I agree with everyone about the lighting issues for this episode, but I'm willing to forgive all because HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARYA TICKYBOX STARK KILLED THE FUCKING NIGHT KING AND WON THE WAR AGAINST THE DEAD!

(Remember, Maisie Williams looks uncannily like Princess Tickybox. Which is pretty much the reason Arya is my forever fave.)

You know, what got the Night King in the end was the stop-and-gloat, otherwise Arya couldn't have gotten there in time.

(AND I called Arya offing the Night King!!!! Well, except for "A girl is not a man" but I thought it REALLY LOUD, okay?)

Good death, Theon. Go you, Alfie Allen, bringing the pathos that the moment truly deserved.

(I also watched with the lights out, and still couldn't make out everything. Maybe if I had an HD TV? I wonder if it will be better on DVD. )

While Arya's clearly the episode's MVP, the sneaky MVP, I thought, was Melisandre, who showed up out of nowhere with impeccable timing and actually contributed to the fucking battle. Also, Lord of Light kept bringing Beric back so that he could die saving Arya's life, and she could go onto slay the Night King, right? Melisandre saw all that, and nudged Arya toward the Weirwood Tree with that "blue eyes" comment.

Lord of Light is a hella great long-term planner, I'm just sayin'.

Her "What do we say to the god of death" reminder to Arya was great.

The night is dark and full of fog until I had trouble telling Jon and Dany apart sometimes, much less what the hell was going on elsewhere.

I'm just glad I didn't have to see Undead Ned holding his head under his arm.

I assume that the audience seeing flappy wings and thinking "friendly fire lizard?" was intentional.

I also assume that the only real reason for the dothraki flaming swords was for the visual for tv.

Do we know for sure whether Ghost died?

Do we know for sure whether Ghost died?

He shows up in next week's preview, at 0:18

Maybe if I had an HD TV?

NOPE. I have a 50" 8k TV and had to turn the contrast settings to "video game" in order to see literally ANYTHING. And squinting and hoping for the best wasn't an option because DH had to write about it.

(And because that setting also includes motion smoothing and I was too annoyed to dig into the advanced menus to turn it off, the first, oh, HOUR, of this ep just looked like someone losing badly at a GoT first person shooter.)

Don't get me wrong, that last two minutes were amazeballs, but DUDES THAT IS NOT HOW YOU LIGHT THE MOST EXPENSIVE HOUR OF TELEVISION EVER FILMED.

Is Jon's dragon dead?

Did not appreciate Bran telling Theon "You're a good man" and then neglecting entirely to say "But if you wait five minutes you won't have to die, just hang tight until my sister gets here."

So that's it, right? Only three major characters dead? Theon, Jorah, and Lyanna?

Melisandre was definitely a surprise, although I knew she had promised to come back. Without her, they would have been toast, too. I wonder how much of everything can be traced back to her? She definitely put Davos in position at Winterfell last night.

I still feel like we could have seen a little less cloudy dragon flight and a little more of Arya after she left Melisandre, because that Arya ex machina was hella convenient. Not that I won't take it, of course, or that she doesn't deserve it (because she totally does).

Favorite scenes, on reflection: all of them between Sansa and Tyrion; the Hound provoked into action at the sight of Arya; JOn screaming at Viserion simply because it was so funny and felt so believably human.

Oh! I'm also choosing to believe that "stick 'em with the pointy end" was a Buffy shoutout.