Rhienne

To be fair, it would be fairly easy for Bran to prove his abilities by revealing things he shouldn't know to anyone who doubted him. And the document from the Citadel could be retrieved (albeit with more effort).

I don't think Jon and Viserion's scene had anything to do with Arya. I would love it if it did, as it would be emotional and very in-character for Jon to risk himself to let someone else get a shot at the Night King, but I really think we are clutching at straws here. If you have to re-watch the scene three times and pause at exactly the right second to vaguely half-convince yourself that Jon might be shouting something that sounds a bit like 'Go!' then it probably isn't really there. If the writers wanted Jon to be involved in helping Arya get to the Night King they would have made it more obvious. I totally agree with you about this, and have no problem with the Game of Thrones being the main part of the show and the Night King being a sideline. The issue I have is with how the particular sideline of the Night King was resolved. It left too many unanswered questions that are now unlikely to be resolved because they are meaningless to the competition for the Iron Throne, e.g. Bran's powers, the Night King's motivation, many of the intriguing types of magic involved in the show. Its very unsatisfying for a viewer or reader to be left with unresolved mysteries and poorly closed story lines whether they are the main plot or a side element.

I gave this episode a 2. There were a couple of scenes I enjoyed, but overall it felt disjointed, poorly directed, cliched, and unbalanced. Good Things Lyanna Mormont's death - that was a seriously awesome way to go and matched her character and little arc perfectly. Ghost - at least he made an appearance (but it's fairly sad that just seeing Ghost on screen for 1-2 seconds counts as a positive now) Dothraki charge - this was one of the few moments in the battle that had any kind of emotional impact for me. It was dramatic, beautiful and powerful to watch, and was a great way to set the tone of hopelessness at the beginning of the battle. Seeing Daenerys' horror to it added to the impact. Melisandre's scenes - apart from her bizarre appearance out of nowhere, I thought her acting was superb and her role was fitting. The contrast between her aloofly commanding the Dothraki to hold their swords up so she could light them with fire to her panicking over being unable to light the trenches was a really good choice for showing the tide of the battle going against the living. The Night King meeting Bran - I have issues with almost everything else to do with the Night King and Bran in this episode, but I thought Isaac's poise and opaqueness worked really well as the Night King approached him, especially with the accompanying music. Theon's (second) redemption - I personally felt that Theon had already redeemed himself by helping Sansa escape, but his death certainly drove that nail home. Bran validating his right to claim Winterfell as home was a really lovely end to his character, especially after he had left Yara to come and fight for Sansa/Winterfell. Things That Were Meh Scenes in the Crypts - these just did nothing for me. I normally really enjoy Sansa's and Tyrion's scenes, but I just felt generally underwhelmed by the dialogue, and the sudden closeness between Sansa and Tyrion seemed unnatural. I think there was a lot of waste potential here, with the possibility of bringing back characters that would have been recognisable to Sansa, not to mention the dire wolves buried there. Brienne and Jamie - this episode really drove home the importance of dialogue. I just didn't care about any of their scenes in the battle at all. Arya killing the Night King - I'm ok with Arya being the one to kill the Night King, but I don't think it was well executed. Bad Things Direction - This battle scene felt really poorly stitched together. I didn't really understand how the battle was going, have time to recognise who was doing what on screen, or know where different characters were in relation to each other. It was also very repetitive. There was none of the intensity of fear and suffering conveyed here (compared to say, the Battle of the Bastards). Dragon riding - The dragon riding seeming ludicrous and didn't really achieve anything. I fail to see what Dany and Jon achieved (beyond being liabilities) by clinging to the back of dragons in combat WITHOUT HARNESSES. How Jon survived the clash between Viserion and Rhaegal is beyond me. Dany being able to usefully use a sword while everyone in the crypts was seen as a a liability - this one is minor but bugged me. Given the direness of the situation, if Dany is capable of grabbing a sword and killing a few undead by waving it around cluelessly, surely it would have been worth giving everyone in the crypt a weapon too? Most of Arya's scenes - I love Arya but felt that this episode was awful to her. She goes from fearlessly fighting to running in terror to fearlessly fighting again with no apparent cause. And that library scene was awful. It just reminded me of every 'dodge the guards' line of sight' level of pretty much every video game ever made. Lack of major character deaths - Given the hopelessness of the situation, way more main characters needed to die to really convey any sense of anxiety to the viewer. By the end we had the awful cliche of only the named characters being left standing, which feels really below what I expect from Game of Thrones. Dead end character arcs - I feel the conclusion of this episode has 'dead ended' a lot of characters. I don't feel Bran, Brienne, Davos, Tormund, Sansa, Sam, Greyworm and Missandei have anywhere to go in terms of actions or character growth from here. Dialogue - not enough of it, and what little there was very poor quality. The contrast was particularly evident after last week's episode.