On The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss’s character, Offred, doesn’t have many opportunities to be in the outside world of Gilead, the nation that has replaced the United States. But when she does there’s an eerie serenity that makes the terrors of the show’s theocratic totalitarianism even more frightening, because it can create something so beautiful on the surface.

“Most dystopias are rather dusty and full of robots and rubble and that kind of thing,” producer/writer Bruce Miller tells Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff on the latest episode of his podcast, I Think You’re Interesting. “This is a beautiful dystopia, which is one of the things that makes it novel; the beauty is a storytelling piece.”

Miller, who has produced a wide range of shows including ER, Medium, and Alphas, first discovered the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel The Handmaid’s Tale while in college, and it stuck with him throughout his career.

“You have a lot of time to think about it as you absorb other kinds of media through your life,” says Miller. “I always loved the book and I loved the world; it kind of started me reading a lot of dystopian fiction. You read The Handmaid’s Tale and then you see Rosemary’s Baby and say, ‘Hmm…that’s interesting visually and tonally.’”

When he eventually got the opportunity to be involved with Hulu’s production of the show, he ran with it, bringing years of familiarity with the story and a well-developed sense of how he wanted the world the characters inhabit to look and feel, even beyond what’s shown on screen. This introduced the challenge of depicting the world as it exists both to those it subjugates and those it benefits.

“Unlike Westworld, and unlike a lot of other shows, Gilead the world is not a mystery. Some of it is hidden from June/Offred because her perspective is so limited, but it’s not like they’re keeping it secret,” Miller says. “Revealing things about the world are generally not going to be big surprises or story points for the audience.”

To that end, Miller says that he and the show’s writers work to keep their notion of the world from becoming too rigid or clear in its distinctions between good and evil, allowing its makeup to develop and change as more information is revealed about the show’s characters. This also allows the audience to see the world of The Handmaid’s Tale from a different perspective on occasion, since the show focuses so heavily on Offred’s viewpoint.

“It’s easy to do a black-and-white version in your head of ‘Gilead bad, handmaids and victims good,’ and that’s not the way the show or the world lays out, and so the more you find out about the Commander and Serena Joy and what their relationship is like and how they were instrumental in building this place, that tells you what the place is going to be on a more emotional, granular level,” says Miller.

Naturally, depicting an oppressive, male-dominated system of government has led to plenty of comparisons to the Trump administration, and Miller insists even while depicting this world, he and the writing team are careful not to depict it simply as wish-fulfillment for those in charge.

“People always say, ‘Oh, you’re representing this person’s fantasy,’ and I don’t think Gilead is anybody’s fantasy, including the people in Gilead. I don’t see many people who are jumping up and down happy about the way it turned out,” Miller tells VanDerWerff.

There was trepidation on set about leaning too hard into the Trump allegory, but Miller says that ultimately incorporating some of those elements helped the show to define itself and the world of Gilead as being separate from our own.

“Some things that we were hesitant to do in the first season, things that were not necessarily pulled from today’s headlines but felt very of-the-now, we were a little worried about doing those things because it would feel like a reflection of the world today, not Gilead [as] a fictional world,” says Miller. “Those things were very successful for us, I think they helped build Gilead, and also they helped define Gilead as not this world — in some ways it is metaphorical to our world — but we’re not telling a story about the Trump administration.”

Miller also stresses the importance of depicting the human interactions between people of power, like the Commanders and the Aunts, which shows how the world of Gilead exists in reality beyond just the rules that were written to create it, and makes the terror experienced by characters like Offred even more understandable.

“We could sit down today and look at all the pieces of paper that make up the US government and I don’t think that would describe how it feels to live under the US government,” he says.

Listen to the full I Think You’re Interesting episode for more about the unique advantages of working with Elisabeth Moss as a producer, the challenges of being a male showrunner on a project about women, and how Miller fought The Handmaid’s Tale becoming too serialized.

To hear more interviews with fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — check out the I Think You’re Interesting archives.

Reactions to the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones’ seventh season were not as universally laudatory as they’ve been in years past. Vox highlighted the rich tapestry of nonsense that was the White Walker battle; the Atlantic asked, “Does this story still know what it’s doing?”; and the Ringer claimed that at this point, the show has become the sort of ho-hum fantasy it once consciously tried to subvert.

But while “Beyond the Wall” left many dismayed about the show’s future, this weekend’s season seven finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” has a chance to make up for that icy misstep. It promises the most dramatic collision of characters we’ve seen thus far, as all three Lannister siblings, as well as Jon Snow, Brienne, Jorah, Davos, and more, are set to converge for a loaded meeting in the fabled dragon pit, where the Targaryens kept their fiery beasts when they held the Iron Throne. 

Conspicuously missing from the trailer for the episode is Daenerys, which makes sense given Cersei’s penchant for blowing up gatherings of important figures. Her absence also sets us up for yet another eyeroll-worthy last-minute Drogon ex machina intervention should things go predictably south.

Season seven has been at its best when it pits characters the audience cares about against each other, rather than a mythic, CGI-assisted foe with unclear motivations and questionable javelin form. And while the season has been notably light on casualties, “The Dragon and the Wolf” has the potential to bring Game of Thrones’ penultimate season to a close in a way that makes recent weak writing seem insignificant in the face of a major revelation or high body count.

To fully grasp the scope of what’s to come this Sunday, let’s break down all of the dynamics at play in this meeting that’s been seven years in the making.  

Cersei vs. everyone 

It seems unlikely that Cersei will end two seasons in a row with a major bang, but it’s worth noting just how many of her enemies are willingly coming to her turf.

She still despises Tyrion, even though Jaime told her that Olenna was responsible for Joffrey’s death. Jon Snow is the leader of the northern insurrection and has now partnered up with her archrival Daenerys. She surely harbors some residual Stark hatred that will factor into her frosty reception of the northern contingent. Theon is also part of the landing party, and it’s important to remember that Cersei’s would-be husband Euron still holds his sister, Yara, captive. 

There’s also the potential of Davos bringing along Gendry, and while it seems hardly important in the grand scheme of things, the existence of a Baratheon bastard is surely news Cersei would not be thrilled about, given that Joffrey sought to have them all killed during the massacre in King’s Landing.

Brienne and Jaime reunite

Jaime and Brienne first became acquainted when she trekked him across the Riverlands in seasons two and three, planning to exchange him for Arya and Sansa on the orders of Catelyn Stark. That scheme didn’t succeed, but it did establish one of the more touching and unlikely friendships on the show.

The two grew close, with Brienne helping Jaime cope with the loss of his hand, and Jaime ultimately gave Brienne Oathkeeper, one of two Valyrian steel swords made from the melted blade of Ned Stark’s Ice. He also allowed her to flee during the siege at Riverrun after the castle was captured at the end of season six.

Though he’s still fiercely loyal to Cersei, Jaime has certainly seen her evil through a more neutral lens, and appears to have more misgivings than ever about his sister/queen/alleged mother of his unborn child. An encounter with Brienne, who has always seen the innate good in Jaime beyond his Kingslayer reputation, could push him further into the category of Cersei skeptic — which would have major implications going forward.

Cleganebowl? Cleganebowl!

It’s tough to tell from the preview whether the Hound is present in the King’s Landing party, but given that characters like Brienne, Jorah, and Davos are in attendance, it’s fair to assume that the younger Clegane might also be part of the party.

This would set the stage for what certain corners of the internet have dubbed “Cleganebowl,” a climactic clash between the Hound and his older brother the Mountain, currently Westeros’s scariest blue zombie this side of the Night King. Given this season’s catering to fan service, it seems we may get this long-discussed battle sooner rather than later. 

Even before they were ostensibly on opposite sides of the war, the two siblings weren’t exactly pals. Both are combative, brash, and confrontational; they fought frequently; and the Hound’s distinct facial scarring is the result of the Mountain pushing his face into a fire when they were children. This history was heavily referenced in “Beyond the Wall,” when the Hound explained to Tormund that he was pushed into the flames, so it’s fresh in viewers’ minds going into this possible reunion.

The Hound hasn’t played as big of a role as the early part of this season suggested he would, but defeating his brother would be a fitting way to close out his redemption arc, and would give fans who’ve wanted vengeance for Oberyn Martell’s traumatic death at the hands of the Mountain some long-awaited vindication.

The redemption of Jon Snow

Jon Snow has been blathering to anyone who would listen about the army of the dead for years now, and he finally has his best shot to get the most powerful ally in Westeros on his side. While his plan to capture a wight was profoundly stupid and led to the Night King acquiring a dragon — not to mention the deaths of several unnamed and unimportant wildlings and everyone’s favorite drunk priest, Thoros of Myr — he finally has concrete proof. 

It’s worth noting that the last time someone tried to transport a wight (or at least part of one), things didn’t exactly work out. Alliser Thorne of the Night’s Watch was sent on a mission from Castle Black with a still-twitching hand, but it rotted on the journey south. That likely won’t be an issue now, since Jon’s crew captured an entire wight. Also, since characters can now get to any location in Westeros in the span of a single smash cut, it’s hard to imagine the show making transportation time a central issue here.

But while Cersei does apparently grant an audience to Jon and co., it’s hard to believe she’ll take the threat of their wight seriously (although there is an incredible theory on Reddit about her potentially joining forces with the Night King). If she does trust Jon and puts aside her vendettas against several members of Jon’s coalition, then the King in the North will have assembled essentially all of Westeros, along with Daenerys’s forces, to fight back against the encroaching winter.

Whatever’s going on with Sansa and Arya

Sansa and Arya have been bristling at each other pretty much since the latter’s return to Winterfell, and things came to a head in “Beyond the Wall” when Arya confronted Sansa about a letter she was forced to write back when she was held captive by the Lannisters. Later, Sansa stumbled upon her younger sister’s bag of faces, prompting Arya to play the Game of Faces with her.

While some see Arya’s odd behavior as part of a deeper conspiracy to take down Petyr Baelish, it’s also possible that the drama in Winterfell will continue to center on the sisters’ relationship. Arya is stealthy and smart, but she also has a penchant for resorting to violence before fully grasping the consequences; Baelish, to his credit, is more measured. Sansa, meanwhile, has proven herself to be a savvy political mind capable of ruling Winterfell in a way that Jon seemed to struggle to do before he took control of Dragonstone.

Obviously a lot can happen in the finale, and Arya and Sansa could certainly team up to take down Littlefinger in a triumphant sisterly reconciliation. Alternatively, Jon convincing the Lannisters to join him in the fight against the dead, only to return to Winterfell and see his family fractured once more, would be heartbreaking.

Grey Worm and the Unsullied: still standing, somehow

When we last checked in on Grey Worm and the Unsullied, they were the victims of a brilliant military move by the Lannisters, who gave up Casterly Rock but removed all the provisions and then burned their enemies’ ships. So it would seem that Grey Worm and his battalion have been stranded in a castle with no food for at least the amount of time it took Jon and his cohort to go from Dragonstone to Eastwatch and back down to King’s Landing.

Grey Worm looks like his usual stoic self in the trailer, and his army seems to still be large in number, so it’s worth wondering what exactly they’ve done to survive this long. Then again, it’s possible everything that’s happened since episode three, “The Queen’s Justice,” took place in just a couple of days.

Over the past few years, audiences have become intimately acquainted with actress Ann Dowd’s ability to portray agents of evil with a humanity that makes her characters even more compelling because you can see glimpses of who they were in a life long since past. As cult leader Patti Levin on The Leftovers and stern educator Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale, the veteran stage and screen actress has brought dimensionality and deftness to these characters.

“My best friend told me once, ‘You know, you’re just going to play nuns.’ I was incensed,” Dowd tells Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff in the latest episode of his podcast, I Think You’re Interesting. “I haven’t seen her in quite a while, and I’d like to say, ‘I’m not playing nuns right now.’”

While her recent characters are far from saintly, Dowd is diligent in not letting their wickedness consume them, or her. In the case of Aunt Lydia, she says she considers what the character’s life was like before the events of the show began.

“I asked [Handmaid’s Tale producer and writer] Bruce Miller, ‘What did you think she was before?’ He said a teacher, and right away it sparked something immediately,” Dowd says. “You could imagine her teaching, perhaps in an all-girls school or a public school, and being made fun of and mocked as the teacher with values as Lydia saw the world in front of her fall apart.”

When VanDerWerff asks her whether she feels like we all have the capacity to be a Lydia or Patti depending on the circumstances, Dowd tells a story from college that has always stuck with her as a humorous yet dangerous example of the power of groupthink.

“I did something once in college, and I think of this from time to time. We were all in the cafeteria and there was a food fight. It was a big group, so somehow that personal responsibility gets shifted to the group mentality of, ‘Well, we’re all doing it,’” she says. “And I threw a tomato at somebody — right at them — and I still look back and think, ‘You could’ve hurt them.’ But I just sailed away with it.”

Now that she works with a lot of younger actors, such as the women who play the Handmaids, Dowd tries to share the perspective she’s gained on how to keep the weight of a role from becoming all-consuming:

It is not in my best interests as an actor to stay in that place; to me, that depletes the freshness and the energy. Other actors work differently, [but] when I see young actors do that, I get very concerned, and sometimes I speak up even if I’m not asked. I say, “You know, darling, you don’t have to suffer.” … The process of getting a role or understanding a role or finding a way to perform the role to your ability, those are all things that will have a certain amount of struggle in them. But just don’t sign on to the notion that you need to suffer in order for this to be good. I don’t believe in that.

Dowd says part of what’s helped her achieve that sense of perspective and balance is being a parent; she has two sons and a daughter with her husband, actor Lawrence Arancio.

“My little boy is 12, and he wants his mother at home. Handmaid’s is in Toronto, Good Behavior — which is another series I’m working on that I love — is in North Carolina, and I’ve got to find a way to get right back, because I’m responsible for him,” she says. “That’s my first priority, so that’s very difficult to balance that, but to step away from that singular focus on ‘I must spend all my time with the work.’ I don’t think [that mentality] is productive.”

Dowd also says that playing these outsider characters has given her insight into sections of our society that the media often doesn’t pay attention to.

“It’s always been my favorite place, for whatever reason. The loner, the one who never fit in, who thought in peculiar and strange ways, who survived somehow and found a way to make their life meaningful. I love those people, deeply,” she said, recalling a William Mastrosimone play she did called The Woolgatherer. “By all accounts, [my character] should have been dead but isn’t. She found a way through, with damage.”

Listen to the full I Think You’re Interesting conversation with Dowd for more about what it was like to shoot The Handmaid’s Tale in the shadow of Trump, Dowd’s thoughts on her short-lived cult hit Nothing Sacred 20 years later, and what it’s like to finally be offered roles after years of auditioning.

To hear more interviews with fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — check out the I Think You’re Interesting archives.

When Academy Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris talks about the subject of his latest film, portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman, he describes her uncanny ability to preserve the immediacy of an unfolding moment and translate it into art.

“Elsa quite poetically describes it as ‘nailing down the now’ — I’ve never heard a better way of describing a photograph,” Morris tells Vox critic at large Todd VanDerWerff on the latest episode of his podcast, I Think You’re Interesting.

But hearing Morris talk about his own career — which launched with the pet cemetery-centered Gates of Heaven in 1978 and includes acclaimed films like 1988’s The Thin Blue Line and 2003’s The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara — it’s abundantly clear that he has committed to “nailing down the now” in his films. In the case of his latest, The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, Morris had been kicking the idea around for some time, but when the perfect moment arose, he knew he had to seize the opportunity.

“I think [filmmaking] happens in a way that I can’t even control. Elsa happened, it had been on my mind for years like, ‘I should make this film,’” Morris tells VanDerWerff.

“She told me the Gentle Giant — the local moving company — was coming to her house to take these huge polaroid photographs into storage where they could be digitized. And I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t going to happen every day, I’d better go out there and film it,’ and so we started making a film. It’s the way I should work at least part of the time, not asking permission to make a film, not looking for money to make a film, but just making a film.” 

Over the course of his career, as Morris has interviewed subjects ranging from criminal investigators to Stephen Hawking to government leaders (including Donald Trump, who has a unique interpretation of Citizen Kane), he has worked to capture authenticity and organic reactions. This drive led him to build the Interrotron, a machine that allows his subjects to make eye contact with the viewer and strip away some of the artifice of filmmaking. Morris says that of all of his “customers” — his term for subjects — only McNamara has ever resisted the device

“He objected to it, I believe, because he’s been interviewed 10,000 times and then he comes in and something’s different and he’s immediately aware of that fact,” Morris explains. “He comes into the studio, he’d only agreed to give me five minutes, he sees the Interrotron set up and says, ‘What is that?’” 

Still, after explaining what the device was for Morris wound up conducting 20 hours of interviews with McNamara on the Interrotron. This included a stunning moment for Morris where McNamara concurred with Curtis LeMay that they would have been tried as war criminals if they had lost World War II.

Perhaps most critically, Morris’ lengthy career has taught him the importance of letting a conversation take shape naturally and without imposing too many preconceived ideas.

“Things happen in interviews that I could never plan for,” he says, referencing moments from The B-Side where Dorfman examines some of her older photographs.

“I think I follow ideas as they lead me, I don’t think I have a plan. Of course there are things I want to cover and have brought out in the interview, but I have always been surprised that somehow if I shut up and let people talk they will take me where I want to go. … Why that happens, I don’t know, maybe it’s part of my art, but it’s much better when ideas emerge naturally in the course of a conversation rather than are imposed.”

Going into an interview with an open mind and no set agenda was also essential in the making of The Thin Blue Line. When Morris interviewed the principal eyewitness who got his protagonist, Randall Adams, convicted and sentenced to death, he was astounded by the implausible story she told him:

“She told this wild, cockamamie story that I could never have known enough to ask her. In fact, when she started telling me this story I didn’t know enough about it whether to believe her or disbelieve her, but I sat and listened. In the course of that interview she told me things that showed she had committed perjury at this man’s trial, and led to his conviction in Texas being reversed.” 

As he continues to work on new projects, including an upcoming Netflix series, Morris remains committed to that sensation of “nailing down the now” that has allowed his documentaries to stand the test of time. 

“People ask me, ‘How can you make something that looks spontaneous happen on film?’ And I say, ‘Well, the best way to make something look spontaneous is to make it spontaneous.’ In fact, I think it’s the only way.”

To hear more interviews with fascinating people from the world of arts and culture — from powerful showrunners to web series creators to documentary filmmakers — check out the I Think You’re Interesting archives.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Morris’s The Thin Blue Line was made in 1998. It was made in 1988.

Game of Thrones’ penultimate episodes are historically the series’ most staggering entries, and that looks likely to be the case even in the truncated season seven.

In the upcoming sixth and next-to-last episode, “Beyond the Wall,” Jon Snow and his party will head north on an easier-said-than-done mission to capture a wight to bring to King’s Landing and convince Cersei that the major players in the war for the Iron Throne should put their differences aside and band together. The episode’s trailer includes a few shots of Arya and Sansa at Winterfell continuing the Littlefinger-fueled drama of episode five (plus one of Tyrion and Daenerys), but most significantly, it promises the show’s first epic clash north of the Wall since season five’s iconic “Hardhome.”

But plenty has changed since Jon last voyaged north to unite the Westerosi and Wildlings in order to bolster their odds of survival — and learned of the Night King’s power to raise the dead in a surprise massacre that left Jon and his fellow survivors fleeing for their lives by boat.

Season seven hasn’t given us much action north of the Wall thus far, with Jon mostly stuck trying to explain an unexplainable evil to both his own men and Dany — but that is set to change with “Beyond the Wall.” In preparation for what will surely be an exhilarating episode, let’s review what’s changed since the last clash with the White Walkers.

 New players have joined the fight

While he doesn’t have quite the large-scale force of Night’s Watch and Wildling fighters — and the giant Wun Wun — that he did at Hardhome, Jon Snow clearly went for a quality-over-quantity approach with this expedition. Tormund Giantsbane is along for the ride once more, but Jon now also has a skilled band of warriors in Sandor Clegane, Beric Dondarrion, Jorah Mormont, and Thoros of Myr.

He also has on his team the green but gung-ho Gendry, whose explanation to Davos, “I’ve been getting ready. I never knew what for, but I’ve always known I’d know it when it comes,” will surely be tested in his first journey north of the Wall. It’s slightly surprising that Gendry rushed into battle when he’s a skilled blacksmith and could seemingly be crucial in forming weapons from dragonglass, but after spending the past few seasons making weapons for the Lannisters (and rowing), it’s hard to fault him for jumping into the fray. Davos, ever cognizant of his limitations in battle, hung back at Eastwatch. 

Still, if the episode’s preview is any indication, Jon and co. are massively outmanned and will have to contend not only with the sea of wights but also the White Walkers themselves if they want to even make it back alive. Jon doesn’t exactly have a winning record against the army of the dead, and it’s going to be a massive challenge for this small party to capture a wight and make it back to the Wall alive.

However, given how malleable time and distance have become this season, there is the potential for more key characters to show up north of the Wall at just the right moment, particularly since Jon finally seems to be convincing Daenerys of the legitimacy and severity of the northern threat. A dragon-led deus ex machina might feel a little cheap, but there’s no denying it would be exhilarating to see a recuperated Drogon roasting wights.

It’s unclear how much help Bran can provide from his perch at Winterfell, since he often seems to exist only to be dunked on by the Night King, but his warging ability could potentially be of use. He sent a flock of ravens to scout north of the Wall in “Eastwatch,” though they were scrambled and disrupted by the Night King. The Children of the Forest have also been eradicated after the protection on their cave was broken once the Night King marked Bran during a vision, so there’s no longer a chance of a last-minute assist there. 

Further south, the united northern forces are preparing for the winter under Sansa’s supervision and could theoretically offer support north of the Wall, though that would require someone like Davos to send a message from Eastwatch. There are also Wildling forces at the castle, and a shot in the trailer looks like a horde of them running — though it’s unclear whether that’s into combat or away from the Walkers.

While still outmanned, Jon Snow and co. at least have better stock of their tools

Jon lost one stash of dragonglass weapons in the battle at Hardhome — but he gained a piece of knowledge that’s even more crucial when he used Longclaw, the Valyrian steel sword given to him by Jeor Mormont, to turn one of the Walkers into a pile of crushed ice.

Valyrian steel is incredibly rare, but there are several weapons in Westeros that could prove crucial in a battle against the dead, as Vulture notes. These include Oathkeeper, which Brienne currently has at Winterfell; Heartsbane, which Sam Tarly is presumably bringing with him from the Citadel as he heads north; and the dagger that formerly belonged to Littlefinger but is now in Bran’s keep.

Widow’s Wail, which Olenna Tyrell referenced in her final conversation/sass seminar with Jaime in “The Queen’s Justice,” is another known Valyrian weapon, though it’s currently in Jaime’s possession and therefore unlikely to figure in until Jon can convince Cersei that the dead are truly coming.

The other major anti-White Walker material, dragonglass, is far more plentiful, but also not nearly as battle-ready. There’s a major cache of it on Dragonstone, as discovered by Sam, which Jon successfully convinced Daenerys to let him mine so that it can be turned into weapons for the war, but they’re still early in that process. 

Dragonglass might not be effective against the zombie-like wights (who can still be taken out with good old-fashioned fire), but it may well be essential in defeating their leaders. Not only can it kill White Walkers, but it also created them. In a season six flashback, a dragonglass dagger is plunged into the heart of one of the First Men by the Children of the Forest, which turns him into a White Walker.

Additionally, after Benjen Stark saved Bran and Meera Reed from a horde of wights with a badass flaming ball and chain, it was revealed that the Children stopped the Walkers from turning him into one of their own by stabbing him in the heart with dragonglass. This bit of info seems significant enough that it wouldn’t be a shock if we see a main character begin to turn only to be saved in the same manner as Benjen.

The stakes are higher than ever

Say what you will about the White Walkers and their army of wights, but they can’t be accused of rushing things. While other characters have been able to traverse continents and seas multiple times, the army of the dead — who need no sleep or food and ostensibly never stop marching — seem to have chosen the scenic route in their journey from Hardhome to the Wall (with a minor detour to chase Bran to the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave).

It’s unclear from the previews exactly where the confrontation between Jon’s party and the Walkers will take place, but it’s safe to assume that the encounter will be closer to the Wall than any encounter with the dead we’ve seen before. The trailer includes a shot of Jon and Tormund fleeing, as well as one of a group of men charging through what appear to be the gates of Eastwatch.

Self-proclaimed “liability” Davos and a handful of Wildlings seemingly won’t be able to do much to hold off the army of the dead at Eastwatch. They may hope that the magic built into the Wall can protect them, but remember that many believe the protection was broken when Bran was touched by the Night King and then traveled through the Wall.

This could mean that Jon’s comparatively low-stakes bag-and-tag mission could be what leads the White Walkers south of the Wall and finally into Westeros proper — which would set us up for the rare Game of Thrones season finale that exceeds the penultimate episode in terms of stakes.

This piece has been updated with the correct title of episode six.