The hugely anticipated Battle of Winterfell: dark, long, and epic. Plenty of action ensued in the third episode—the longest and largest battle sequence in TV history—and we were not disappointed.

The several minutes at the start of the episode with absolutely zero dialogue immediately set a cold yet epic scene, as thousands of desolate soldiers lined up to protect the castle. It seemed as though everything that needed to be said was shown, even with no actual words being spoken.

The episode was entirely predictable, but executed those predictable events with the highest quality. Everyone knew a battle would occur, and it seemed inevitable that the Red Woman would make her epic return, but simply the way the episode was orchestrated and the distinctly intelligent nature of the dead army made everything that happened feel entirely unexpected.

To go along with that, the events in favor of the living seemed extremely lucky; the creators could’ve done more to make the battle more evened out and, well, realistic—in the most fantastical manner of the word.

While characters such as Brienne and Jaime are known to have fantastic fighting skills, it seems a bit unlikely that they, along with most other important characters, happened to survive, say, seven different dead soldiers on top of them.

Despite this, again, the cinematography was striking; from unbelievably massive battle sequences to a period of silence with the dragons flying high above the clouds in the moonlight. The entire episode was a bit hard to see, but that darkness almost set the mood even more.

The episode also did a good job with quickly killing off several characters not absolutely essential to the story line, such as Jora, Theon, and Beric Dondarrion.

Also, many small occasions added into the larger sequence of battle and created several unsung heroes of the night—such as a dying Lyanna Mormont stabbing a giant, or Theon defending Bran with all his might.

The show did well to make the biggest hero of the battle—none other than Arya Stark—extremely kick-ass. All of our jaws dropped as Arya swooped in to stab the Night King and saved all living souls, however more definitely could’ve been explained about the Night Kings and their intentions throughout the show before simply killing all of them off.

Overall, we were given the epic battle that was expected, and it lived up to most expectations. This third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones is surely one of the greats.