The sixth episode of Games of Thrones‘ seventh season, Beyond the Wall, gives us a better glimpse of the White Walker’s army of wights. Jon Snow and crew are on a mission to capture a wight prisoner to prove to Cersei that the threat of the undead is real. It leads them to a dangerous confrontation with the army of the undead in the middle of the northern wasteland. Meanwhile, Arya and Sansa are having a heated disagreement about their motives and how Winterfell should be led. Beyond the Wall brought lots of action in a short amount of time (for more than one reason). Beware of spoilers below…
Game of Thrones Episode 6 – Beyond The Wall
Beyond The Wall spends much of the episode following Jon Snow and crew as they trek through the northern wild lands. The men converse and bicker while they trek across the barren landscape. Gendry vents to the Brotherhood about being sold to Melisandre. He says she strapped him to a table and put leaches on him to which the Hound tells him to “quit bitching about it”. Jorah and Jon talk about the Lord Commander’s passing. Jon tells him that he avenged his father’s death. Jon also expresses to Jorah that he wishes his own father’s death would have been more noble than being beheaded as traitor. He tells Jorah that he is glad that Ned didn’t catch him. At this point, Jon gives Longclaw to Jorah since it belonged to his family, but Jorah says he brought shame to his house and broke his father’s heart. Because of this, he has forfeited the right to claim the sword and gives it back to Jon.
Arya tells Sansa that her first time shooting a bow was when Bran left his bow lying around one day after practice. She tells of only having one arrow and having to walk back and forth retrieving the arrow each time. Thinking she was alone, she worked until she finally hit a bullseye. When she hit it, she heard her father clapping above.
She then turns to Sansa and tells her that their father was killed with Sansa’s help. At which point, she reads the note she retrieved from Little Finger, which tries to persuade Robb to swear fealty to Joffrey. Arya tells of watching Sansa standing idly by Joffrey as their father’s head was chopped off. Sansa takes offense to this and says Arya should thank her for being back at Winterfell and tells her that she was the one who brought the knights of the Vale to Winterfell and won it back. Arya leaves unconvinced of her sisters innocence.
Later on, Little Finger and Sansa talk about the damage that the letter could do if its existence became known. Sansa says that Arya would betray her if she thought that she would betray Jon. Little Finger suggests that Sansa enlist Brienne to take care of Arya. His greedy little paws never stop trying to influence people for his own gain.
Sansa receives an invitation from Cersei to come to King’s Landing. She decides to send Brienne instead because she thinks Cersei will imprison her if she were to go herself. Brienne tells her it is not safe to leave her with Little Finger because he cannot be trusted. She reiterates her sworn oath to Catelyn to protect her daughters, but Sansa is not swayed and sends her on the journey.
Later in the episode, Sansa is snooping in Arya’s room and finds her bag of masks, which obviously creeps her out. When she turns around, Arya has sneaked into the room and caught her. She calmly makes her play what she calls the game of lies. Arya asks her how she feels about Jon being king. Sansa doesn’t answer. Arya tells her about the faces and says she can become anyone, even Sansa. She picks up a knife and walks toward her, wondering aloud what it would be like to be her sister. She says, “All I would need… is your face.” Then she hands Sansa the knife and walks out.
As Jon Snow and crew continue north beyond the wall, Tormund and the Hound have a conversation as he goads the hound by asking if he fell into a fire. Tormund also tells the Hound about his desire for Brienne, and says he wants to make babies with her. Beric and Jon talk about both being brought back from the dead by the Lord of the Light, although Beric tells him he has been brought back five more times than Jon. He also tells Jon that the reason he fights is for life, not for someone to sit on a throne. They then see a mountain in the distance, and the Hound recognizes it as the mountain that he saw in his vision in the fire.
While they continue their trek beyond the wall, Daenerys and Tyrion have a somewhat tense exchange back at Dragonstone. She tells Tyrion that she likes him because he is not a hero because heroes do stupid things. While they talk, Tyrion tells her that Jon likes her to which she says that he is too little for her. They then speak about Daenerys finally meeting Cersei. Tyrion says they will go with an army and three dragons. He also tells her she needs to be ruthless, but not instill fear because that’s what the other rulers did. Tyrion tells her that she lost her temper when she burnt the Tarly’s, but she disagrees. They discuss who will succeed the throne since Daenerys cannot have children, which angers her. She questions why Tyrion is planning for her death and asks him if he discussed it with his brother while at King’s Landing. He says he is only planning for the long term, but she tells him that she wishes he would plan for the short term.
Back in the North, the men are continuing their journey in a blizzard, and guess what? They come across a zombie polar bear beyond the wall! It races towards them and quickly snatches one of them before it disappears for a moment. The men huddle up as it attacks again. It injures several of the them, and is then set on fire by Beric’s flaming sword . After a tense struggle, it is finally killed by Tormund as it mauls Thoros. Thoros tells Beric to “Go On”, and he burns the wound his flaming sword.
They then spy a small regiment of the undead walking through a valley from above. It consists of one White Walker and several wights. They set a fire as a decoy and when the group comes to investigate, they attack. As they battle, Jon kills the White Walker and all but one wight falls to the ground. It appears that killing a White Walker also kills any wights it has turned. They capture the one remaining wight but it screams out alerting the rest of the army as they subdue it.
They see the army approaching, and Jon quickly instructs Gendry to run to Eastwatch and send a Raven to Dragonstone to inform Daenerys of what is happening as they flee with the walker. They run onto a frozen lake with thin ice as the dead descend upon them. The ice begins cracking beneath their feet but they run anyway as the dead are pursuing and beginning to encircle them. The men stop on a small island in the middle of the lake. They are trapped as the army begins to close in around them, but the ice starts collapsing as they do, creating a perimeter to keep them at bay. The army of wights cannot get to them, but the men cannot leave either. They are stuck beyond the wall.
Gendy runs until he collapses just outside of the wall at Eastwatch. Davos retrieves him and he delivers his message. Daenerys receives the message and readies herself to head beyond the wall to help Jon. As she does, Tyrion cautions her against going and says she should stay because all is lost if she doesn’t return. She hears him, but she goes anyway… with three dragons.
The men sit on the rock all night, trapped. The Hound kicks the prisoner and the rest of the army reacts. Thoros dies and they burn his body using the flaming sword. Beric tells Jon that they must kill the White Walkers to beat the wights. The Hound is bored and begins throwing rocks at the wights. One rock is thrown short and slides all the way until it reaches the army. A single wight sees that the lake has refrozen and starts to move forward. Others follow and the battle is on.
The men are doing everything they can to fight them off, but they are being overrun. Jon tells them to fall back as Tormund is overran and is nearly dragged into the water, narrowly saved by the Hound. They keep battling the lost cause as they are backed up to the edge of the small cliff with no escape. Just when it all seems lost, Daenerys arrives and engulfs large sections of the wights in flames.
She continues making several passes, melting ice and incinerating wights, but then the Ice King approaches. He grabs his staff, takes aim at a dragon, throws it, and kills one of the Daenerys’ dragon’s, Viserion. The other men, with the captured wight in tow, have climbed aboard Drogon with Daenerys. Jon sees more wights coming for them and yells for Daenerys to go as he runs toward her, but he is sucked underwater by one of wights. Drogon takes flight and the Ice King attempts to throw another spear, but misses as Drogon narrowly dodges it. Jorah nearly falls off from the swerve, but the Hound saves him.
Jon makes it out of the water somehow and is nearly overtaken again, but Cold Hands (Uncle Benjen) shows up just in time to save him. He gives his horse to Jon, and tells him to ride. As Jon rides off on the horse, Uncle Benjen appears to be overtaken by the wights. Back at Eastwatch, Daenerys stares out over the wall and turns away to leave as a rider is approaching from the North. It is Jon. He has made his way back, nearly frozen to death. He is taken to their ship and as they remove his clothes, Daenerys sees that he actually was stabbed in the heart and many other places.
On the boat back to Dragonstone, Jon wakes up with Daenerys sitting beside him. He tells her that he is sorry and grabs her hand. He wishes he could take it back, wishes that they hadn’t gone. She tells him that she is glad they went because she wouldn’t have really believed it if she hadn’t seen the army with her own eyes. She gives him her word that she will help him destroy the Ice King. He says, “Thank you Dany”. This sets her back and she tells him the last one who called her that was her father or her brother. He tells her that she deserves the crown.
Back in the North, the Ice King has ordered the wights to pull the dead dragon out of the water. Once they get it out, the Ice King approaches and lays a hand on Viserion. The last thing we see is Viserion’s now blue eye as the Ice King brings him back to life as part of his army.
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