GoT Ep 803 "The Long Night"
Image via HBO
David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Miguel Sapochnik - along with the cast and crew of Game of Thrones - have created television history with the battle for Winterfell, and the living.
The episode opens on Samwell Tarly's shaking hands as people scurry about getting ready for the battle at hand. While the soldiers are grabbing their weapons and getting into formation, those who cannot fight are heading down to the crypts for safety. Tyrion, commanded by his queen Daenerys, is one of those people and he makes sure to grab a big bag of wine on his way down.
Theon and the Ironborn take Bran to the godswood where they will lay a trap for the Night King with Bran/Three-Eyed Raven as the bait in order to lure him in so that Daenerys and Jon can kill him with dragon fire.
Once everyone makes it to their position, it's quiet enough to hear a pin drop until we begin to hear the wind and snow the Night King always brings with him to battle. That's all we can hear for a good few minutes, creating one of the tensest moments of the episode.
Ghost will be joining Jorah and the Dothraki as a first line of defense against the Others and Daenerys and Jon are waiting with Drogon and Rhaegal on a hilltop near the castle. Sansa is with Arya on one of the battlements for the moment, instead of being down in the crypts with the other non-fighters.
As everyone waits for something to happen, a lone rider comes into focus in front of Ser Jorah. It is none other than Melisandre of Asshai, returning just in time for the battle between the light and the dark. She looks at the Dothraki and asks Jorah if he speaks their tongue. After he replies yes, she tells him to command them to lift their arakhs. She goes to the nearest Dothraki rider and grabs his arakh while reciting a spell. The arakh lights up with fire, which quickly spreads to all of the other Dothraki arakhs as well. She passes Grey Worm and the Unsullied on her way to the gates of Winterfell and says, "valar morghulis," while Grey Worm replies, "valar dohearis." Ser Davos sees her approach and goes to meet her, wondering if she is playing some sort of trick and is ready to dole out some justice for Shireen. When she sees him, she tells him there is no reason to execute her because she will be dead before the dawn. When she says this, she looks at Arya knowingly on the wall.
I'm not really sure why this was the gameplan, but the Dothraki begin yelling and ride out into the darkness to begin the fight. Grey Worm gives the order to begin releasing balls of fire from the catapults. There is a moment of hope while the others wait for the Dothraki to reach the enemy but it's quickly dashed when they reach their destination and go quiet while their lighted arakhs extinguish into oblivion. Grey Worm calls a cease-fire and out of the darkness, a few of the men are running back. Ser Jorah falls back as well. Dany also sees that the Dothraki are in trouble and it pushes her to go against the plan and take Drogon to try and help them. Jon tries to hold her back but she feels responsible for them since they are part of her army and she will not wait. This forces Jon to mount Rhaegal and follow her, leaving Bran with no dragons to protect him in the godswood.
The soldiers begin to hear the dead as they approach Winterfell in the dark. They attack on all sides, hitting not only the Unsullied but Brienne and her warriors as well. Brienne almost gets taken out until Jaime saves her. Dany pops out of the sky on Drogon and immediately begins setting fire to the wight soldiers. Jon is there as well but breaks away when he sees something else in the sky. Things are not going well and Arya tells Sansa to head down to the crypts immediately. She gives Sansa a dragonglass dagger and when Sansa says she doesn't know how to use it, Arya tells her to "stick them with the pointy end."
Outside the gates, Ser Jorah continues to fight. Sam almost gets killed but is quickly saved by Dolorous Edd Tollett, who in turn is killed by a different wight. (And now his watch has ended). Sansa makes her way down to the crypts where Tyrion and the others look to her for a glimmer of hope. Tyrion can instantly tell by the look on Sansa's face that the news is not good.
Jon searches for the Night King but can hardly see due to the blizzard. Dany flys into him almost knocking him to the ground. The soldiers below are falling back inside the walls of Winterfell while Grey Worm and the Unsullied give them cover. Jon makes it back to the castle and lands Rhaegal on top of one of the walls, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Night King. Arya is releasing fire arrows at the dead and Grey Worm yells at Davos to signal Daenerys to light the trenches, another part of their defense. Dany is still out in the storm and can't see the signal. The gates open again and Melisandre comes out. She uses a spell to try and light the trenches but it's not working. She hears everything going on around her and begins to doubt her powers until it finally lights up, creating a ring of fire around the castle. Dany is able to find her way back and heads toward the castle to start burning the wights again until they begin to stand still. They can't cross the fire and can no longer fight, for the time being.
Varys jokes with the others in the crypt that if they die at least they are already in a crypt. Tyrion is going crazy not being able to see what is going on up above. He wants to go to the walls because he thinks he could see something the others are missing. Sansa tells him he wouldn't do any good, he would only die. The reason they are down there is that they are not warriors. Tyrion jokes that the two of them should've stayed married and Sansa says he was the best of her two husbands, but it wouldn't have worked between them because of the dragon queen. Their divided loyalties would've become a problem. Missandei overhears Sansa and says yes, the dragon queen is the problem because if not for her they would all already be dead.
The Ironborn are still waiting for the fight to reach them in the godswood. Theon uses the time to apologize to Bran for seizing Winterfell so many years ago and making Bran flee. Bran stops him and says that everything Theon did brought him to where he is now, home. Bran tells Theon he is going now and before Theon can ask him what he means, Bran's eyes roll back in his head and the ravens begin to fly from the castle, searching for the Night King.
And then, we see the Night King sitting on Viserion. He reaches out his hand and the wights down below begin to walk into the fire surrounding the castle. The soldiers are confused as to what they are doing since it just looks like they are killing themselves but the Night King's plan starts to unfold. As more and more of the dead pile up on the fire, it creates a pathway for the rest to cross over. The archers try to take them down but there are too many. The dead begin climbing the walls. Brienne and Jaime fight back to back as the dead begin to make their way over the wall.
Arya begins fighting with her two bladed staff. The Hound is having a total panic attack because of all of the fire. Down below, a wight Giant breaks through the gate, throwing Lyanna Mormont off to the side. Arya gets knocked down by some wights and gets a head wound. Beric Dondarrion tries to help snap the Hound out of his fear but the Hound screams that they can't beat the dead. Arya comes flying over them onto one of the roofs and Beric says to tell her that.
The giant is taking everyone down. Lyanna Mormont gets up and runs towards him. He picks her up and we can hear her bones breaking in his grasp. He looks like he's about to bite her head off when she stabs him in the eye with dragonglass and he falls with the tiny warrior still in his hand.
Dany and Jon spot the Night King and pursue him. They fly up above the storm in order to try and see, when the Night King comes out of nowhere and has Viserion start spewing blue ice-fire at them. As they both hold onto their dragons for dear life, he disappears. They look at each other and plunge back into the storm after him.
Arya is in the library surrounded by wights. They don't know she is in there yet and she ducks and hides, reminding me of the velociraptor scene in the very first Jurassic Park. She makes it out the door and stops to breathe when the wights crash through another door close by. She runs for her life.
The people in the crypts can hear the noise above and can tell that the dead have made it through the gates. Men begin screaming outside the door, begging for them to open it and let them in, but their cries are soon muffled as they are overrun by the dead.
Beric Dondarrion and the Hound are walking through the castle when they bump into Arya. Beric throws his sword at one of the wights to save her. He gets wounded multiple times while fighting and the Hound keeps grabbing Arya and running into one of the rooms. Arya props Beric up against the wall, but he is already dead. Then she sees that Melisandre is in the room with them. Melisandre says the Lord of Light brought Beric back to life so many times for a purpose and now that purpose has been fulfilled. Arya recognizes the red woman and tells her she was right. Arya did kill lots of people. People with brown eyes and green eyes. Melisandre also says Arya kills some with blue eyes as well. Then she asks Arya, "what do we say to the god of death" and Arya replies, "not today" as she leaves the Hound and Melisandre in the room and goes back out to fight.
Jon catches up with the Night King and Rhaegal and Viserion get into an aerial battle. The Night King tries to get Rhaegal with one of his ice spears but can't get a good shot. Rhaegal holds his own and ends up biting off half of Viserion's face, all while being clawed at. Then Dany arrives with Drogon and helps Jon out. The Night King falls off of Viserion onto the ground. Rhaegal falls to the ground throwing Jon off of his back. Ser Jorah hears the dragons crying and rushes to find Daenerys because he knows she must be in trouble. Dany sees the Night King on the ground and says, "dracarys." Drogon unleashes fire on the Night King, consuming him. Dany holds her breath, waiting for the flames to disappear and expecting to see a crispy Night King, but when the fire goes out the Night King stands there with a smirk. (We all knew it wouldn't be that simple). The Night King throws his ice spear at Drogon and Dany flies away, barely missing being hit.
The Night King begins walking towards Winterfell but Jon is following him. The Night King knows it too. He stops and turns around and begins to lift his arms as he did at Hardhome when raising the dead. Jon knows what this means and runs towards the Night King to end him before he can raise all of their fallen soldiers, as well as his own. The dead begin rising before Jon can make it to the Night King and he is surrounded. (You know, if the Night King is so powerful, why is he so afraid to fight Jon one on one?) The Night King begins walking back towards Winterfell. Dany swoops down on Drogon to help Jon by burning the wights around him. Drogon lands on the ground and begins to get overrun with the dead. He accidentally knocks Dany off his back and flys off, trying to shake the wights off.
Jon goes after the Night King and heads towards the godswood, but he gets derailed by a crazy Viserion who is flying around spitting blue stuff everywhere. Jon continually gets pinned down while watching his friends be overrun around him. He knows the only way he can help them is to stay focused and kill the Night King.
The wights finally make it to the godswood and the Ironborn make their last heroic stand. Bran is still warging outside of his body. They are being overrun and all of them except Theon are dead. Theon has killed all the wights and takes a breath as Bran wargs back into his own body. Just when Theon thinks things have calmed down, he looks around to see a whole new batch of wights, but they move aside as the Night King's generals walk into the godswood with the Night King behind them. He goes to grab another arrow, but he is out. Bran tells Theon he is a good man and thanks him. Theon nods to Bran and grabs a dragonglass spear in a last attempt to rush the Night King and stab him. The Night King is ready and ends up shoving a spear through Theon instead, leaving Bran defenseless and alone.
Down below, the dead Starks begin breaking out of their graves attacking the people in the crypts. Tyrion and Sansa hide. They share a moment before they both pull out dragonglass daggers to try and make a run for it. He kisses her hand and they run to others that are hiding.
Dany is about to be overrun outside the walls when Ser Jorah comes to her rescue. She grabs a sword and helps him fight the wights. He gets stabbed multiple times while protecting Dany. And, Jon has had enough of Viserion and decides the only way to get past him is to stand up and start screaming at the dragon. I almost thought he was going to hop on him and take control.
The Night King walks towards Bran. He grabs the ice sword from his back, when out of nowhere, Arya flies at him with her Valyrian steel dagger in hand. The Night King grabs her by the throat, causing her to drop the dagger, but she grabs it with her other hand and jabs it into his chest where the Children of the Forest stabbed him with dragonglass. The Night King bursts into oblivion and all of his soldiers go down with him.
The dead fall around all of our favorite characters and the battle has been won. Not without a cost though. Ser Jorah falls from his wounds and dies in Dany's arms as Drogon lands and curls up around her. As the sun rises, Melisandre walks through the gates and throws down her ruby necklace. As Ser Davos follows her, wondering what she may be up to, he sees her turn into an old woman and fall.
Final death toll: Ser Jorah Mormont, Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, Theon Greyjoy, Dolorous Edd, Lyanna Mormont, and probably most of the Dothraki. Hopefully one or two made it out alive. And last but not least, the Night King and his army, with Arya using the very same dagger to save Bran that was used to attack him in season 1.
Such a beautiful and literally dark episode. I know some fans complained about how dark it was, causing it to be hard to see some scenes if you were watching on a smaller screen. I believe that was a creative choice and one of the big reasons for the fire surrounding the castle, other than fire being able to kill the dead. The music, lovely as always, was very close to the Light of the Seven, which plays in season 6. It had an apocalyptic ring to it back then, so it definitely fits in with the tone of this episode.
Now, whoever is left, can regroup and head down to Kings Landing to kick Cersei's butt! Three episodes left!