Game Of Thrones Season 7: 10 Ups And 3 Downs From 'Beyond The Wall'

4. It Sets Up A Great Finale - And Season 8

The episode, for all the dragon-killing drama, had one specific purpose: have these characters get together, capture a wight, and take it to King's Landing to convince Cersei of the real threat.

Next week, which the promo has showed only the tiniest, tantalising hint of, promises to be epic in a completely different way to this episode or The Spoils of War. Thanks to this setup, we're now going to see, to name a few, the following characters all sharing the screen:

Daenerys, Jon, Tyrion, Cersei, Jaime, the Hound, the Mountain, Bronn, Davos, and probably a number of others.

There should be enough drama in the Dragonpit alone to fill a lot of the finale's extended runtime, and while there have been some questionable decisions in order to get there, we should be receiving a lot of payoff to this week (and that goes for the threat that remains beyond the Wall too) and those that have preceded it.

It also does the most of any episode to setup the final season since Hardhome. Eventually, and for better or worse, the squabbles and differences need to be put aside to take on the White Walkers in a battle of ice and fire, and we got out biggest taste of that yet.