Game of Thrones Season Finale: Dull, Nauseating, Jaw-Dropping

We're a mere six episodes away from knowing who will sit on the Iron Throne. With the habitual warning about spoilers, read on for insights and analysis of season 7's final episode, "The Dragon and the Wolf":

• In its recap of the episode, the Washington Post acknowledges the episode certainly moved the main plot conflict—"the battle for the Iron Throne vs. the battle of Living and Dead"—forward while picking at its faults, explaining why Lord Baelish's death was an entirely unsurprising one. And "if you’re looking for a way to make a sex scene between two objectively gorgeous people pretty nauseating, having a teenager do a voiceover that confirms the aunt-nephew relationship of the characters that are rolling around naked is a solid effort."
• Writing for USA Today, Kelly Lawler found the episode bordering on "dull." What was once shocking and brilliant has been replaced by a show "in which almost everyone gets along, where major characters are seldom in danger of dying, where a zombie dragon breathing cold fire can take down an ice wall because the plot demands it ... a poor facsimile of seasons past."

• Writing for CNN, Brian Lowry takes a more favorable stance, writing, "the finale wisely capped the penultimate season by steadfastly focusing on the show's characters and dense mythology." He calls it a "beautifully realized 80 minutes of television" and found the episode's ending "jaw-dropping."
• At Slate, one big off-hand prediction for anyone who was left scratching their heads over the amount of screentime Theon got: "I imagine that Theon is going to somehow end up in control of the mercenary army that [Cersei has] purchased, allowing him to ride to the rescue next season."
• One of the episode's biggest reveals was confirming Jon Snow's true parentage and dropping his true name: Aegon Targaryen. At Vanity Fair, Joanna Robinson digs deep into the name and the others who have had it: Jon would be the third (with the second being his most likely dead half-brother). And then there's maybe fake Aegon... In a separate piece, Robinson raises the possibility that a "'deadly' jealous rivalry" between Tyrion and Jon Snow may be in the cards.
• Thanks to their ice dragon, the dead have breached the wall. "To understand the magnitude" of that, Thrillist presents a detailed "history of Wall lore and theories, plus a look at how the Long Night might play out now that we know how it fell."
• The Los Angeles Times was left asking nine questions, among them, "Who will get to Winterfell first?" and are three characters—Yara, Tormund, and Beric—alive or dead?

(More Game of Thrones stories.)