Let’s get this out of the way first:
The ballista would never, ever be that effective against a moving target. Try hitting an airplane with one. Good luck. Those might as well be magical machine-ballistas with wildfire exploding tips by the level of destruction they wreaked on a largish ship. So that’s kind of a deux ex machina as far as I’m concerned. Euron’s ships might as well have a magical invisibility cloak as well. A fleet that size would be obviously visible from dragon cruising altitude, long before the dragons were anywhere near in range.
Anyway, I liked the episode. Lots of great character moments at Winterfell, a believable way in which the Aegon Targaryan thing is being handled, etc. And I especially like how they’ve been slow-walking the downfall of Daeneris. Losing Ser Jorah was a huge blow, because he helped act as her conscience, and she trusted him more than she now trusts Tyrion, which is pretty much not at all.
So she has had all her support taken away from her, including the gentle influence of Missendei. She’s also lost two of her three dragons, and may be feeling that desperate measures are needed. She’s feeling everything she believed in and fought for slipping away from her, and she has been cut off from her entire support system. That makes her very dangerous. The murder of Missandei in front of her may have just pushed her over into mad queen territory.
I don’t see how she and Jon Snow can live happily ever after. There’s only one way they both live, and that’s if she gives Jon the north and he becomes king in the north, which now extends a lot further north, and she rules the rest of Westeros. Short of that, one of them has got to go. My money is on Daeneris, or perhaps both.
I thought it was very interesting that Gendry was announced to the world as a Baratheon and made a Lord. I think this really opens the door to a situation where there is a bloodbath at the end, and ultimately Gendry Baratheon takes the throne. Whether that will happen or not, I don’t know. But the stage is certainly set, with a new Baratheon on the scene and out of the way while everyone else goes to war.
I liked the Arya/Gendry scene. It was very believable. He’s treating her like a lady, and she just wanted to get laid before going off to do some very dark shit. Which is what she’s doing again. It’s always good to see the Arya/Hound show. My money is on an upcoming scene where they go into the Red Keep together with Arya showing him the way through the sewers. They team up to go after Cersei and the Mountain, because after all they will be together.
The twist could be that they run into someone on the way and kill him, and Arya uses that face to get close to Cersei. And I do think Jamie is going back to Cersei. In this story he is Achilles and she is his heel. It’s his fatal flaw that will get him killed.
I could imagine a scene like this: Arya sneaks around a corner and runs into Jamie. Jamie looks at her and starts to draw his sword… Cut to Cersei somewhere, and Jamie walks in and says, “You’ll never believe who I just ran into.” He walks up to Cersei and she says “Who?” And Jamie pulls off his face and says, “Arya Stark.” And then Arya proceeds to kill Cersei in a very slow, painful way as King’s Landing burns around them.