Welcome my friends to the climatic episode review of the fourth Game of Thrones season. Today we shall look at episode 9 "The Watcher on the Wall".

So this review's structure will be a little different from the usual one, since the action takes place entirely on Castle Black. So instead I will go by the battle's stages...

Prelude

Seriously the second worst part of the episode is the first 20 minutes, when characters are speaking about their respective loves/sex lives, which I felt was just pointless and to stall the battle instead of provide an proper build up. Gilly and her baby, managing to escape the massacre at Moletown and slip through Tormund's band, reaches the gate seeking safety and relieving poor Sam who believed she died during the attack, however just as he decides to take her up to safety.

The Fire Signal

Two horn blasts are sounded, meaning Wildlings are near. Sam keeps Gilly hidden in a pantry with baby Sam and he tells her then he walks out but Gilly tells him to stay. Sam tells her he cannot abandon his fellow brothers for her. He then kisses her and promises to return alive before planting a big damn kiss on her.

It doesn't take much for the other Rangers to take notice when they see fires lighting up in the Haunted Forest "the biggest fire which the North has ever seen" just like Mance Ryder promised. When Alliser notices that he sh*t the bed by not listening to Jon's advice, he goads Jon into saying him "I told you so". However he doesn't take the bait saying that that blocking the Tunnel and drowning it was a hard decision either way, conceding to Alliser that he will follow his orders. Thorne for his part tells Jon that being a leader means following his instincts and sticking to his guns and avoiding the competing opinions who second-guess his decisions. I may not like Thorne very much (which is an understantement), but at least I can understand where he comes from and he can't abide to make decisions easily. He also gets to show further down that whe he needs to, he can fight in the frontlines and he is certainly not all talk.

The Attack

We get to see a good view of the Wildlings and their Giant army, one of them gets an HOLEE SHEET moment by firing an enourmous arrows to the Wall and hitting a poor bastard so freaking hard it sends him flying to the other side. I don't know if I should be embarassed for being so owned like that or proud for having such WTF death.

Since the Wall is not very well defended from the South, Tormund and the wildlings manages to get past the gates and attack Castle Black. Thorne leaving Slynt in charge of the defense at the top of the Wall return to give an rousing speech worthy of Tyrion Lannister, making me forget just for a moment that I hate his guts and then completely brawling out with Tormund, which is impressive since Thorne lasts longer than any ranger, though he still gets injured during the fight.

Turns out the decision to put Slynt in charge was the dumbest possible since he not only is he an incompetent and undecisive leader, having to be tricked out of the Wall so that someone more capable (i.e. Jon) could issue orders and the first chance he gets to back out, he flies away from all the fighting and hides in the kitchen. How did this idiot managed to become commander of King's Landing City Watch?!?!? Do not answer that!!!

The Battle Proceeds

I will name three highlights of the episode that stood out for me.

1. When Jon is forced to abandon command and puts Dolorous Edd in charge of the defense at top of the wall, with several wildlings climbing their way up. Edd orders the defenders to use The Scythe, which is a ginormous anchor attached to a long, thick chain. This superweapon of The Watch swings down like a pendulum, scraping off a swath of ice as it careens toward the invaders. One climber barely has enough time to scream before it he and his buddies are obliterated by it. I will say this, it was a pretty awesome, scene... However I couldn't help but think they pulled this out of their arse, since I don't recall they ever mentioning such thing O_o

2. A battle scene would have being meaningless if not more people we know died. However, despite what the previous scene might led you to believe that Sam would become deadmeat he actually survives the assault. Unfortunately the same can't be said of Pyp (who is killed by Ygritte with a arrow through his neck) and Grenn (who sacrifices himself to kill an giant). Oddly both characters survive in the books, and in fact its another character who dies in Grenn's place, its really sad to see both of them die though, but more in Pyp's case than Grenn. The latter got the best scene by far in the episode, when the Giant is charging their direction and he remains in place reciting the Watch's vow along with other rangers. They died holding the line. There can be a no more glorious death...

3. Ygritte manages to confront Jon during the fight and has him dead on her aim.However she hesitates long enough for Olly that one boy from the village that survived the Wildling attack, to put an arrow right through her chest. Ignoring the battle that has being taking place all around them Jon rushes to her side with her telling him never have left the cave. We'll go back there, Jon says. You know nothing, Jon Snow, she says, and dies.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YGRBITCH IS DEAD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I'd be lying if I said that her death is an absolute crushing downer though, since its no secret that I disliked Ygritte for the longest time. She has to be one of the most overrated characters in this series in my opinion. I'd say I would feel pretty indifferent to her death before because was barely in this season at all having a handful of appearances and lines in 8 episodes , but since she killed Pyp off and the way she died was pretty karmic: shot down by the boy whose father she killed too. Bout time karma got by someone here :v

The Closure

So, the Rangers managed to defeat the invaders and put off the invasion in the top of the Wall, while taking Tormund's prisioner. In the following morning, Jon contemplates that the Night Watch may had won the battle, but not the war just yet, as they had barely survived the first assault and can't simply keep doing this sh*t for long, as there are thousand more Wildlings out there ready to attack in the following night. He reasons that if Mance Ryder, the army would scatter since he is the only thing keeping them together.

Wut. This is such underwhelming ending for an episode 9 in Game of Thrones. I mean, each episode 9 in previous seasons ended with something shocking or certain that will change everything as we know such as Ned Stark's death, the Lannisters victory in Blackwater Bay and the Red Wedding, while this episode ends basically on a uncertainty... We don't know if Jon will be able to kill Mance Ryder or not, or if he will even get out alive or if the Watch will stand. I noticed that we would get an abrupt ending when I realized we are closing the running time and we possibly wouldn't get to see what we wanted to see...

NITPICK: My point from last episode's review still stands? How in the f*ck did the land beyond the wall can house so many wildlings? And more importantly, how the hell did Bran and his friends managed to sleep through them?

Closing Thoughts

All in all it was a solid episode hampered by a lame ass first 20 minutes and an weak ending. All battle scenes were great (even with that one Avengers shot panning all over the fight), it was great to see almost every named character do something awesome (except that vermin Slynt), and yeah I was pleased enough there were Giants riding Mammoths like I wanted to... However, compared with other climatic episodes in the series, this has to be the weakest of them. Not a bad episode on its own right, but I figure this was not the climatic episode of the season. The promo indicates the season finale will be since we will get closure on Jon, Dany, Bran, Arya and Tyrion's storylines.

Thank you guys for reading it I hope you enjoyed it. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow will be the season's finale "The Children". See you guys there :D