I think it’s official: the old pace for Game Of Thrones episodes is out. It’s soooo last season, team. New pace: Chrome-Boys-Racing-For-Valhalla fast.

So much stuff happened in ‘Beyond The Wall’, which was GoT‘s official penultimate Battle Episode of the season. An insane amount of stuff. A dragon died! Thormund pretended to be Brienne’s boyf! ARYA HAS A SATCHELL FULL OF RUBBER HALLOWEEN MASKS.

Here’s your guide to the best references, explainers and Easter eggs in amongst all the madness.

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Longclaw And Also Flaming Swords

In case you don’t know yet, swords are like penises. And, since swords are like penises, Jon Snow’s Longclaw is the biggest, longest, most important Valyrian penis in all of Westeros.

For those who may not remember, Longclaw is Jon’s precious Valyrian steel blade, which was given to him by Jorrah’s papa, Jeor Mormont, as thanks for saving him from a wight. Jeor even had the hilt remodelled from a bear to a wolf, the Stark house sigil.

But, now noble Sadboy Jon is face to face with Jorrah, he’s trying to give Longclaw back to the so-called rightful owner.

But Jorrah isn’t having none of it. So Longclaw stays with Jon. And good thing too, because there’s a bit of a theory about what happened with the eyes of Longclaw’s wolf sigil once Jon rose (from the dead?? Again??) out of the frozen lake after the Battle Beyond The Wall:

OH SHIT. The wolf’s eyes OPENED. No idea what this means, to be frank with you. But I’d bet it’s something to keep an ~eye~ on. (I’m sorry.)

Speaking of swords… what are the rules with these fire swords? Beric has one, and so does (/did) Thoros of Myr (RIP, man). But what is the deal with this fire magic malarkey?

Well, back in season three we learned that Beric could activate the fire in his sword using his own blood. Now it appears that he can just turn that fire on whenever he wants, baby!

Nah, jks. Of course there’s a deliciously ~religious~ reason Beric can activate the sword. Because he’s been brought back to life a whopping six times by Thoros, harnessing the Lord of Light, Beric is not quite alive and not quite dead. He’s like a fire wight (sort of the opposite of the ice wights who fight with the white walkers).

So Beric harnesses the archaic power of fire, which is inside him, to blaze up his fire sword. Nice.

Jon has also been brought back to life by the power of the Lord of Light, so does this mean he can do fire sword too? Only time will tell — but perhaps the wolf’s opening eyes and the all this blazing sword business are linked after all.

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Dany Does Beyond The Wall

So, for the first time, Dany’s gone north of The Wall to bail out Poor Jon and his Band of British Bros. She grabbed her most fabulous Fashun-esque winter coat and hopped on Drogon and did it. She just went there. BUT, was it really the first time?

I mean, physically, yes. But you might remember that she’s emotionally or spiritually visited the wall once before — in a vision she had during her time in The House of the Undying.

Back then, she was drawn out beyond the wall because she heard her dragons shrieking. And, well, I think we all know what happened when she was drawn out beyond the wall this time…

So, was that inception in the House of the Undying a warning about what would happen when Dany went beyond the wall? That she’d hear one of her dragons shreiking (and dying) for real? Sad!

And, look, what this does is blow open a popular GoT theory: the Dragon-Rider theory that’s been floated based on Rhaegar’s prediction that “the dragon has three heads”. Most theorists took this to mean that there would be three people riding the three dragons by series end — and most posited that the riders would be Dany, Jon and Tyrion.

But now that Viserion has been turned into a Zombie-Dragon, does this mean the third rider will be The Night King? I hope so, that dude has mad style and he would look good on a dragon. (Still, though, what a dick.)

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A Girl Loves Some Drama, Hey

So, we already knew Arya was on the slippy slide down to Crazy Town, and after this week I feel confident saying she’s in full We Need To Talk About Kevin territory.

Threatening to stab your sister and cut off her face and wear it around? That’s a psychopath. Walking into rooms and looking at people like this?

Oh, you’d better believe that’s a psychopath.

So what’s her game here? There are a couple of theories.

The first is that Arya is playing both Sansa and Littlefinger, in order to get Littlefinger into a nice safe position for her to kill him. By playing into his hands with The Letter and what it means to Sansa, Arya can persuade Littlefinger to lower his guard. Then she can get him. Then she can wear his face, as she is wont to do.

The second theory, which I am NOT A FAN OF, is that the real Arya actually died in her fight with The Waif (not, as we concluded, that The Waif died by Arya’s hand) and now The Waif is wearing Arya’s face and acting like that kid in your maths class who carves pictures of Satan into the desks. You know, just going round being creepy and generally fucking things up. Not. Here. For. This.

The third theory is just that Arya is a dope and is being proper manipulated by Littlefinger, which, sigh, is very boring and I hope not. It’s already extremely uncomfortable watching two sisters who should be joining forces having fights over Who Has The Most Trauma. This is not how women behave, nor is it how women are empowered, all-male GoT writing staff.

Fingers crossed for Theory #1, then!

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The Power Of Love

Lol, so, wtf is up with this bizarre love/hate Brienne-Tormund-Hound threesome situation? Very weird how The Hound was making jokes about Tormund wanting to, ehm, mess around with dicks, and then Tormund being like “nah I got a gf” and then The Hound being all:

I dunno if it’s that The Hound is jealous of Tormund dating the woman who bested him, or if he’s jealous that Brienne is dating this hottie Wilding… but The Hound is jelly of someone, team.

I mean, as Tormund pointed out, he and The Hound are linked, in a sense, because they’re both “kissed by fire”, which is a reference to how Wildings describe redheads, and also to The Hound’s disfigurement, which happened when The Mountain dunked his head in some fire as a kid (as ya do).

Come to think of it, if this Lord of Light theory (above) is true, there are a fair number of the North of the Wall crew who are, as Tormund says, “kissed by fire”…

Lots o’ fire, y’all.

ANYWAY, speaking of ~fiery~ romance.. how do you feel about aunts and nephews getting busy? I hope you’re into it bc…

… it’s happening, whether you like it or not. There are sparks, and they are 1000 percent flying between these two people who are definitely closely related to each other by blood!

So we know that the GoT world isn’t exactly anti-incest: Jamie and Cersei, of course, sired three (terrible) children through creepy sibling banging, and the Targaryens are famous for their, errr, biblical interest in members of their own family.

Plus, if we look back at Dany’s House of the Undying inception, in that vision she was drawn out beyond the wall to find Drogo and their unborn son. In real life, she was drawn out beyond the wall to lose a “child” (RIP Viscerion), but perhaps to find a different kind of family… in her newfound allegience to Jon.

Whether their relo ends up being strictly familial or strickly dickly, I’m totally here for the Jon/Dany match-up — I mean, we’ve been waiting for these two to join forces since season one! If that includes a little intrafamilial love, well, so be it.

This is the world we’ve chosen to inhabit, gang.

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Cleganebowl

Strewth, fam, are we about to FINALLY, ACTUALLY get the Cleganebowl we’ve been promised for yonks?

Maybe! The Hound’s got his Wight In A Bag and he’s heading back to Westeros to show it to Cersei — all, “Look, Cersei, a wight! Help us pls now bc we have caught this wight for you.”

You know who else is in King’s Landing, with Cersei? Good old Franken-Mountain.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

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Game of Thrones is streaming on Foxtel Now and airing on Showcase at 11am and 8.30pm every Monday. You can read Mel’s recap of ‘Beyond The Wall’ here, and Sinead’s Power Rankings here!

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Matilda Dixon-Smith is Junkee’s Staff Writer. She tweets at @mdixonsmith.