The Battle of Winterfell saw the defeat of the Night King, but at a cost. Sunday’s third episode of season 8 was a hugely suspenseful and intense 82 minutes of action and thrills that witnessed the demise of Theon Greyjoy, Jorah Mormont, Lyanna Mormont, Dolorous Edd, Beric Dondarrion and Melisandre. It was a steep price, yet perhaps not nearly as steep as what you were expecting—pretty much the entire core of fan favorites made it through okay, such as the Starks, Lannisters, Targaryens, Sam, Brienne, and The Hound. Oh, and can you believe this: The crypts? Not safe during a zombie attack. Not safe at all!
This was an episode the cast and crew famously spent 55 nights filming (plus several more weeks inside a studio). Have there ever been so many different types of action intercut into one story? There was a field battle, zombie horror, a castle under siege, and an aerial dragon-on-dragon fight. Yet none of the storylines were only focused on fighting. Each had moments where the characters could shine, often in heartbreaking or rousing ways.
Once again director Miguel Sapochnik (“The Battle of the Bastards”) has made an action epic that manages to weave character-driven stories through clear and comprehensible battle (we’ll talk about the “too dark” complaint in a moment). So many lavish Hollywood summer blockbusters have muddled, physics-defying, and downright dull smash-and-bash action while GoT continues to make every fight unique, compelling, and grounded. This was TV’s most relentless and mammoth battle ever, a super-sized series of setpieces that never wore out its welcome and generated constant dread and nerve-wracking suspense.
Before we recap the episode, let’s discuss a big debate about the episode: Was the episode—appropriately titled “The Long Night”—too dark, lighting-wise? (Skip the next three paragraphs if you don’t care). GoT has always had some really dark scenes. I often get murky photos from HBO that I sneakily brighten up a tad before posting online. I was able to clearly follow the action on a TV that is big and bright and in a dark room. At the same time, a lot of people say they struggled to make out the action, and when I switched to watching the episode on a 20” computer monitor I had a tougher time following along.
I guess the question is: How optimal of viewing conditions should be required to watch the show? The episode seemed to push the envelope in terms of having a lot of darkness combined with a blizzard of debris (thanks, Night King). As I write this, I’m reminded of an executive at HBO’s new corporate overlords AT&T who made the amazingly boneheaded declaration that the network should cut down GoT episodes to 20 minutes each so people could enjoy them more on their phones. I’m not in the “all shows must be perfect for all devices” camp. GoT is full of visual detail and should be watched on as large of a screen as possible. But given the larger number of fans out there all echoing the same “I couldn’t follow it” complaint, I do wonder if the episode could have been a bit clearer so larger percentage of viewers could have enjoyed it more.
Ultimately, the way “The Long Night” looks is intentional. The producers put an enormous amount of effort into this episode and they likely knew a percentage of viewers would have this issue. Showrunner David Benioff once said his favorite drama series ending was The Sopranos with its divisive cut to black that prompted so much debate; “The Long Night” could be, in its own way, a variation on that—some will hail the episode as a challenging gothic masterpiece and others will call it frustrating.
Getting into the episode itself, I fired off one meager tweet near the beginning and then just stopped using social media for the rest of the episode, which is a pretty high compliment—I was so gripped that I just wanted to sit back and enjoy. Like “Battle of the Bastards,” some of the strongest moments were in the ramp up to the fighting: Tyrion regarding the preparations with silent dread. The inky black battlefield. Ramin Djawadi’s jittery score. The arrival of Melisandre like a lone horsewoman of the apocalypse. The first wave of Dothraki charging the Army of the Dead and their flaming swords getting extinguished like fireflies (“Why do that?” I yell from the couch. “Let them come to you!”).
And so many other moments that stick out: That brief impossibly romantic shot of Jon and Dany on their respective dragons above the clouds against the moonlight. Arya creeping around the library like the velociraptors-in-the-kitchen scene in Jurassic Park. Theon’s suicidal charge. Beric’s arms extended in the doorway, Christ-like, getting zombie-shanked. Drogon swarmed with wights and trying to shake them off like killer fleas. Daenerys breaking down and weeping like we’ve never heard before at the death of Jorah Mormont. The Night King’s once-in-a-million fractional smile after surviving a blast of Drogon’s fire. That long continuous shot following Jon through the castle.
One very subtle bit that particularly chilled me: When Jon Snow saw Samwell Tarley getting swarmed by wights and he didn’t stop moving. Because we know that under any other circumstances, Jon would have immediately run to save his best friend. But the situation was so dire, the stakes so high, it was every man for himself and Jon had to keep his focus on finding the Night King. There were several moments like that where you felt this sense of helplessness.
There were also times I wished there were fewer wights shown invading the castle. When you’re seeing what looks like hundreds of zombies swarming around you start to get that Starship Troopers “but nobody could survive that!” feeling, especially when the action cuts to a quiet moment with a character and you’re wondering why they’re not being overrun.
