed fire once. Buncha bullshit. Thank goodness Arya's there to kung fu her way throughout the castle with her new Gendry-made spear. It was smelted with desire and forged with the power of a million boners, and that's why she can—holy fuck, the zombie giant comes tearing through and he's all decomposed and 11 feet tall and he's got, like, a cross he's using like a weapon or something and his belt is made of corpses and he only has one eyeballs and he doesn't give a fuck! He especially doesn't give a fuck when the little girl who is the mayor of some place we forget runs right at him, gets crushed in his massive giant mitts and then stabs him in his one remaining eye. Ba-blam!
Cut to airborne dragon fight between Snow and the recently zombie-fied ice dragon ridden by the Night King himself. Daenerys is there, too, so you'd think they'd have the upper dragon hand, but the Night King is quick, and zips on out of there to do more evil.
Back at the castle, Arya's messed up pretty bad. There's blood in her eye and in her hair and stuff, and some of the zombies from outside followed her to reenact the kitchen velociraptor scene from Jurassic Park. It's tense and a little too quiet, but Arya spent all that time learning how to sneak good some years back at the … ummm … house of … no faces (or too many faces or whatever). But we mustn't forget there are so many zombies around, and before she can slash 'em all like some sort of bloodthirsty Ash Ketchum (oh-em-gee—we just realized that Ash's last name is really clever since he's trying to catch 'em, when it comes to Pokemon). Anyway, Arya's probably effed, so whatevs. Only maybe not, because Clegane and Eyestrap show up, help pick off a few of the baddies, and everybody gets to running. Eyestrap gets stuck by daggers about 300 times and Clegane picks Arya up and runs the fuck outta there. Eyestrap dies, Arya and Clegane run into Red Witch.
"We've met before," Arya says. "Right?"
"No doubt," Red Witch says. "Did you know eyes come in different colors?"
Everyone fucking knows that, but before Arya can even begin to unpack what a time-wasting statement this is, she takes off, a brilliant plan percolating inside her massive, murderous brain.
Outside, it's Dragon Fight 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold; Snow v. Night King. It doesn't go great, of course, and Snow is earthbound once more. (The dragons, as it turns out, are tired now). Snow's dragon eats it big time thanks to the ice dragon, but when the Night King decides to stretch his legs on solid ground, Dany lights him on fire (because she's always setting people on fire). Oops, though—turns out he's impervious to that, too, in addition to, like, regular swords and stuff. Makes sense—there are a bunch of episodes left—and the king of all ice zombies wanders off toward the castle looking like the Winter Olympics version of Darth Maul. Ruh-roh, though, because Snow's ready to take it to the streets, but even as he's narrowing in on the guy, he's already rising the recently dead and conscripting them to his cause. Maybe you shoulda tried sneaking, Snow. Shit.
And it doesn't stop there, because everyone who was killed thus far within a five-mile radius is coming back to life (or un-life; undead?) and ready to stir things up. Even Sansa's dead ancestors in the crypt of safety are rising from their graves, which seems like the sort of thing someone would have taken into consideration. Sorry, kids, infants, toddlers, mothers, little people, eunuchs and whoever else—ya burnt.
Snow, of course, is flexing that big dick energy and slashing as many zombies as he can when Dany shows up to be like, "I know I can fly with this dragon, but you should find Bran on foot and just as slowly as you possibly can!"
And the zombies mob her dragon (whose name is Drogon, which is about the laziest naming job of all time; it's like naming your dog "Dag," frankly) just in time for Jorah to show up and cut some heads. If Dany can't deal with the whole incest angle of her relationship to Snow, Jorah would make a fine partner, we think.
Anyway, it's bad news everywhere: Bran's off in a trance, Theon only fights kind of well and Sansa and Tyrion are hiding and letting the kids in the crypt die rather than standing up for something for once. The bodies pile up, the ice dragon returns, the music gets all minor-key-piano heavy. It's a lot to take in, really.
The Night King walks in with his creepy generals like he owns the place while Bran thanks Theon for all the stabbings he's carried out this night. It's really a roundabout and shitty way of saying, "Thanks for dying in about 10 seconds, bro," which Theon totally does at the hands of President Ice Zombie. Homeboy didn't even break a sweat killing that nerd. And Bran keeps creepy-staring. And Jorah gets stabbed in the chestal area. And Snow is boxed in by the ice dragon. And the music sounds like it's from Westworld. And President Ice Zombie walks right up to Bran, his blue eyes glowing in the night air and an exchange of glances going down like woah. He reaches for his sword, he goes in for the slash—AND THEN ARYA POPS UP OUT OF NOWHERE AND STABS HIM WITH A MAGIC DAGGER AND HE FUCKING EXPLODES AND EVERY OTHER ICE ZOMBIE AROUND FUCKING EXPLODES AND IT'S NOTHING BUT FUCKING ICE ZOMBIE EXPLOSIONS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE!
Alright, we'll admit it—that was pretty badass. Of course, that doesn't change how Tyrion and Sansa let all those kids and their mothers die, but they can deal with that later. Dany cries over Jorah, which is weird because didn't she fire him for sucking a couple seasons back? Anyway, he dies in her arms and her dragon comes to give her a dragon hug. Cute!
And so, Red Witch wanders out into the icy fields, sheds her necklace 'o' youth and drops dead right before Davos' eyes for some reason. Probably if you watch this show all the time, you know what that means. Whatever.
Oh shit, though, where's Cersei? Guess they'll deal with that next week? Word. Right on. Word. Sure was convenient how they killed that ever-present evil force in, like, three seconds, right? Right.
The Good
Yo, Arya killing President Ice Zombie was pretty effing rad.
The Bad
Ummm … Night King sure died easy, though, and why was everything so dark? It was night, obvs, but it seemed a little too dark, y'know?
The Grade: A
Alright, that was an awesome episode. We're not too proud to say that.
