'Game of Thrones' S 8, Ep 4 "The Long Night" Thoughts and Rants (Spoilers)

Director Miguel Sapochnik has helmed some of Game of Thrones greatest episodes such as "Battle of the Bastards" and "Hardhome," here he directs the largest budget, and longest shoot (55 nights) in the show's history. Rather than a complete plot recap, this article will look at the pros and cons of "The Long Night."

The biggest talking point after the show was that the cinematography was too dark, and we couldn't see what was going on. Director of Photography Fabian Wagner defended the episode, first blaming HBO's compression and streaming capabilities, explaining that the compression was set lower, so that the stream could cope with the amount of viewers. He promised it would look better on a second viewing, but he also told people to watch it in a dark room, and to calibrate their TVs correctly.

I am all for realistic cinematography, which was the choice by the producers here, and some online commentators have defended it as being realistic when TV usually isn't. I am torn on the darkness debate, it does work brilliantly when Melisandre lights the swords of the Dothraki before they charge into battle. We see the Dothraki's flaming swords wink out of existence, as they are consumed by the army of white walkers, and that's when our characters realise they are royally fucked.

Later we have Melisandre lighting the trench on fire, dragon fire giving us brief flashes of action, and Berric's flaming sword lighting some scenes, but that is the extent of lighting in the episode. From a creative point, it works in places to build tension, and give us flashes of the scale, however my issue is that HBO have been promoting this as the greatest battle scene ever produced, and I can't help thinking the obvious darkness is a way to hide the show's relative lack of budget.

It is a common filmmaking trait with lower budget shows to shoot at night, cut quickly under the guise of action to deliberately disorient the viewer, and hide the lack of budget. For what is supposedly the biggest budget show ever, it is a puzzling choice made by the producers to shoot the episode in such a way that it made it difficult for viewers to follow the action. I believe the real reason is somewhere in-between where budget has dictated story and action. Plus the DOP telling us to set up our TVs correctly is going to piss off a lot of people.

Raise your hands if you can see?

The second complaint with the episode was that there were no major character deaths, we lost Beric Dondarrion who, thanks to his flaming sword, was at least useful as a source of light for the episode, and he at least, died buying time for Arya to escape from the wight-infested library.

We hadn't seen Dolorous Edd from the Night's Watch in some time, and except being a friend of Jon Snow and Sam, he wasn't considered a key character. Jorah Mormont faired better, completing his redemptive character arc from originally betraying his Queen, to be being banished, and then saving her before contracting grey scale, being saved by Sam, and finally getting to die protecting his unrequited love, Daenerys.

Davos had previously told Melisandre that if he ever saw her again, he would kill her, she tells him she'll be dead by dawn anyway. After making it through the night, she walks out into the snow, removes her Jedi old lady bracelet, collapses into the snow, and turns into dust Avengers style! Again I have to wonder if the plotting of the show was so tight that they knew back in season three what they were doing in this final season–more likely they took a previous throwaway line, and attributed more importance to it to tie it into this season's script.

Young Lyanna Mormont probably had the best death scene in the episode; not bad for what was originally supposed to be a one-scene part. Actress Bella Ramsey has stolen the show every time she was featured, and her part was expanded as much as it could be, and she became a fan favourite. Her snarky 'give no shits' character was perfect here as she charges down an undead giant, gets crushed to death, but with her last breath kills the giant with a dragon glass dagger to the eye.

Theon had a great redemptive character arc as well, beginning as a ward of the Starks to betraying them, and claiming Winterfell for the Iron Islands. After a few seasons of torture at the hands of Ramsey Bolton, he helped Sansa escape, and returned to his family, backing his sisters claim to rule the Iron Islands. After failing to oust his uncle Euron Greyjoy, he managed to free his captive sister, Yara, and vowed to return home to Winterfell to make amends to the remaining Starks. Theon receives a hero's death, valiantly defending Bran from the Night King, though if he had just hung on for a few minutes...

Finally the Night King is defeated by Arya, which the show cleverly hid with many of us expecting a Jon Snow vs Night King showdown. We had a full Terminator moment earlier on when Daenerys had her dragon rain down fire only for a still-smirking Night King to be standing unaffected by dragon's fire.

The reaction has been mixed to Arya killing the Night King, with some complaining that it came out of nowhere, and that it was anticlimactic. The counter is that the show has always been about the war for the seven kingdoms, and the show's focus has never been on the Night King's story. In season six's "The Door," we were given the backstory on how the white walkers were created, and that's all we needed. They were an ominous background threat for the show's whole duration, but it was only towards the end of the last season that their storyline intersected with our key characters.

I will admit, I thought Brienne was certain to die after becoming a knight in the last episode, which completed her key character arc. The surviving Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens had to make it through the episode, so that they can make it to the show's real main threat, which is Cersei.

Short Points

• Sansa and Tyrion's nice moment in the crypt of death, where they joked he was her best husband.
• The great moment when Sam is on the ground being swarmed by walkers, cries out to Jon Snow for help, and Jon briefly pauses before continuing to run past.
• Melisandre potentially telling us that Arya will kill Cersei with her green eyes comment.
• What the hell was Bran doing this episode? Everyone had been speculating that he would warg into one of the dragons, and help in the battle. No, instead he possessed a few crows, and flew around the battlefield for most of the episode, turning up just in time to thank Theon for dying.
• The Hound hiding, because he was thought they had no chance was great, as only Arya being in danger got him into the fight, we knew he'd survive, as we still need Clegane Bowl!
• Why were Jon and Dany messing about on their dragons for half the episode, instead of actually making a difference in the fight?
• Arya's amazing library escape was a highlight that felt more like a great episode of The Walking Dead with zombie hoards crashing in from everywhere.
• We knew hiding in the crypt was a dumb idea, we were bludgeoned over the head in the last episode that the crypt was the safest place. The Night King can raise the dead, lets hide the women and children in a crypt full of corpses!
• That "Not today" line of the episode!

For a show with such high standards after repeated views, although a great episode, I don't think it lived up to the heights of episodes such as "Battle of the Bastards," and "The Red Wedding." The lack of major deaths isn't an issue for me, as those characters need to survive through to the last three episodes to fully complete their character arcs.

Game of Thrones has always been about political treachery, murder, and epic battle scenes, we have had two episodes of great build up to the "The Long Night," and now, with only three episodes remaining, I think we can speculate on what the last three will deliver.

It is an easy prediction to say that the next episode will be slower paced, but I would not be surprised to see a major twist or death that we did not see coming, as Cersei plots against the survivors from Winterfell. The penultimate episode has to be "The Last War" between Jon and Dany's forces, and Cersei's. You would hope that the final episode lets the dust settle a bit, and gives the remaining characters the send off they deserve.