Well. folks, "The Long Night" has come to an end, and despite the fact that I went a full 26 minutes before realizing that my computer monitor just wasn't turned on, I thought this was a real mixed bag! I simply cannot sit here and tell you an episode of television in which one dragon eats another zombie dragon's face off in the sky is "bad." But I also find it hard to believe that building up a mysterious, evil ice-wizard as a series' unstoppable Big Bad only to have him go 0-1 in actual battles because he couldn't be bothered to walk faster than 3 miles per hour is "good."

Arya Stark still a bad, bad woman though. No matter what, I can respect losing your virginity and saving mankind from an endless winter over, like, an eight hour period. That time frame for me was way more similar to that shot of Sam Tarly just sort've lying on the ground and crying surrounded by fire.

Anyway.

I have questions. You have questions. Lord Yohn Royce most likely has some questions since he apparently didn't even show up for the battle. Let's get into it.

Were Jon and Dany Ever Planning on Being Helpful or...?

In an episode absolutely filled with characters shitting the bed, I do believe the biggest bed-shit was shat by noted leaders Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. The biggest reveal in "The Long Night" is that the Song of Ice and Fire is actually just one continuous whomp-whomppp trombone noise. I'm sincerely shocked Jon made it all the way through Winterfell without getting smacked in the face with a rake.

If the purpose of the episode was to make it clear Jon and Dany should never plan and lead a battle again, then mission accomplished, call it a day, boyos. Imagine, in a battle filled with people using swords and bows, you have a whole-ass tank, and the tank can fly and breathe fire and think for itself, and you're still offering the least help. The Night King neutralized their entire participation with an above-average sized smoke machine. I'm not sure I've ever laughed as hard at a Game of Thrones episode than when, instead of course-correcting and trying to do his job, Jon panicked and drove his dragon straight into a tree. Dany almost got Drogon killed because she parked her dragon in a literal sea of Wights to admire Jon's swordplay skills—see: power-walk toward the Night King like a doofus—from afar.

In a way that I hate to admit, this might be some great storytelling payoff from the Double-D showrunners. For a while now, Game of Thrones has been hinting at the fact that, under all that sweet-talkin', Daenerys doesn't give a literal flying fuck about anyone's interests other than the ones that park her firmly on the Iron Throne. Jon, who has a better claim to that throne, wants the job about as badly as I want any responsibilities whatsoever. These two crazy incestual kids and their dragon children are unfit to lead a battle, much less seven whole kingdoms. Jon and Dany missing lay-up after lay-up while Arya stayed calm and shanked the Night King like HBO was doing an Oz revival is just proof of that.

Of course, Game of Thrones could also be doing the thing it's been doing since like season 5 where the idea is, "they flew dragons, big badass expensive CGI dragons, and that's what leadership means, to me."

Is It Too Late to Get a Refund on That Dothraki Army?

Woo boy, Dothraki, horse buddies, pals, I can't believe you got over your fear of boats and crossed the great salt sea for this.

The Dothraki's epically futile charge into insta-death is a pretty sound example of where my mind is on this episode of Game of Thrones. It is an objectively cool thing to see the Dothraki's swords lighting up one by one like the world's most dangerous form of The Wave. And what a masterful form of tension-building to have those same flames extinguished, again, one by one in the unending darkness. (Honestly, despite the fact it was apparently lit by three cell phones and the last candle left at a Belfast Duane Reade, Miguel Sapochnik generally directed the heck out of this impossible thing.)

But man, I don't know. That Dothraki army has been around since episode numero uno. It was Dany's meal-ticket from the start. Robert Baratheon heard Daenerys Targaryen had a Dothraki army and was like, "Whelp, we're boned." But you almost get a sense—like with pretty much every "major" death in this episode—that they don't play a part in the King's Landing endgame, so the show wiped them off the board.

In conclusion: There has never been a more on-brand Jorah Mormont-ass image then Jorah charging valiantly into darkness, then immediately limping back like "Ooh Khaleesi it's bad out there. You look great but it's bad out there."

So What Was the Night King's Deal, Anyway?

Since Game of Thrones clearly doesn't give a toss about mythology anymore, let's do a quick run-down of where this frosty Darth Maul-looking motherfu*ker came from. (We have much more in-depth explainers here and here.) The creation of the White Walkers and their leader is your basic Jurassic Park scenario: The Children of the Forest created monsters who know only the instinct to kill and destroy. Those monsters turned on the Children, and the Children were like "wait, rude?" Cue millennia of conflict, war, and bloodshed.

With the coming of a new winter, the Night King began in earnest a new attempt to wipe mankind from the planet. Little did he know that plan ran through Winterfell, guarded by some goober Dothraki, two extremely clumsy dragonriders, and a badass pint-sized assassin who, thanks to Gendry, is fueled by the mystical power of Dat Ass.

As you probably saw over the course of the White Walkers' fifteen-minute walk to reach the Godswood, the Night King's ultimate target was Bran Stark, the Three-Eyed Raven, who woke up just in time to be like "wow is this still going on?" Sam Tarly summed up the reason why that was the case pretty well last week: The Night King wants to destroy humanity completely, no Thanos 50% bullshit, and that means the memory of mankind itself. Bran, who is basically a rolling Kindle with the entire history of the world uploaded into his wheelchair, represents that memory. This does not explain why The Night King needed to have a staring contest with Bran before killing him.

Honestly, there's a lot that's still unexplained about The Night King, and that's a large part of the reason "The Long Night", though it was mighty badass on a spectacle scale, felt oddly anticlimactic. Was there a personal beef between the Night King and the Raven? Does the Night King think outside of his quest for world-destruction? Does he feel? Where do the White Walkers go to get their hair so nicely straightened? All those questions lost, gone to wherever Tyrion Lannister's personality floated off to.

Why Didn't the Night King Burn?

I've seen a good deal of chatter over the ways this moment—in which Daenerys rains dragon-fire down on the Night King and he basically sends her a "K" text back—confirms the theory that the Night King is somehow a Targaryen. The theory is mostly based on the fact that the avante-garde art installations the White Walkers are always leaving around made of body parts do resemble the House Targaryen sigil. But it's a flimsy-floppy theory, considering the Night King has (allegedly, to be fair) been around since the earliest days of the world, and the Targaryens didn't even get to Westeros until after the Seven Kingdoms were established.

No, I'm actually just gonna' let showrunner Dan Weiss handle this. I'm going to transcribe his exact quote, from the after-the-episode segment, because no joke I could write is funnier than this explanation:

“While there’s no reason to know for certain that the fire wouldn’t kill or destroy the Night King, there’s also no particular reason to believe that it would.”

Ah yes, what particular reason is there to believe that this man made of ice, whose only weaknesses are dragonglass and dragon-forged Valyrian steel, could be defeated by dragonfire? What idiots we were! What rubes! I honestly have to admire the moxy it takes to look at Dany's plan—burn the snowman with fire—and explain it away with "well when you assume it makes an ass out of u and me."

Where Did Bran Warg Off to For the Entire Battle?

Anyone whose ever worked with a boss' son knows a Bran Stark, they guy whose ass everyone else is scrambling around and literally dying to cover while they say "I'm going to go now" and fuck off to Panera Bread for two-hour lunch breaks. In essence, the entire Battle of Winterfell was built around protecting Bran from The Night King. Poor redeemed Theon and every Ironborn he brought with him died to do it. And yet, and yet, the homie Brandon Stark straight dipped ten minutes into the battle, making a grand spooky thing about Warg-ing away only to land inside some birds who flew past The Night King.

You have to assume there was a reason for this. You have to. Because the alternative is the Three-Eyed Raven, all-knowing semi-god whose life the whole world is delicately balanced on, took a damn joyride during the most important fight in history. This Hot Topic-ass millennial was reenacting "A Whole New World" from Guy Ritchie's Aladdin—not even the original cartoon!—while a zombie horde chomped the faces of his loved ones.

The most annoying part is that there is, if you squint hard enough—and everyone was clearly squinting pretty hard during this episode—some evidence to suggest Bran was playing some kind of 5-D chess with the Night King. That Valyrian Steel knife that Arya used to deliver the killing blow? Not only was it only in the family because it was used in an assassination attempt on Bran's life in season one, but it was Bran himself that gave it to Arya in season 7.

So What Now?

Probably the craziest thing about "The Long Night" is that the Night King and his army has been built up so much over seven and a half seasons that his defeat feels like a finale. It's almost comical that the Good Guys just defeated death itself, so now they have to square up against an extremely alcoholic pregnant woman and her lover, a pirate who loves cocaine and leather pants.

But, as always, Cersei Lannister should never be underestimated. Cersei Lannister didn't feel like showing up to a trial inside the Sept so she blew the entire Sept up with everyone inside. If someone gave Cersei Lannister a parking ticket every DMV in the state would be burned to the ground. Cersei Lannister's hair stopped growing two seasons ago out of spite.

There are two very important things to keep in mind going into the fight for the Iron Throne that will, presumedly, take up the last three Game of Thrones episodes ever:

1. Cersei Lannister still has the Golden Company in her back pocket. We only got the briefest of introductions to this new crew of sellswords, but rest assured they're a force to be reckoned with. (In a little twist of irony that I bet Cersei loves, the Golden Company was also founded by a bastard child of Aegon IV Targaryen.) An intriguing nugget of info about the Golden Company, though, is that they're known to absolutely eff up any city who don't pay them what they're owed after they do their bloody work. Cersei is bold and believes herself invincible, probably the only Lannister alive you can't always count on to pay her debts...

2. But! After the Battle of Winterfell, the forces opposing Cersei are pretty much spent. As you may hilariously remember, Dany is down exactly 100% of her Dothraki. A good number of the Unsullied—not Grey Worm, who is miraculously one step closer to that beach vacay with Missandei—died defending the main gate of Winterfell. Basically, if your name isn't in the top, like, 25 credits on IMDB, ya dead. This is the army that plans to wage, in Dany's words, "the last war."

Is Ghost Okay??

I don't know what traumatic shit involving a big fluffyy Good Boi happened to Benioff and/or Weiss during their childhood, but Ghost has been drawing the short end of the stick this season. We got a shot of him leading the doomed Dothraki charge and then...no update. Zip. Dare I say nada. He didn't even interact with Jon Snow during the battle once. This is simultaneously tragic and incredibly funny because A) It leaves the possibility of an off-screen Ghost death open, but B) I truly love to imagine Ghost seeing Jon on the back of a dragon and being like, "Well if that's how it is then..."