Several days ago, a misfortune that should have been prevented the last time it happened for Home Box Office reared its annoying head again. An apparent lack of coordination led to the Nordic and Spanish divisions of HBO to prematurely put up episode 6 of the penultimate season of “Game of Thrones” on their programming block. This resulted in yet another leak that was fabulously recorded for early-bird watchers of the show. That episode, tentatively titled by pirates as “Death is the Enemy,” spoiled some major world-shaking events in the seasonal plot.
It finally aired officially this Sunday, August 20. And while critics don’t see it equaling the intensity of the season 6 penultimate episode, it gets the job done.
Undead polar bear
By the way, now HBO has revealed the official title of the “Game of Thrones” season 7 episode 6, it being “Beyond the Wall.” And that is where the meat of the episode takes place in, with the small party of Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) on its mad mission to capture a wight, one of the White Walker’s zombie minions, to bring back south of the Wall as proof of the “true war” that must be fought. Along the way they joke (R-rated) ways to get warm in snowy weather, and run into a zombie polar bear of all things, leading to the death of Thoros (Paul Kaye).
Their foray enables Jon to make a discovery: killing a Wight Walker kills all the wights it reanimated; therefore killing the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) might kill all White Walkers. A surviving wight is subdued, but now Jon’s party is trapped in a frozen lake by plenty of wights. Cue Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) arriving with her dragons to rescue them and their “prisoner,” but the Night King effortlessly kills one of her dragons, Viserion, forcing her to retreat with everyone except Jon, who is left behind.
Happening so fast
Back in Winterfell, the chaos sowed by Littlefinger (Aida Gillen) bears fruit as the Stark sister Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya (Maisie Williams) get into a potentially murderous argument. Sansa now realizes the depths of her sister’s barely-restrained menac but tries to soldier on in leading the North while Jon Snow is away.
Jon meanwhile manages to escape as well, leading to an (unknowingly incestuous) encounter between him and Daenerys, where he gives up his kingship and submits himself and the North to her. “Beyond the Wall” then ends with the Night King gaining a new weapon in a zombie Viserion.
Things are occurring at breakneck speed now, with what seems like a battle-less finale for episode 7 of “Game of Thrones” season 7. A preview for that shows Jon trying to make his case for fighting the White Walkers to the people of Westeros. The problem, of course, is that a certain antagonistic ruler, Cersei (Lena Headey) could care less for the end of the world as long as she alone rules Westeros when it comes. We shall wait and see on August 27, only on HBO.
