Ice Dragons!!!!!!!!!
Plus Arya and Sansa Fight at Winterfell

In order to enjoy this week’s Game of Thrones, you have to suspend disbelief and just go with Jon’s stupid plan. Because travelling North to kidnap a wight is a stupid plan. Monumentally so. With two or three extra minutes of thinking Jon and Dany could have come up with three alternative versions of this:
1 — Dany rides North on her dragons to do some recon and see the Army of the Dead for herself.
2 — Kill someone North of the Wall and wait for them to turn (even within the episode, they have to burn Thoros of Myr because he will turn after he dies).
3—No one does this, they just believe Jon because it’s Westeros and there are dragons. Magic exists. So why won’t everyone believe in the ice zombies?

But, because it’s Game of Thrones, and the writing is getting a bit sloppy as the series runs out of time, they decide to ride North of the wall and kidnap a wight.
And so here we are, Jon leads a group North of the wall for on a reconnaissance mission to kidnap one wight. Jon seems to have forgotten how formidable white walkers are and everyone is freaked out by snow. Why no one wears a hat is a mystery we’ll never solve!
The crew is set upon by a giant zombie polar bear! In a pretty terrifying encounter, they lose a few nameless members of their crew and set the bear on fire. Thoros of Myr is horribly wounded, but miraculously keeps going as Beric Dondarrion cauterizes his wound. The look on the Hound’s face sums up all of our horror at ice zombie bear.
What works well about the trip North of the Wall is the interactions between Jon Snow’s group. It’s fun to get this gang together. The interactions between Tormund Giantsbane and the Hound are the best. How do you survive the cold? “You have to keep moving, that’s the secret,” Tormund says. “Walking’s good, fighting’s better, fucking’s best.” Then the Hound discovers Tormund is pining after Brienne, the woman who nearly killed the Hound. There’s also a touching scene between Jorah and Jon where they discuss Jorah’s father, Commander Momont.
They luck upon a small group of wights and try to grab one of them. They successfully get a single wight but also get into a scary fight. This scene is important because as Jon swings his blade at one of the wight leaders, all of the others come crashing down into tiny wight pieces. It’s an important bit of lore and Valyrian steel for the win!

If you are willing to suspend disbelief, this is actually a pretty fun battle scene plus there be dragons.
South of the Wall, at Winterfell, Arya and Sansa are fighting like children.
It seems both sexist and ludicrous that the two would actually be arguing about this stuff right now. Of course Arya thinks Sansa would be a great lady of Winterfell! Because she would and is. If the writer’s are asking us to believe that Sansa and Arya would be arguing their same childhood arguments now and that they would fail to grasp and commiserate over their mutually traumatic few years — it’s offensive. Here’s hoping its a ruse to bring down Littlefinger.
Stray Observations:
- Dany keeps saying she’ll never have kids. There’s a reasonable questions about succession from the throne, if Dany can’t secure a succession what’s to prevent another war when she dies. If Dany gets with Jon, can Jon have kids? There’s a lot of sterility in Westeros these days.
Craziest possible fan theory:
- Tyrion is a secret Targaryen. He and Dany can ride the two living dragons. Jon can ride the ice dragon because he’s dead already!
Plotlines that need to be wrapped up:
- What happened to Yara? Theon? Where’s Euron? Greyjoys MIA!
- Is Cersei really pregnant? If so, is Jamie really the father? My money is on no to both.
- Where’s Greyworm?
- Is Tyrion the third dragon? Maybe because Jon is dead, he can ride the ice dragon!
- When will Jon and Dany bone?
- Where the hell is Ghost?
