After seven seasons, some things about Game of Thrones have moved from the category of habit to tradition. Like the tradition of loading the penultimate episode of each season with action that provides both a coda to the season going out, and a clue on where things will go in the season to come.
In previous ten-episodes-is-really-not-that-much seasons, it was episode nine that provided the heart-wrenching, the wince-inducing, and the jaw-dropping. That’s when people found out that Game of Thrones was serious with Season 1’s “Baelor.” In Season 2, Tyrion proved that he could be a hero—and pay a hero’s price—in “Blackwater.” Robb Stark, the first character to carry the banner of “The King in the North” heard the awful music in Season 3’s “The Rains of Castlemere.” After a long buildup, the Wildlings and the Night’s Watch came to epic battle in Season 4 with “The Watchers on the Wall.” In Season 5, “A Dance of Dragons” looked to be different, with no big battle but instead the heartbreaking end of Princess Shireen as Stannis Baratheon makes the most dreadful choice of the entire series—but the episode gets a last-minute boost of spectacule as Daenerys mounts the half-grown Drogon for the first time. And finally, Season 6 brought what might be the best small scale combat ever filmed with “The Battle of the Bastards.”
Not every heart-pounding episode happened in that next-to-last spot. Most notably the confrontation that really gives a sense of the genuine threat in the North, “Hardhome” is slotted in a week early. But the “nine slot” provided the emotional climax of most previous seasons.
With the shortened seventh season giving us only a scant seven episodes, it was an open question whether that penultimate peak tradition would continue, especially since the fourth episode of the season, “The Spoils of War” already provided both a dose of satisfying storytelling and gripping action.
And the answer is … yeah. “Beyond the Wall” delivered on tension, on twists and on spectacle. But it also reinforced the message that this shortened season is simply too damn short.
Come below the spoiler line. Let’s talk.
Many of Game of Throne’s “big” episodes share the trait of being small in the number of storylines they actually address. In the case of “Beyond the Wall,” we skip down to Dragonstone for a couple of conversations, and pay some short visits to Winterfell, but the rest of the time is spent exactly where the title implies—up in the frozen North of the North.
Winterfell
Let’s get this one out the way first. Last week I was desperately hoping that the apparent antagonism that Arya was displaying for her temporarily-ruling sister Sansa was all part of a trap that the two siblings had set for the show’s Machiavelli wanna-be, Littlefinger. However, after this episode it’s very hard to hang onto the belief that this plotline is anything more than both Arya and Sansa displaying an astounding lack of sense and preparing to dice each other while Littlefinger licks his lips in the wings.
About the only thing that seemed to make it possible that there was still more than the obvious afoot was when Sansa deliberately sent her protector Brienne away. Granted, Littlefinger had just recommended that Sansa hang tight with Brienne, so maybe Sansa took this to mean that Brienne was actually Littlefinger’s tool and someone she needed to push away … but if so, then Sansa is much, much more stupid than I previously believed.
I’m still hanging onto a slim thread that, having seen her sister sparring with Brienne, Sansa realized that Arya was adequate to defend them both. And, since the pair of them took a walk with know-it-all Bran, they worked this whole thing out as a plot to pull Littlefinger into making some definitive betrayal so Arya could could let Needle waterdance all over his heart.
But, man. That thread looks awfully thin. It looks like Arya is an angry idiot. Sansa is a plain idiot. And both are likely to be dead idiots before Jon comes home.
Oh, and if it turns out that all-seeing Bran is so intent on his three-eyed business that he couldn’t stop to explain to his sisters how Littlefinger is manipulating everyone and largely responsible for the death and war that’s wracked the land for the last seven years, then I sincerely hope someone drags him up the stairs and shoves him out that window. Again.
Beyond the Wall
Most of the episode follows the exploits of Force 10 from Dragonstone, our fantastic band of Just About Everyone Remaining Who Has a Name who are off to capture a zombie, bring it back to King’s Landing, show it to Cersei, and … something … something … win!
Did I mention last week that this was not only a stupid plan, it was an unreasonably stupid plan with absolutely nothing to recommend it and no indication why the participants should believe that it would work? Yes. I did. Our motley crew has no idea how they’re going to do this thing, positively no reason to believe that Cersei would cooperate if they pull it off, and zero clue as to what they want even if they get everyone to agree to a confab. Quick: Imagine a solution that makes Daenerys, Jon, and Cersei happy. And … nope.
The first part of the trip beyond the wall consists of the characters pairing up and trading stories. It’s iconic, often clever, and sometimes genuinely moving. But it’s also emblematic of exactly how this rush to conclusion is crushing the goodness out of the show. Contrast the way that characters like Tyrion and Bronn got to know each other and build a relationship and learn to trust each other in previous seasons with the talk between Beric Dondarrion and Jon Snow. It’s a fantastic bit of dialog, possibly the first time we get a clear sense of Beric and his outlook on life. But it’s forced. There are also some real duds along the way, like the whole Brotherhood giving short shrift to Gendry for having sold him off to Mellisandre for a little bloodletting and death. And that’s forced.
However, I am willing to forgive this whole “we don’t have time to show you, so boy are we going to tell you that these characters are developing a quirky camaraderie” sequence because of the conversation between The Hound and Tormund Giantsbane about Tormund’s unflagging love for Brienne. It’s just fun.
Banter-time is cut short when the group comes across an undead bear. Though it wasn’t obvious last week, the team brought along some no-names. Which is good, because from this point on they’re going to burn through red shirts faster than a salt vampire / rock monster tag team (it makes sense, really. Ask your resident geek.). The bear is genuinely fearsome — powerful, vicious, and huge enough to make me shout “Shardik!” (again, you may need a resource). Of our Named Characters, Thoros of Myr — who gets just enough backstory in this episode to make it count when he’s killed, and not one word more — gets bear-mangled, partly due to the Hound’s fear of fire. Though, honestly, I think we can all say we’re terrified of 20’ tall, flaming, undead bears.
Not so long after that bear encounter, our heroes manage to ambush a small group of wights led by a single White Walker. Jon does for the leader with his Valyrian steel sword (and by the way, that Jon & Jorah scene over the sword is also a Good Thing that deserved more time) and with the White Walker dead, all but one of the wights fall apart. It’s convenient, as it gives the crew the opportunity to nab that single wight they were there to get. Unfortunately, the wight gets off a call to its buddies and soon almost everyone is standing on a small point of rock jutting from the center of a nearly-frozen lake (or possibly a wide pool in a river, it’s unclear).
The way the group is encircled by literally thousands of dead makes this on the surface the most terrifying, threatening moment since Jon’s handful of Wildling and Night’s Watch survivors fled the docks at Hardhome. However, when the wights start to close in after the lake proves to be more frozen than they thought (smooth move, Clegane) the sheer volume of undead that the heroes dispose of somewhat deflates the terror of the threat. It’s a problem that so many horror or action films have—an enemy force that seems so potently lethal at the beginning, is reduced to cannon fodder by the mid-game, with the only threat being sheer numbers rather than the power of any individual opponent.
And again, it’s a good thing those red shirts are along, because they get thrown to the zombie mob at intervals, while our good guys make ever more unlikely escapes. At least the red shirts get to go down fighting. Poor Thoros simply freezes to death while waiting.
Waiting … because one of their crew, Gendry, makes a run back to the wall and orders up a raven for Daenerys. Checking the Westeros map on my blanket—and yes, of course I have a blanket with a map of Westeros—it looks to be at least 1,000 miles down to Dragonstone from Eastwatch. Hmm, can a southbound raven flying at 50 MPH reach Dragonstone in time to dispatch a dragon flying north at … Okay, that’s it. Whatever numbers you need to plug into this equation, it clearly works, because Dany appears in the nick of time with not one, but three dragons. She proceeds to burn massive numbers of wights while everyone loads on Drogon-back. Except Jon, who stubbornly keeps slicing undead.
Then the Night King picks up a scary ice-tipped spear, hurls it, and punches a hole in Viserion, the green-eyed dragon named for Daenerys’ awful brother. With gouts of black blood and guttering flame, the wounded dragon crashes to the ground, then slides into the icy depths of the lake. Genuine kudos to the the animation team, not just for the actions of the dragons when alive, but for the awful loose-limbed dead weight with which the poor dead dragon slips back into the water.
A shocked Dany has to leave the scene before the Night King takes out another of her scale babies. Jon Snow goes down in the freezing water, struggles out, and is limping away, clearly at the end of his strength, and about to be killed by the re-swarming wights, when his long-lost Uncle Benjen wanders buy to sacrifice himself and give Jon a pony.
Jon Snow should really pray more. It doesn’t matter who to, because by now every god in Westeros has called in a chit to save this kid.
We end the episode with Jon and Dany sharing some tender words, and with Daenerys offering to fight with Jon without his having given her his fealty, followed by Jon offering to bend the knee after all. It’s not bad, it’s just … compressed. Like the conversations that started the episode, it’s forced. Because seven episodes is not enough for ten episodes of content.
The whole sequence ends with the terrible scene of the wights pulling the limp form of the dead dragon from the pool and the Night King transforming the beast into a blue eyed White Flyer. Which leads to the biggest question of the night. Does it breath ice? No, that’s not it. The question is “Where did the wights get those chains?” Seriously. Do they travel with a few thousand yards of unreasonably large chains? Are their teams of undead blacksmiths around to whip these things up? Where do they get the chains?
Dragonstone
This part came in the middle, but I’m saving it for the end. Not just because Tyrion and Daenerys have a couple of conversations that stop just short of being as foolishly belligerent as those between Arya and Sansa, but because of the nugget at the center of those conversations.
Twice in this episode—and again in recent episodes—people raise the idea of what happens if Dany dies and how unprepared the system is for her to fall. If all of this isn’t exactly Chekhov’s first act pistol, it seems like at least a pop gun.
People who have gotten used to the idea that this story is about Daenerys, or assumed that she’s the inevitable winner, may need to think again, because we’re being given hints that she may not get to that Promised Land with the rest of us.
- All these conversations about Jon’s highly honorable father are going to need rethinking when Jon inevitably finds out that he’s Dany’s dear nephew. For example, Jon and Gendry aren’t reenacting their dad’s early exploits, because the only relationship that their pops had was that Gendry’s dad killed Jon’s dad.
- All those who have spent brain cells pondering “if Dany rides one dragon and Jon rides another then who ...” can put away all their Tyrion is a secret Targaryean theories. The Night King rides the third dragon, that’s who.
- Dany can’t remember the last person who called her Dany. It was me.
- The rush toward the end of the series is not only forcing the characters together, it’s squeezing in the fantastical elements that in previous seasons generally hovered at the edges. This is becoming less a political show with fantasy elements, and more a show about those fantasy elements. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — except that the increase in fantasy has been coincident with a lot of handwaving over bad plot points.
- Knocking off Viserion may seem to be evidence that anyone can still die on Game of Thrones, but recent episodes have had a rash of saving characters who really should have died. The long fight without the loss of so much as a second-tier character, following on several such recent miraculous survivals, makes the once famously bloodthirsty show seem squeamish.
- Notice how when Game of Thrones wants to have some real impact, it pulls back from throwing ten different story lines in an hour? That’s because stories need room to breath. Which they haven’t been getting, especially in the last few episodes.
- In her list of foolish warriors that have fallen in love with her, Dany mentions Daario Naharis, who Dany left behind when she sailed for Westeros. Since we’ve already had Cersei mention that she intends to hire mercenaries to fight for her, expect Daario to make a return on her team, possibly as a counterweight to Euron.
- Since the Night King had a supply of spears good enough to kill a dragon in flight, why didn’t he hurl a few toward that group of guys who kept him waiting for at least two days?
- I want a fire sword.