This was not the Battle of the Blackwater. After much consternating and deliberating and waiting Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch finally had to defend Castle Black against Mance Rayder and his wildling army of 100,000 strong. Well, kind of. In Season 4’s penultimate episode, “The Watchers of The Wall”, Game of Thrones has a grand battle of circumstance that is not nearly as epic as the two season build up entailed. This is not to say “The Watchers of The Wall” was not a good episode of the show, because it was, but it would be understandable if the battle was not as epic as the hype led us to believe.
“The Watchers of The Wall” made a very good decision in focusing solely on The Wall and the battle to come. This battle had been billed as something of great import. The Wildlings were going to attack and the wellbeing of all of Westeros was in question. It would not have seemed right to cut away to Arya and The Hound camping next to a river or Dany becoming annoyed by her new subjects’ audiences. Focusing on just The Wall allowed for some moments that the show usually does not have time for in a normal episode juggling four different story lines. And you don’t have to look much further than the opening scene to see the benefits of a strong focus on one storyline.
The scene between Jon and Sam on top of The Wall served multiple purposes to excellent effect. First, it let everyone see Jon and Sam for, perhaps, the last time just talking about regular things. In recent episodes all the Night’s Watchmen have done is worry about the oncoming onslaught. But in the opening we are reminded that these men are still young – too young to be required to protect an entire continent from a huge army. It reminded us of Jon and Sam’s relationship and how well they fit together with Sam flustering Jon with questions of his love for Ygritte and both yearning for that feeling and of Jon’s still deep feelings for Ygritte. And it allowed for some brevity before the creeping certainty of death in battle. It was a very nice scene between two friends that have not had a lot of time to just be able to be friends.
Unfortunately the aforementioned scene was followed by 15 more minutes of pre-battle time. Game of Thrones hasn’t dragged for a few seasons now but the rest of the pre-battle scenes did just that. Sure, it’s nice to see Ygritte butt heads with the leader of the Thenns and Sam and Maester Aemon talk about past and current loves in the library (late night talks in the library should become code for anything than what it actually is and happened in the episode). But, after so much build up to this fight, having another 25 minutes before the fighting actually began was far too much time. Sam kissing Gilly takes no more than a couple of minutes, no need to postpone this epic battle any longer.
And with Mance’s hordes lined up on the other side of The Wall, including giants riding mastodons, it ends up being the 25 Wildlings and Thenns that end up doing most of the war waging. Their attack on the Castle Black side of the gates forces Alliser Thorne, ever Jon’s rival despite his little pep talk, off of the top of The Wall and down into the courtyard and thrusting Janos Slynt in command. Until Janos shows his true cowardice, which forces Jon into command – the most important moment of the entire episode. As this is happening up top, Sam is loading crossbows for Pip – who required a pep talk from Sam to calm him down. Pip ends up dying thanks to one of Ygritte’s arrows and was given a death scene that was too long for what his fairly insignificant character (at least in terms of the show) deserved.
And while Jon capably orders arrows to be fired on Mance’s army on the North side, the Night’s Watch is being fairly easily dispatched by Ygritte, Tormund and company down below. Alliser shows some of his fighting acumen but he is quickly incapacitated by Tormund, who was certainly the greatest warrior of them all in the episode. Tormund’s continuous attack lived up to all the hype he had received when Jon first met him in Season 3.
Eventually, after dropping bombs on the giants and mastodon trying to tear off the gate, Jon sends a group of six down to the tunnel to defend it in case something breaks through. Soon after Jon joins the battle in the courtyard and tells Sam to release Ghost from his holding area, which was one of the most impressive shots of the night. The camera panning and tracking through the entire battle, seeming like an uncut shot, was definitely one of the most interesting things the show has done visually while it also gave the audience a good sense of how everything was playing out. When Sam let Ghost out it seemed like it would be a difference maker in the battle but it seemed like Ghost only felled one foe and decided to snack the rest of the time.
Jon and the Thenn leader have a nice fight, ending with a hammer to the Thenn’s dome and, finally, Jon and Ygritte come together on the battle field. After an exchange of smiles Ygritte gets shot by the youngest kid in the Night’s Watch and is allowed to say goodbye in Jon’s arms. This was a nice moment, if not a little cheesy, but no one can begrudge Ygritte of one final “You know nothing Jon Snow”. However, reciting the vows of the Night’s Watch as a giant comes full speed towards Grenn and the others protecting the inner gate in the tunnel was by far the cheesiest moment – and a repeat of a moment from Season 1. What makes that even worse is that the episode does not show the fight between the giant and those six men, only showing us Jon stepping over Grenn and the rest at the end of the episode.
After the Night’s Watch release a huge swinging chain to stop any climbers the battle is done. The next morning Jon decides to go meet with Mance at his camp, in hopes of killing him, and he and Sam get another last goodbye. The Night’s Watch win the night but clearly will have a hard time surviving much longer as Mance has more than enough people to spare.
The fighting only lasted about 20 minutes and was certainly not as grandiose as the Season 2 Battle of the Blackwater. Game of Thrones usually doesn’t show too many battles, at least large scale battles, so when one comes along the audience expects something incredible. Unfortunately, this battle did not live up to the two years of teasing it received. Mance’s huge army barely did anything, even with the giant’s arrow impaling and subsequently rocketing a Night’s Watchman off the top of The Wall to the courtyard below, instead having no more than 30 warriors attack the courtyard. Yes, it makes perfect sense in how The Wall is set up but it didn’t meet my expectations. Having said all that, it was still impressive for a TV show -- Game of Thrones does things no other TV show has done before or is currently doing. “The Watchers of The Wall” was a good episode but, for me, will not go down as the best episode in what has been a stellar Season 4. And that is saying something.