Avengers and this in the past couple days...Has there ever been a bigger week for pop culture culminations, ever? Or anything even close?
As a huge Terminator fan, I got a lot of Terminator vibes from this episode. Glowing eyes, Night King's sudden head-movements and no-selling the fire. He even sorta had a T-1000 walk, with Winterfell instead of the steel mill from the end of T2.
Had a bit in common with Avengers in terms of shot-framing too. And all of the heroes coming together to stand up to overwhelming odds from some blue dude.
The way he murdered Theon was pretty chilling. Actually it was chilling all over the place. I realized how many characters I cared about as it went on. First I realized I really care about Arya and Jamie. Specifically those two. Like "I'm gonna leave the room if something happens to them" level. Next people to come to mind were Tyrion and Brienne. I really expected to lose at least one of them, but HBO backed away from giving the episode teeth. The Hollywood ending was a bit much, too, but I like Arya. Didn't catch Mel telling her how to win either. They really gave it away for people who caught that.
I figured the Night King would be out of the way by the halfway point of the season to leave room for the other big battle...unless he nuked King's Landing to add to his army like I was hoping for. Cersei and Euron are way less compelling to me than the NK/WWs as villains, and IMO that story should have been resolved first. The only positive of doing it this way is that Cersei seems way worse for leaving the North to their doom.