Only two plot lines in an episode of Game of Thrones? It's a miracle.
The Widow Drogo
Daenerys has returned to Meereen to find that the slave masters are laying siege to the city and half of it is on fire. Her solution is to burn everyone and everything, but Tyrion suggests a somewhat less destructive approach. They negotiate with the head masters, which involves burning one of their ships with dragon fire until their guards desert them, and slicing a couple of their throats. Afterwards, the Greyjoys arrive, and Yara suggests a sexy alliance, to which Daenerys readily agrees as long as the ironborn are willing to stop pillaging the countryside.
Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
The commanders of both northern armies meet to discuss a solution to their current conflict that won't result in thousands of men dying. Ramsay suggests that Sansa be returned to him and everyone else surrender, and Jon suggests a one-on-one battle for all the marbles. Neither solution seems workable, so they resolve to fight it out. After a strategy meeting, Tormund goes to get drunk, Davos takes a walk and finds the pyre where Stannis burned Shireen, and Jon goes to ask Melisandre to promise not to bring him back again. She tells him that if the Lord of Light wants him back, he's coming back.
The next morning, strategy immediately goes out the window when Ramsay releases Rickon and starts firing arrows at him as he runs away. Jon races to pick him up on his horse, but Lord Bolton is an excellent shot, and kills Rickon just as he's about to be saved. The youngest Stark dies in his brother's arms, and the battle truly begins as Davos orders the army to charge to save Jon from being wiped out by archers. As the two armies clash, Ramsay has his archers continue to fire, killing damn near everyone. Eventually, he sends in his heavy infantry to surround the remnants of Jon's army with an impenetrable shield wall that slowly advances, pushing their foes up the giant pile of corpses that has formed on the battlefield, where the remnants of the Umber contingent can mop them up. It's an excellent plan and would work, if not for the timely arrival of Littlefinger and the knights of the Vale. The addition of a couple thousand cavalry drastically shifts the balance of the fight, and the Bolton forces are annihilated. The few who remain retreat to Winterfell where they hope to wait things out, since Jon doesn't have enough soldiers for a siege. Unfortunately for them, there will be no siege. Despite being mortally wounded in the process, Wun Wun pounds his way through the gate and the remaining Boltons are slaughtered. While Jon shares a moment with his dying friend, Ramsay puts an arrow through the giant's eye, then reconsiders Jon's offer of single combat. Lord Snow beats Lord Bolton into unconsciousness with his bare hands, and only stops pounding his face when he sees his sister watching. The Bolton banners are thrown down, Stark banners go up, and Ramsay is tied to a chair in the kennel, where Sansa has a small chat with him before his hungry dogs tear him to pieces.
What I Liked
-Lyanna Mormont's death stare. The bear people are fucking hardcore.
-Wun Wun rips a guy in half. I do love some giant-based violence.
-Tormund kills Smalljon Umber by biting his neck and stabbing him with a tooth. That guy needed to die a violent, painful death.
-Tyrion chastises Theon for making the same short jokes that everyone else makes. It was a nice callback to the first season.
What I Hated
-Tyrion tells Daenerys about the wildfire under King's Landing for the sole purpose of reminding the audience that it's there. It's some of the most blatant re-exposition I've ever seen.
-The masters demand the return of the Unsullied. While that would've made sense immediately after Daenerys stole them, they're free men now, and won't just blindly follow orders anymore.
-I understand that he's just a child, but was a little zig-zagging too much for Rickon to figure out? I was literally yelling "Serpentine" at my TV.
-Sansa complains that Jon didn't ask for her input at the strategy meeting, then she doesn't have anything useful to say, anyway. I suppose it's nice to be asked, but why be such a whiner? She also neglects to tell Jon about her letter to Littlefinger. Now, she didn't know if the letter made it or if the Vale knights were coming, but considering when they arrived, there was plenty of time for Jon to send a scout.
-Davos finds the little stag he made for Shireen. Bull-fucking-shit. The pyre was a short walk from where the army was camped, which was clearly close enough to attack the Bolton forces at Winterfell. The whole reason Stannis burned his daughter was that he needed the snow to melt so he could move his army within striking distance. Based on how far Davos had to walk, that was apparently an additional 200m or so.
-The giant pile of corpses. It made for a fine visual and an interesting set piece, but its existence made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
-The gate at Winterfell breaks way too easily. Even without a giant, Jon's army would've been able to break through without much difficulty. Plus the walls of the castle must be U-shaped or something, since they seem to range in height from 5-15m.
-Yet another battle won thanks to the last-second arrival of allied forces. That's at least the third time that's happened, and it's getting a little predictable.
Final Thoughts
Who the hell is even left alive in the North at this point? As far as I can tell they're down to a few hundred members of Jon's army, the wildlings who were too old or too young to fight, and whatever houses refused to participate in the battle. Damn near everyone else must be dead at this point, so I have no idea how they're going to hold the North against any kind of army, let alone an army of undead.
Littlefinger had exactly as many lines in this episode as Rickon: 0. Should've taught the kid some Maze Running skills.
While he definitely needed to be a shitlord right to the end, and killing a badly wounded enemy is certainly shitlordy, if Ramsay was able to put an arrow right through Wun Wun's eye, he could have easily shot Jon in the head, since he was right there. The remnants of the army still would have killed him, but at least he would've taken his rival down with him. But why even stick around at Winterfell when it became obvious that the battle was lost? He was still Lord of the Dreadfort, and he could've retreated there to plan and rebuild his forces over the winter.
Speaking of Wun Wun, why didn't he have armour or at least a club of some kind? A couple layers of leather and a fallen tree would've made him into an unstoppable force.
There's absolutely no doubt that Jon is protected by the Lord of Light at this point. A rain of arrows fell all around him and left a little Jon-shaped outline on the ground.
Where the hell was Ghost? I guess they spent all the cgi money on dragons this week.
I really expected someone to turn on Ramsay in the middle of the battle, particularly since he had his archers kill a substantial portion of his own men. But, I guess the North doesn't remember diddly shit.
The dragons could apparently burst out of their prison any time they wanted. I guess they stayed down there because they liked it.
The battle in Meereen ended far too quickly and easily. Even if the dragons were eventually going to sink their fleet, it's not like the masters couldn't have done serious damage to the city and maybe even killed Rhaegal and Viserion with some lucky shots. Also, from a show standpoint, it was completely unnecessary to have the battle at all. They could have just as easily had the masters accept Tyrion's deal, then completely ignored them. We didn't learn anything new about any of the characters, so it was basically an excuse to finally show the dragons doing something and to get Daenerys some more ships after her original fleet was inexplicably burned.
While the dragons torching the warship was fun, and a lot of the battle of the bastards was well-shot, this episode just had too many flaws for me to thoroughly enjoy it.
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