I had mixed feelings about the episode. My opinions:
Things I liked:
Unlike some viewers, I actually liked the fact that Arya was the one to kill the Night King. Her entire character arc has been to turn her into the deadliest assassin in the seven kingdoms. In my opinion, it was absolutely right that she was the one who managed to sneak past the White Walkers and get close enough to the Night King to do him in. (You see one of the White Walkers turn his head right before, and I think that's supposed to be Arya sneaking through.) I think Arya is the best-developed character on the show. She took her licks, endured all sorts of grueling training, and earned her victories the hard way. She's the complete opposite of Dragon Sue in that regard. And Maisie Williams is a fantastic actress.
Sansa's and Tyrion's conversation was a nice moment.
Music was pretty good.
We saw Ghost get some action, though only briefly.
Arya sneaking around in the library--or whatever that room was--was pretty cool and a nice bit of dramatic tension.
Things I disliked:
The lighting. I'm sick of these night-time battles where you can't follow the action because you can't freakin' see anything.
The good guys' strategy. A full frontal charge into the darkness with cavalry? Bonehead maneuver and a waste of Dothraki. Also, too many soldiers outside the walls and not enough inside. The walls are the best defense multiplier they had, and that should have been the main focus of the strategy.
Dragons weren't utilized as well as they could have been.
Sam reverted back to the coward, basically nullifying his whole character arc.
It would have been pretty horrifying for zombie Ned Stark to bust out of his crypt and come face-to-face with Sansa, and that's why it should have happened. It didn't, though. Wasted opportunity.
Jon playing hide-and-seek with the zombie dragon. I'm still not sure of the whole point of that.
I'll probably think of a few more things later, but that's what stick in my mind at the moment.
I'm not exaggerating when I say tonight's episode represented the kind of writing you see from sixth graders on a writing assignment.
How far this show has fallen.
Honestly, tonight's episode felt like it was written in some 12-year-old's fantasy of how an epic story should play out.
Really, the show has not been good for nearly four seasons now, but lately it's gone off the deep end of plot contrivances, deus ex machina, and horrid logic.
There was a noticeable change in the writing when the show writers ran out of book material and had to start coming up with stuff on their own.
SPOILERS AHEAD:I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. And I just want to say off the hop, the following saltiness isn't aimed at you, it's aimed at the GOT showrunners who I feel have done their level best to ruin a franchise I love.
RE: Arya
I find Arya's arc to be illogical to the point of comedy. We saw her train a bit with Syrio in S1, and then she traveled around with those poor souls headed for the Wall and then later with the Hound. She received lessons in the harshness of the world and the coldness of the people living in it, but didn't receive much in the way of fight training other than some self-led water dance practice steps here and there during that time.
Then she goes to Braavos to the House of Black and White and her training consists of some assassination gigs that don't require much in the way of ninja skills other than some stabby stabby or using poison. And then it's about getting the crap beat out of her by the Waif while blind for a while.
She does manage to learn to use her staff with some precision, but then she's totally outclassed by the Waif in boxing class. Point is, at no point in the show do we see her in Braavos turning into the kind of superhero ninja assassin we're seeing her as now, at know point was she "owning" anyone. She was routinely beat up by the Waif. We were not shown her ever becoming the kind of fighter that could match or even best Brienne in a skirmish. I mean the show now makes her look like she could fight just about anyone, and that's so ridiculous given everything we've seen in the show.
Oh, and then there was that ridiculousness where she's stabbed in the gut repeatedly, then survives the jump into sewer water and after a night of rest she's running and leaping through the streets to elude the Waif doing a full-on T-1000 routine.
It's like the showrunners were so high on her character they just went ahead and leveled her up to a ridiculous degree and it totally feels unearned.
I don't disagree that Maisie Williams can act, but man I wish she'd had better material to work with.
Then there's Tyrion. Another ruined character. His cleverness apparently is too much for the showrunners to handle. He and Varys both have been reduced to Greek chorus status, or the two guys in the balcony on the Muppets, only with a penchant for toilet humor.
Aside from them and speaking more broadly, I don't even think it's an exaggeration to say at least 50% of the dialogue in S8E3, if not most of the dialogue this season in general, is old recycled lines from seasons past.
I don't even know why they bothered bringing Ghost back. I mean, if you've killed off all of the other direwolves, but you've spared this one, then maybe there's a reason? But, no, no point in looking for reason for anything with this show. The dragon scenes were so bad I thought maybe I was watching a big budget retelling of an 8 year old's play session with action figures. Really, this entire episode felt that way.
Yeah, I'm pretty salty about all of this. I apologize if I'm coming across as antagonistic, that's not my intent. But I really care about ASOIAF and for a long time I cared about the show, and it pains me to see how it's been treated.
I feel like the showrunners have insulted fans' intelligence with this mess. I feel like they underestimate the audience and are trying to pass off lazy, incoherent writing under the guise of BRIGHT, SHINY spectacle. Characters and world building this deep deserve better than that.
As far as book material goes, I also have a problem there too (who'd-a thunk it?
). The showrunners could have used books four and five and adapted them far more closely than they did in the seasons after S4. They deliberately chose to move away from that source material and that's another reason why I heap criticism on them for how the show has gone since, and it's also why I am reticent to criticize GRRM for just how far the show has fallen.
Needless to say, I can't wait for GRRM's conclusion to the series. I have little doubt book 6 is finished and he and the publisher have been waiting for the show to wrap up before releasing to maximize impact.