That was sincerely, no shit, no cynicism, no joking, one of the loveliest hours of television I have ever seen in my entire life.

Spoilers within:

Quick takes:

Sam and Jon and Dolorous Edd: Let the last man alive burn the rest of us. The Night’s Watch, standing on the wall,

Theon, returning to the castle he sacked, to defend the ruins against the dead. Reek, redeemed after all, reclaiming his name.

Little Lady Mormont can have whatever she wants up to and including the contents of my fridge. “Oh, you want me to put my small fierce ass in the crypt with stupid Gilly and Sam’s toddler? Thank u, next.”

GHOST! Finally, the useless-ass dog shows up in time to be turned into an ice zombie or some kind of rug. Has this furry idiot reckoned at all with how completely he’s allowed his chosen Stark companion to be fucked over in the past two years?

If the main point of Dany’s entire existence at this point is to talk about what a shitty dumbass Tyrion is, I’m super here for it. “Oh, but we need his genius brain to tell us to do things like feed our armies and not behead our enemies in front of their moms!” Whatever would we do without you Lord Obvious?

BRB, lol’ing forever at Jorah’s reference to  THAT WHOLE ENTIRE ASS BOOK in which Tyrion travels around whining about his lot in life. Jorah forever. His horniness for Dany made him obviously unsuitable as a Hand, but I would have put DROGON in charge before Tyrion. A sarcastic quip and having been picked on do not the leader of a kingdom make.

One of the things that makes you remember how young Grey Worm and Missandei are is how they are both totally about to die.

So, the song:

High in the halls of the kings who are gone
Jenny would dance with her ghosts
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found
And the ones who had loved her the most
The ones who had been gone for so very long
She couldn’t remember their names
They spun her around on the damp old stone
Spun away all her sorrow and pain
And she never wanted to leave
Never wanted to leave

All these ghosts gathered, every one, the living and the dead: Tywin, Ned, Robb, Stannis. Viserys, and the Mad King, burning his enemies. The Old Bear, the Boltons, every maester that ever walked the godswood. They all gathered on the old stones tonight for a homecoming.

Sansa doesn’t trust pretty blondes with mouths full of compliments, and is it any wonder why? She’s Ned’s daughter, Catelyn’s daughter, but she’s Cersei’s daughter too. One of the worst things about the person who abuses you is that sometimes they help you and teach you: who not to trust, and in Sansa’s case it’s literally anyone who’s nice to her.

Jenny would dance with her ghosts, goes the song, and Sansa’s have kept her alive too long for her to leave them.

When we met Beric Dondarrion, the Lightning Lord, he was traveling in the company of pirates and priests, wreaking havoc on the reavers of the Westeros countryside. He’d been brought back to life half a hundred times, each time with the taste of sulfur and mercury in his mouth. He was so tired. He couldn’t remember his home, or his family, and sometimes he just wanted it all to stop.

The wall came down, and he rose from the ashes, a smile on his face, glorying, after all of that, in the battle to come. Jenny would dance with her ghosts, and Beric welcomes his as old friends, fire on his tongue and Thoros’s name in his throat.

Brienne, despite Book!Brienne’s pining for Renly, never really wanted to be a king’s consort. She didn’t want to be a Lady. She wanted to protect, to serve, to be a knight. She kept trying, swearing undying fealty to whatever happened to be kicking around: to Renly, to Catelyn, to Jaime, to Sansa. Her father rejected her, the knights of the Seven Kingdoms mocked and abused her, even the vagabonds of the ruined Kingsroad tried to rape her. All the while, she looked for somewhere to belong.

Not a castle of her own, or even a cottage. Not a noble family, an advantageous marriage, a great quest. In the end what Brienne sought was a circle, around a fire, a cup of warmed wine in her hands. A brotherhood, of men who respected and loved each other, despite pockmarked pasts and the precarious present.

Jenny, dancing with her ghosts, the ones she had lost and the ones she had found. She knelt before one of them, Jaime Lannister, a maiden fair, and rose up again a knight.

Whatever happens in the battle to come, and I genuinely don’t know what will, of all the ghosts gathered, Brienne’s were the ones who were most clearly visible. She kept the ones she wanted to keep, and let the others go, like the smoke from the great hall’s fire rising up through the chimney and disappearing into the cold.

A.