I rewatched "The Long Night" and took notes.
First I checked in with Episode 2 to review what the battle plan was:
Jon acknowledges right up front that there are “far too many” dead; they can never actually defeat them in a conventional battle. “Our enemy doesn’t tire,” he says. “Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t feel. You can’t beat them in a straight fight.” So he tells everyone explicitly that their only real chance is slaying the Night King. Bran, then, is the way they get the Night King to expose himself.
Davos then fills us in on the rest of their plan: “We’ll hold off the rest of them for as long as we can.” Yep. That’s it.
So back to E3.
When Melisandre arrives and enters Winterfell, there’s some heavy foreshadowing as she gazes meaningfully at Arya across the way. This immediately follows Melisandre saying she’ll be dead before the dawn, so the air is already thick with prophecy in this moment.
The Charge
It’s still not clear to me what initiates the Dothraki charge. We see it begin from inside Winterfell. Jorah did raise his sword in preparation, but that was several minutes ago, maybe even 10+ minutes in-universe. Dothraki yelping and rowdiness precedes the charge, and it’s kind of a wave effect (they don’t charge in unison), so I think they might have gotten carried away and (clearly) overconfident. We’re not given any indication of a commander initiating this charge, but we don’t get a shot of anyone believing this is a mistake.
The overhead shot of the Dothraki charging is so breathtaking that I did stop caring for a moment.
Jon and Daenerys seem concerned but not alarmed that the Dothraki are charging into the darkness, which should alarm us about their military skills. This strategy seems at odds with using Bran as bait. I just can’t come up with an explanation for it. If I’m stretching a bit, I might say that the dead have all the time in the world, so for the living it’s probably best to get the battle started.
Some insight from a Vox article: “The Dothraki had success charging into adversaries like that in the past because they were charging into living humans who are subject to terror and fear, leading to easier deaths. That wasn’t the case here.”
Either way, it’s clear that even Jon underestimated the dead, which stretches credulity but is possible.
The Unsullied don’t seem concerned by the charge. It appears to be part of the plan. They’re ready with the trebuchets.
I think it’s worth reiterating: characters in this show are allowed to be dumb and have bad plans. This was clearly a bad plan. Catastrophically bad. So bad that it breaks immersion. But I think it was worth it just for that scene where their lights slowly get extinguished as we hear their howls echo across the icy plains. Absolutely beautiful and terrifying. Can’t say I’ve seen anything else like it.
Battle Begins
Jon believes the Night King could appear at any moment, so he wants to stay perched there with Daenerys for the NK’s arrival. She wisely deduces that the front line needs her to scorch some zombies immediately, though. Jon almost looks confused. Why are they still letting him plan battles?? If anything, this should convince the North to embrace Daenerys as their queen. While Jon just sat there like a dummy, Dany instantly joined the fray and saved their butts. Pointedly, btw, Sansa sees this and is overwhelmed by the dragons’ power or Dany’s heroism or both.
(Flash forward, and this will mark yet another battle where Jon can't finish the job, partially because of the tough spot his poor strategizing has put them in. He's not great at this.)
Meanwhile, Jon flies to the back line looking for the Night King. Not a bad idea, I guess. But this is precisely when they’re blasted by the storm, and visibility gets bad.
Then we get one of the most beautiful shots in GoT history (first attachment).
At this point, we’re starting to see a pattern that bothers me in this episode: characters from the main cast are constantly put in peril that seems pretty hopeless (Brienne and Sam so far), to be saved at the last minute by another main character. I’d give them one or two of these in a battle episode, but this trope gets a little worn out in Ep 3.
Sam on the battlefield is quite a silly thing to witness. I have no idea how he survived this episode.
As Sansa enters the crypt, the wordless exchange between her and Tyrion is just perfect. One of the highlights.
At 23:00, I’m seeing the first actual “too dark” moment, but the camera is swooping past our forces into the unknown stormy darkness, then essentially does a whip pan up to Jon in the sky, where the point of this scene is that he can’t see well enough to find Dany. Obviously intentional use of low visibility and done to good effect.
Unable to locate Dany or the Night King, Jon falls back to guard Bran. Pretty reasonable move. However, if I’m being fair, I would say this scene of Jon landing on the ramparts is truly unnecessarily dark. No good reason that we can barely see him here. And this might be one of the key moments that threw people off—not understanding what Jon was doing plus not being able to see him clearly.
It’s hard to overstate how heavily Daenerys and her forces are carrying this fight. The Northerners would have lost instantly without her. To my mind, the North (and the entirety of humanity, really) owes their lives to Daenerys and should consider being profoundly grateful.
Night King Arrives
Sapochnik is doing a lot of spectacular work in this episode. The Night King reveal is really something (second attachment).
Underappreciated detail: a nervous Gendry taking deep breaths as the walkers begin climbing the walls.
Now halfway through the episode, I’ve only been able to identify one moment that was needlessly dark.
When the walkers get over the wall, it’s chaotic, confusing, and shot close (and to good effect—you feel like they’re invading your space). But it is not dark. There’s ample backlighting from torches and the trench fire.
Underappreciated detail: Davos being super impressed with Arya’s fighting.
Major Arya foreshadowing #2: When Melisandre inspires Arya to run off on her mission, we immediately cut to the godswood (where Theon begins the defense).
Jon and the Night King battling on their dragons is clearer on rewatch. Apparently the dragons slashing and taking bites out of each other is straight from book lore. I will fault parts of this scene for being too dark, though. This would be needlessly dark moment #2. The scene does get nice and bright when the blue flame comes out, though. So, arguable.
Battle Ends
I love the shot of the white walkers heading toward Winterfell (attached). There are so many money shots in this episode.
The crypt walls that the dead break through are definitely crumbly, like they’re made of paper mache and sand.
I think when we watch the scenes inside the Winterfell courtyard at this point, we’re looking for all the familiar faces to see how much trouble each character is in. Obviously that’s not an issue on second watch. And on first watch, if one does have trouble making out all the faces, one can take a little comfort that any major character death would happen in a close shot that we can see very clearly.
Nice to see Dany finally pick up a sword and help fend off the dead a bit. Her skills pretty much align with her lack of combat training, too. I like that detail.
The horror that unfolds in the crypt is really one of the craziest parts of the episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the civilians down there were slaughtered. Between this and the battle itself, there’s going to be some major mourning in Ep 4.
Another completely wordless exchange between Sansa and Tyrion that conveys more than any conversation could. High-level character work.
The return of the piano score is fraught with meaning. Last time we heard this type of thing, it slowly crescendoed and culminated in death on a massive scale. So it does here.
I can't get over how absolutely perfect Arya is as the Night King slayer. Who better qualified than a supernatural assassin? Which is to say nothing of all the character meaning going into it. When I picture Jon killing the Night King, not only is it boring, I have literally no idea how that could happen. I'm unaware of any skills he has that could directly accomplish such a thing.
Post-Night King slaying, I love the moment in the crypt when everyone takes a moment to try to absorb what just happened, like they’re waking up from a bad nightmare but there are still dead bodies everywhere.
