Season 7, Episode 6 – Beyond the Wall

Five Up, Five Down and Five In Between

Five Up – 5 things I LOVED about the episode

Five Down – 5 things I HATED about the episode

Five In Between – 5 things I took note of.

FIVE UP:

1) I loved Sansa this episode and she’s been killing it lately. Even though Jon’s put her in a tight spot she’s maneuvering and keeping the peace. Winterfell has been boring….which is a good thing in this show. As Baelish even says – she’s been ruling well. I especially liked her during her argument(s) with Arya. Even though Arya is a crazy assassin and the best fighter in the world, she matches her psycho with wit and logic. “You should be on your knees thanking me. We’re standing in Winterfell because of me.“ was a huge F YOU to Arya. Everything Sansa said after that is 1,000% true as well. “Did you fight off the Lannisters and save Father? You didn’t.” - “You didn’t win it back, Jon didn’t win it back. He lost the Battle of the Bastards. The Knights of the Vale won the battle and they rode North for me.” “You never would have survived what I survived”. All spot on and such good comebacks to Arya’s ridiculous accusations and assaults. Hindsight is 20/20 bitch, step off. Sansa’s got a stiff-arm like Adrian Peterson.

2) In a sad/ironic way I really love how Brienne is leaving Winterfell. The last 4 seasons all she’s done is try to fulfill the oath she made to Catelyn Stark – to protect the Stark daughters. She fumbled around with it for like 3 seasons before finally rescuing Sansa from the Boltons….and that was only AFTER she botched the whole “candle in the window thing” (link below, Stannis vs. the Boltons). Anyway, it’s just perfect in a sadistic type of way that she’s leaving now….. Right when Sansa and Arya are about to rip each other’s throats out (or cut each other’s faces off if you’re into that). Being the second best fighter in the world, Brienne is the only one who can protect Sansa. Being the most fortunate/timely character in the show, she’s also the only one who could thwart an assassination attempt on Arya. And don’t think that’s out of the question - I’ve heard theories that Sansa/Baelish may do that if Arya keeps pushing.

(Fastforward to the 2 min mark for Brienne's butt-fumble)

3) Tyrion has mostly been an idiot this season but by God you have to respect the man. No matter how many times he messes up he still battles with Daenerys at every turn. She hates him from time to time but he never backs down and knows how to press her buttons (hopefully he can teach Jon Snow how to press her buttons…..GIGGITY). Tyrion has always done this too. No matter who’s in power he speaks his mind and never holds back. He talked back to Tywin, Cersei, Joffrey and now the Dragon Queen. He may be the smallest character on our show but he’s got the biggest balls.

a. Tangent: It was really gratifying when Daenerys said “I don’t want you to be a hero….. but I know you’re brave. I wouldn’t have chosen a coward for my Hand.” While they disagree regularly, it’s nice to see that a boss can utilize the talents of the people around them even if they don’t align exactly with theirs…… I’ll spare you from a work reference.

4) I really liked how Jorah didn’t take Long Claw back from Jon Snow. While it’s a little bit messed up that Jon has the Mormont family heirloom, he earned it fair and square. He’s also racked up quite the kill count on it - a “KILLING SPREEE” for all of those who played the original Halo. While Jon probablyyyyyyy shoulda mentioned the fact that Valyrian steel kills white walkers, I’m sure Jorah would have let him keep it anyways.

5) The conversation between Beric and Jon Beyond the Wall was one of my favorites of this season (boom, worked in the episode title). I am a huge Beric fan on the down-low and aside from the whole Lord of Light nonsense, I love the Brotherhood Without Banners. I actually did GOT character comparisons with co-workers and Beric was my comparison. I just like that The Brotherhood stays away from the existing power structures and serves the people. They’re not ass-kissing or money grubbing, they’re just doing what’s right. Anyways I loved when Beric said “The Enemy always wins…..and we still need to fight him. That’s all I know.” That’s how I feel about a number of things – Father Time, old age, busy seasons, fatigue, life in general, etc etc. The enemy always wins, but we still need to fight him.

FIVE DOWN:

1) Piggy-backing off of #1 above – ARYA SUCKS. She sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. The whole thing started because she was giving Sansa shit for writing the letter to Robb…… a letter she was forced to write in order to save her Father. Mind you it was 4-5 years ago. If you held me captive and told me the only way to save my Father was to write a letter you bet your ass I’m writing that God Damn letter. And to top it off, nothing came of the letter. Robb still marched South with an army and didn’t pledge fealty. The letter literally changed NOTHING. Ironically that’s exactly what Arya has contributed to this show since killing Walder Frey. I could go on and on about how much this part sucked, but I’ll stop here. Overall Arya’s scenes pissed me off to no end and when I re-watched it I had to mute it when she was speaking. It’s sad to say, but Arya is coming dangerously close to Cersei levels of cunti-ness. And I really don’t use that word often – there are maybe 3 people I refer to that way. Cersei, someone I work with and now Arya.

2) I hated that Jon called Daenerys “Dany” and then she immediately brought up Viserys….cringe. Was that supposed to be some weird foreshadowing for the reveal that they’re actually related? Or was it just to set up the “save” line that Jon Snow said after that….”How about My Queen?”. Smooth Jon Snow, so smooth. I know some of the scenes between them aren’t great, but I’m okay with them. I still stand by my prediction from earlier that they are NOT going to hook up.

3) Speaking of Daenerys, she really needs to hit the range with those dragons. She should be able to wipe out entire armies with those things but her accuracy is on par with Blake Bortles, Christian Hackenberg and my 10 year old knockoff Ping driver….not exactly good company. Every time you watch her fight with the dragons she takes a perpendicular route to the armies rather than a parallel one. It’s insane it’s like she’s just going on a strafing run and trying to scare them off. Look at the scene below and tell me you wouldn’t have approached that differently. She’s totally going perpendicular to the rows of whites. She pretty much did the same thing to start the Field of Fire battle too – BE BETTER DAENERYS. BE BETTER.

4) I’m not gonna be one of those people who says…..”HOW DID KHALEESI GET THERE IN TIME??? How did Gendry run that far? Ravens can’t fly that fast, blah blah blah.” While I agree with that, we’re not working with the same Game of Thrones. Due to various factors, we’re dealing with a new show entirely. Apparently once Bran time travels, white walkers show up and dragons kick it into gear the whole logic thing goes out the window. That’s fine, we’ll chalk it up to temporal anomalies and the fantasy genre and feel better about it. What does piss me off is that they actually could have done it in a way that would have made some sense. How?

- How about they end this episode the first night that Jon is stuck on that rock, surrounded by white walkers. We leave on a cliff-hanger not knowing if Daenerys got the raven and not knowing if she was going to help. We just cut to black after looking at Jon Snow’s handsome grill. Then we have to wait a week to find out what happens and boom - you can still do that same story line. The the audience can feel like more time has passed and the show can pass it off as if the Motley Crue was stuck on that rock for 2-3 days rather than a single night. Literally all they had to do was cut the episode at like 50 minutes and the whole thing woulda made more sense/been more seamless. Instead they screw us over with a shorter season and cram 3 episodes worth of shit into 70 minutes. I swear when this series is over I’m cancelling my HBO subscription for good. Fuck you HBO, fuck you.

5) I generally love Tyrion but he was a huge dick this episode. All season he talks about how he loves Jon Snow, he trusts him and he’s a good ally. Then last episode he tells Jon to go capture a white walker – a literal suicide mission. Fast-forward to this episode and he’s telling Daenerys not to go help him. “They knew the risks” was the quote he used….. THEY KNEW THE RISKS. Okay asshole, just let them die. It’s not like it was your plan or anything. It’s not like every plan you’ve had this season has totally back-fired. They knew the risks….spare me. Maybe Tyrion really is trying to advance the Lannister cause.

FIVE IN BETWEEN:

1) I’m reallllyyyy wondering what Littlefinger is plotting aside from driving this wedge between Arya and Sansa. He just has to have something else cooking aside from that. He made that whole speech to Sansa about fighting battles on multiple fronts, having contingency plans and “fighting every battle, everywhere”. The speech was literally in the trailer and I just have to think it has more significance than one ominous speech he gave to Sansa. My guess is he makes some play against Bran next episode, but I’ve never been able to predict Littlefinger.

2) Is Jon Snow reallllllyyyyyy not going back to Winterfell? That’s an honest question because if not then he really is dumb as rocks. He’s been gone for months and hasn’t updated Sansa at all. (It’s like in the Office when Andy Bernard went on that sailing cruise and didn’t tell his boss then Andy gets fired. What did you think would happen?) I was pissed when he didn’t stop there on the way to Eastwatch and this is just baffling. If not Jon then couldn’t Daenerys and Jorah just fly to Winterfell or something? “Hey, I’m Daenerys Targaryen and my dragon is real. Jon’s really hurt but he’ll come back as soon as he heals. I’m going to help you fight the White Walkers as soon as I go meet Cersei and get her on board. Okay byeeeeeeee”. If not that then send a raven, we all know how fast they can fly these days…..

3) Game of Thrones became so popular because it was the anti-hero story. The main characters die (Lord Eddard). The good guy doesn’t always win (King Robb). The honest man betrays everything he knows (Stannis). The bad guys outsmart the good guys (Cersei). Etcetera, etcetera. Earlier in the series, characters would die right in the middle of their character arc. We’d be left wondering what if? Now they just die because it’s convenient for the show. To be honest it takes away from it because the major characters have developed plot armor. Wouldn’t that white walker fight have meant more if Tormund or Jorah died? We wouldn’t get to see Tormund/Brienne and we wouldn’t get to see if Jorah ever makes it out of the friendzone. Instead they kill off characters who just have nothing left to do. As a reviewer I listen to says “what do we do with un-resolved plot lines? DEAD”. Let’s look at the other minor characters with no story line that they’ve killed off this season:

a. Ep 1: House Frey – what were they possibly going to do with House Frey? Kill them off.

b. Ep 2: Obara Sand & Nymeria Sand – pointless characters no one likes? Kill them off.

c. Ep 3: Lady Olenna – your 100 years old, whole house is killed and your castle taken? Kill her off

d. Ep 4: Thousands of nameless Lannister soldiers? Kill them off.

e. Ep 5: Randyll Tarly and Dickon Tarly – lost the battle and their army/gave Cersei her only victories? Kill them off.

f. Ep 6: Thoros and Benjen – Red Priest that casual fans don’t know and the guy who’s been sitting beyond the wall doing nothing for 6 years? Kill them off.

I guess Randyll Tarly had one more story line – was he ever going to reunite with Sam? Was he ever going to try and take his family sword back? (Something they seem to have forgotten). Overall I just haven’t been “moved” by any of these deaths.

4) I wonder how Daenerys is gonna feel when she sees that her dragon has been co-opted by the Night King. Is she going to be willing to fight against it? Will she have a choice? She loves those dragons more than anything, but this dragon has changed. Will the mother be able to kill her child? We all know how that worked out for Cersei – she gave zero facks when Tommen died. Will Daenerys feel the same way when her dragon betrays her?

5) Gonna dig deep here…. If you’ve read about George RR Martin then you know he’s very anti-war. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and from what I’ve read/heard, Game of Thrones is actually an anti-war story. Showing the violence and sadness is supposed to turn people off, which is why many of the deaths are so brutal. So to the point – and this is a stretch – but is this whole story a prelude to nuclear proliferation and the end of the GOT world? Stay with me here….It’s pretty clear we’ve entered into an arms-race between the living and the dead. White walkers get ice swords……..humans get Valyrian steel. White walkers get zombies…..humans get dragon glass. Daenerys brings dragons…..white walkers get dragons. This is similar to the Cold War and the advent of nuclear weapons (which continues today....thanks North Korea). In this case, dragons = nuclear weapons and now both sides have some. Will this cause a truce? Some sort of mutually assured destruction? We still have no idea what the white walkers are trying to achieve….is it possible to make peace with them? Or will the entire world end in some crazy fire fight between the living and the dead? If you remember Daenerys’ visions in the House of the Undying, she saw King’s Landing/the throne room destroyed by fire and covered in snow….. Will the final battle be a total destruction of Westeros? This is all probably grasping at straws, but where is this going? As I said before, this is not a typical story – we’re not gonna kill Smaug and live happily ever after. How will it all end?