Definitely a thrilling episode. I am fully invested. Ice Dragon = awesome. That said, the last two episodes have been terrible in terms of writing. Ungodly amount of stupidity. Because of the writing, I almost jumped off the boat in either S4 or S5 but the show entirely won me back last year.
The entire plan to retrieve a wight is ridiculous. Who thought of this ? Seeing the guys fight together North of the Wall is awesome but the idea to get them there was just such bad writing. The time jumps are absurd. John chasing down the wights while the dragon was waiting for him was dumb. Benjen rescuing him was a cop out. Have Rhaegal scoop him up. The writers seem like they don't have the guts to kill a major character now that they are on their own. Tormund was a dead man.
Worst of all are the Arya and Sansa scenes. Absolutely cringe worthy. Arya has had an amazing arc and is one of the most captivating and easy-to-root-for characters. Now, I am finding myself wanting her dead, possibly at the hands of Sansa and that is entirely the fault of the writing. I should not be rooting against Arya. I should not be rooting for Sansa. Stop sucking writers.
This season is fun, but GoT is stumbling a little from what made it one of the best shows in history.
The wight capture plan was so stupid, and just sloppy. There are a dozen ways to get that crew north of the wall that would have made more sense than capturing a wight that no one will give a about. Why not send them to retrieve the horn that was mentioned in the books? Why not put them on a ship that blows off course? Why not make a wildling rescue mission for some band that escaped and is racing to the wall? Anything is better than that stupidity, which incidentally now is a huge pivot in the overall plot.
Jon Snow got a dragon killed. Of all the stupid scalitoing things that any character has done in this show, that has to be the scalitoing stupidest. Wouldn't pretty much everyone want to beat the snot out of him for doing that?
Benjen either should have been with the band from the start, or not been there at all. Showing up at the last minute was ridiculous. How did he find out?
I actually like the idea of discord between Arya and Sansa, but it should be a lot more clever than this. Sansa was a prisoner of the Lannisters. Getting her father captured was stupid, but she was trying to save his life with that letter. Why didn't she say that? Why didn't Arya just ask her wizard brother to tell her what happened? To be honest, I don't even see how this helps Littlefinger. Arya is a rook, not a queen in the game. Sansa is a queen. He should be playing for both. It would make more sense if Littlefinger had hatched a plan for Arya to kill Cersei and that was what the sisters were fighting over.
