But when it came to the sheer amount of shortcuts and familiar action beats meant to ratchet up the tension, 'Beyond the Wall' was often beyond the pale. With three fewer episodes this season, narrative expediency can be given a pass in most cases. And yet almost every decision made that led up to Dany's arrival felt too convenient, while every storytelling beat felt a little too familiar.
It looked arguably better than the already impressive display she put on in episode 4, too. It was a thrilling moment when Dany and Drogon swooped in and laid waste to the wights slowly overwhelming Jon, Beric, Tormund, the Hound, and the others. The effects of altering the pace have led to some major events happening in the blink of an eye, and the show doing the hard sell on Jon being a Targaryen or Gilly finding proof of Rhaegar's marriage annulment without much in the way of build-up or follow through. Generally, there would be several episodes to decide the fate of various characters, not to mention show their usually slow decision-making process and the long journey from one end of Westeros to the next. This season of Game of Thrones has delivered is fair share of shortcuts to speed things along and keep the action beats coming at a much faster clip than they would under normal circumstances. It's a tried and true formula that has been successful for Weiss and Benioff and it holds true here, as the 75-minute episode goes big on the spectacle, even when it comes at the expense of a logical narrative. That leaves plenty of room for the final episode to be a mixture of denouement and set up for what's to come. 'Beyond the Wall' is in keeping with the series' tradition of delivering a massive set piece in the lead up to the season finale.
#Game of thrones beyond the wall ratings series
Essentially, Game of Thrones takes an already bad situation and, as the series has done on many occasions, makes that bad situation much, much worse. That may be a little too on the nose, but considering HBO's been leaking like a sieve lately, would it have really mattered? Besides, the death of a dragon isn't really the big news here it's the Night King bringing the dragon to back to life. As such, a better title for the episode might have been 'How to Kill Your Dragon'. In the end, though, the major build up to the end of the season came with the death of a major character: one of Dany's great dragons. But with the Hound, Tormund, Gendry, Jorah, Beric (as well as his sweet flaming sword), and more on hand, the episode was in a far better position to deliver than the heroes who so boldly chose to challenge the undead (and the elements). With season 7 being truncated to the degree it has been, 'Beyond the Wall' faced a challenge nearly as overwhelming as the one Jon and his band of merry men have undertaken.
The task at hand promised the kind of epic adventure to which Game of Thrones has typically committed the penultimate episodes of the season.
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