SPOILERS for Game of Thrones Ep. 8.3, “The Long Night.”

WELL. I was expecting a lot, but I’m not sure I was expecting that. I was awake for what felt like a full hour after the show aired, reflecting on how certain men around Arya Stark seemed to always sense that she had an important role to play in the destiny of Westeros. All seven season which came before led up to Arya’s moves – it was not Daenerys Targaryen or Jon Snow who saved the Seven Kingdoms, it was the youngest Stark girl with Littlefinger’s dagger. And yes, I’m mourning the losses too, only I find myself slightly pleased that so many beloved characters really did survive. Let’s get to it.

The Red Woman Returns. I mused (on Twitter) just minutes before “The Long Night” began that I wished that Melisandre was there, just in case. In the first few minutes, she appeared. They were waiting for the swarm of undead, and Mel’s horse came strolling up. Don’t worry, she told Ser Davos, you don’t have to kill me, I’ll be dead by morning. Mel’s first deed: using the Lord of Light’s magic to turn all of the Dothraki’s swords into FLAME-swords.

The Dothraki are all gone?? Like, the Dothraki were the first line of attack and the way they shot that… with the the fire-swords all being extinguished… haunting. I don’t think any Dothraki lived. AND GHOST WENT OFF TO FIGHT WITH THE DOTHRAKI. Jorah did too, but Jorah got the f–k out of there pretty quickly.

Retreat as a battle plan. It didn’t feel like Brienne’s army and the Unsullied and the Wildling army really fought outside the Winterfell gate for that long, but it was long enough for Edd to die because Sam just wanted to lie on the ground like an a–hole. The retreat into Winterfell felt like it began happening super-quickly. Dany couldn’t see Davos’ signal to light the trenches, so Melisandre came out – in one of the best sequences – with the Unsullied soldiers protecting her – to use her magic to light the trench. It was amazing.

The dragon stuff. I know those were probably the most expensive sequences to film, but I could barely understand what was happening in the air with the dragons, with Jon and Dany riding. There were mid-air collisions with the Night King, and there was a White-Walker-made blizzard, I get that. But beyond that, I couldn’t really see what was happening.

Arya’s battle moves. She stayed within Winterfell, and did you see Ser Davos’ face when he watched her take down like 20 undead all by herself?? The Hound was feeling scared and nihilistic and Beric was like “fight g-ddamn it” and the Hound wouldn’t budge until Beric pointed out Arya was in trouble.

Lyanna Mormont went out like a boss. Little girl, commanding the ground immediately inside the gate of Winterfell. A zombie giant tosses her aside and she still fights. He squeezes her we know she’s a goner… and that’s when she spears him in the f–king eye. Forever my Queen.

Beric & the Hound. It was left unspoken as to why Beric and the Hound seemed hellbent on protecting Arya, but I was really thinking about this (as I said in the intro) and in retrospect, they knew. They had seen it in the flames, same as Melisandre, that Arya was the MVP of the War of the Undead and that she must live. Arya was trying to outmaneuver the undead who were already in Winterfell, and she was legit scared, and then the Hound and Beric burst in to save her.

RIP Beric Dondarrion. I mean, we get it, he had been resurrected a million times, did we really need the crucifixion imagery? He died protecting Arya, and I truly believe he knew that Arya is basically Azor Ahai.

Melisandre’s pep talk. Beric dies, and the Hound and Arya are confronted by Melisandre. Arya looks like she doesn’t know if she should kill Mel. Mel’s like, I saw all of this in your eyes when we first met. And Mel repeated the question Arya’s first teacher Syrio asked her: “What do we say to the god of death?” Arya: “Not today.”

Jon Snow gets knocked off his dragon. Did the dragon die? I don’t know, maybe. But what I know is that finally we got to see Jon in his element, on the ground, alone, with a Longclaw. He sees the Night King… and Jon runs for him. Dany is still on her dragon. Dracarys, she orders. FIRE. Everything burns. Except the Night King. The Night King stops and looks at Jon Snow and begins to raise his arms. I literally screamed “OH FUUUUUUUUCK” then.

Raising the dead. Edd, resurrected. Lyanna, resurrected. Dothraki, resurrected. All of the dead within Winterfell, resurrected. The crypts are shaking. The Night King walks off. Jon is alone and trying to fight his way out. Dany rides up, again and rescues Jon. He runs off. But Dany is stuck there with a dragon who is being attacked by undead. The dragon flies off. Dany is alone. Until Jorah somehow finds her in the chaos and it’s two against ALL.

The Crypt. Welp. The crypt peeps only got resurrected when the Night King was resurrecting everybody else. Sansa, Tyrion, Varys, Gilly, Missandei and more were like “holy f–k” and Tyrion and Sansa managed to hide behind something as everything in the crypt went to sh-t. Tyrion, Sansa’s “best” husband, kissed her hand as they thought they would die. I honestly think Gilly might have died too? But Varys, Sansa, Tyrion and many of the children survived.

Theon of House Stark. Theon and his men were protecting Bran the whole time. Theon was the last man standing protecting Bran when the Night King and his bros rolled up. Bran had been f–king warging throughout the entire battle, but Bran snapped out of it long enough to tell Theon “you’re a good man.” I cried. Theon cried. Then Theon went to fight the Night King. At least Theon died a clean death, and he died protecting his brother.

The Night King Cometh. The NK rolls up to Bran who is sitting there like f–king Yoda and everything is in slow-mo – we see Jorah Mormont dying for Dany in a cutaway – and the NK looks like he’s about to stab Bran or something and then, out of f–king nowhere, Azor Ahai ARYA jumps on the Night King. He grabs her by the throat and she drops her Valyrian steel dagger… and catches it with the other hand. In one clean motion, she stabs the NK in the gut. He explodes in a million pieces. All of the White Walkers explode. All the undead finally collapse. The dead are finally just… the dead. It was not Dany who saved the day. It was not Jon Snow who saved the world from the Long Night. It was little Arya Stark, the survivor, No One, A Girl.

In the end, I think most of the main characters survived – Jaime and Brienne seemed to survive, and I think Pod, Greyworm, the Hound, Tyrion and Varys did too. It was epic, it really was. I’m still absorbing that sh-t. I’ll have more posts about this today and in the coming days.

Photos courtesy of HBO/Game of Thrones.