I’ve seen a lot of criticism about “Beyond the Wall” out there on the internet. “It’s conventional fantasy now!” “It’s dumbed down!”. Shut up! Yeah, Game of Thrones isn’t quite the subversion of traditional fantasy that it was when it decapitated Ned Stark back in season one. It isn’t toying with your emotions and stabbing them repeatedly like the Red Wedding. Are you not entertained? I’m sure as hell entertained.

Perhaps that’s because I do enjoy traditional fantasy. I enjoy the hell out of a good spectacle. And damn, was “Beyond the Wall” a spectacle. Clearly, this entire episode is centered around action. Jon’s plan is super dumb, after all. It’s true that Cersei will never believe in the threat of the Wights without proof. It’s also true that going into their native territory with two handfuls of men is basically suicide. At least bring Ghost, Jon! Is Ghost alive? Why the hell would you not bring your huge wolf that you share a psychic bond with when you go hunting for the undead? I think Benioff and Weiss forgot he exists. Bring back Ghost!

Does this make me sound dumb? I certainly don’t like sounding dumb. There seems to be a critical disconnect between the current bombastic run of Thrones and the quieter political thriller that the show has been at times in the past. I have vastly enjoyed this current season. It’s delivering on scenes that we’ve been anticipating since season one.

Deader Than the Average Bear

*Very slight book spoilers below*

First up on the gauntlet: undead bears! I’ve been waiting for these suckers since I read about the Night’s Watch facing one back in A Storm of Swords. They didn’t disappoint, scaring the crap out of the audience, and tearing the crap out of Thoros of Myr.

Poor Thoros, he lived a long, drunken life. Despite getting television’s favorite cure for wounds, cauterization, Thoros still died from the extreme, unforgiving cold of the far north. Of all the candidates to die, Thoros was the most likely. Removing him raises the stakes for everyone else, especially **flips through book** Beric Dondarrion. Beric can die now! The most important character on the show is now mortal! Oh, and I guess that’s one less person that can try and bring Jon Snow back to life. Whatever.

Master of (Dead Ice) Puppets

We knew that the Wights were basically ice zombies. They rise from the dead unless the body is destroyed, all that stuff. What we didn’t know is that they actually share some traits with vampires as well!

The old vampire theory is that if you kill the head vampire, all the other vampires will turn back. Apparently, White Walkers and Wights also work like this! Jon killed the guy, the other guys fell apart. This is science, people. Why, it appears that killing the Night’s King could end this whole thing! Hooray! This should be an easy task.

Trapped Over Ice

Okay, okay, it was probably impractical that Jon and his dour men would have one patch of ice in the middle of a lake, but it made for a cool visual!

That’s So Sending A Raven

Ultimately, Gendry’s entire role in this episode was:

• Commenting on how cold he was.
• Giving his hammer to Tormund/The Hound.
• Running back to Eastwatch to send a raven to Daenerys, stating, “Shit’s gone bad!”

Attaboy, Gendry. Get back in your boat.

As far as that raven goes, that may have been the principal point of contention here. It did get to Dragonstone amazing quickly. Even 24 had a few issues with the logistics here. Buuuuut, did you care? What would you rather see:

• Jon and his screw are slaughtered by the Wights. The show becomes Littlefinger/Sansa vs. Cersei/Jaime vs. Dany/Tyrion.
• Jon and his crew spend two to three episodes struggling to find shelter and survive against the Wight army. Daenerys and Tyrion spend at least one of those episodes debating her helping them. Yaaaaaawn.
• Daenerys immediately rides her dragon posse into Icetown* and melts shit down.

*Ed. Note: Not an actual place

Dead Pool

No, not Deadpool. He’d be completely out of place in this setting! No, no, we’re talking about a death pool, as in, a lot of Game of Thrones viewers probably set up a death pool before this season. This episode did disappoint in that regard.

The prevailing worry among fans and critics alike is whether Game of Thrones has lost its cold-blooded instinct for killing important and beloved characters. Game of Thrones has no marbles!

Lack of marbles aside, it wasn’t like they were going to kill Jon Snow at this point. Were you actually worried when he slid into the water under the ice? My only fear was that Jon would be stuck behind the Wall for an extended arc. No one needs that.

I do agree that someone else besides a dragon and drunkass Thoros should have died in “Beyond the Wall”. No one cares about Beric (although his flaming sword is cool AF). Tormund was oh so close.

I love Tormund Giantsbane. He’s amazing. It’s his time, though. He’s one of Jon’s closest allies at this point. When he was talking about his love for Brienne and his desire to make giant monster babies with her, Tormund might as well have declared this day his last on the force. One day til retirement, I can’t wait! When Tormund was getting dragged below the ice, that seemed like the perfect “Not Like This” death for the great ginger badass of the far north. Instead, the Hound had to go and ruin it by pulling him out.

As for the Hound, this would have been a decent time for him to go, however, we could be seeing CLEGANEBOWL soon. Zombie Clegane vs. reformed Clegane. Two men enter, one man leaves. Let’s make this a cagematch and sell tickets for 25 golden dragons a pop.

What about Ser Jorah? Dude has to take an arrow for Daenerys in slow motion while shouting, “Nooooooo!” It is known.

The Night’s Caddy

“Beyond The Wall” had one big death, emphasis on big. So, as you remember from sheer awesomeness, Daenerys and her dragons rode in and messed up the army of the dead. Did the Night’s King sweat? Nope. Dude just calmly had his caddy fetch his magic ice spear of doom, lined up his shot, and took down a full-sized dragon like it was nothing. What’s cooler than cool? ICE COLD. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be retiring from life after that one.

Poor Viserion had to be the one to go down. It is appropriate, since he was named after a real garbage person. Remember Viserys from season one? What an asssssssssshole. Of course the dragon’s going to be turned into an ice dragon! You already know we’re getting that shot of two opposing beams of whatever clashing. It’s 100% happening.

Viserion had to be the dragon to die. Drogon is too close to Dany’s heart. The other remaining dragon is named Rhaegal, after Dany’s deceased brother and JON’S REAL FATHER. If Jon doesn’t ride that dragon into battle by series’ end, I will eat my hat or some other equally inedible thing.

Sisterly Love

Oh yeah, some stuff happened at Winterfell in this one! I was wrong about Arya not falling for Littlefinger’s mischief. She fell big time. It doesn’t help that Sansa is pushing everyone away, sending Brienne to King’s Landing and gently pushing against the Northern Lords who are telling him her how great of a job she’s doing running things.

Arya and Sansa have never been the best of friends, despite their sisterly bond. Sansa likes nice things and being a LADY. Arya likes cutting people’s faces off and wearing them in assassination missions. You know, they’re just different people. I guess we’re going with Arya the teenage hothead here, who is still pretty bitter about their father being publicly beheaded as a traitor.

Look, Arya, Sansa is made of different stuff than you and tiny Mormont. You two are hard as hell and born on the streets. That’s just not who Sansa is. She thought she was helping your dad out when she wrote that letter condemning him and calling him a traitor. To be fair, Cersei thought Ned was gonna get to spend some quality time on The Wall with his bastard son, Jon. Joffrey screwed that whole thing up. It doesn’t matter to hothead teenage Arya, though. Betrayal for the right reasons is still betrayal.

Arya’s time in Winterfell is likely done at this point. She’s probably going to hitch a ride with Brienne to King’s Landing for a chance to take out Cersei. It’s a shame that Jon won’t get to see one of the few siblings that liked him at Winterfell, but he might see her at the tense showdown next week!

Daenerys-Jon Bone Zone Threat Level

Imminent. There was hand-holding and Queen calling. Oh boy, this is happening.

Next Episode Predictions

• Theon is kicked out of the Ironborn fleet. With nowhere else to turn, he asks Jon Snow for sanctuary. Jon agrees, with one condition. THEON BECOMES BRAN’S NEW HODOR. The dream lives!
• Jon and Dany agree to meet for a mug of ale at the end of the episode. Jon ends up frozen in a block of ice and waking up in modern day New York City.
• Arya disguises herself as Euron Greyjoy, marries Cersei, and waits all the way until their wedding night to reveal her true face and kill the Queen.
• Longclaw comes to life and sings a song for 12 minutes summing up the entire series to this point.
• George R.R. Martin makes a cameo appearance as “fat man in hat”.
• Littlefinger smirks so hard that he pulls a muscle in his face.