yeah there are a lot of good points in that article. this episode could have been much better if some of the events were just rearranged.
first off, why did they make Gendry seem like a doofus? he ain't one. "your lips are moving and you're complaining about something. that's whinging." and then, what, the brotherhood are supposed to be in the right in this situation? if i were gendry i would've been like "listen to me you big fuck, they didn't kill me because ser davos smuggled me out of the damn jail cell! otherwise, YES, she would've killed the shit out of me you motherfuckers! so fuck you!" i'll get back to Gendry later.
second off, I get that there were a bunch of important conversations that had to take place, I get that, but never should there have been a moment where the tension is just killed off so much.
it should've never stopped snowing. it didn't have to be a blizzard the whole time - for instance, when the zombie polar bear showed up, and they killed it, at that point maybe the blizzard could've chilled down to the snowstorm that I linked, idk if in this episode the snow was CGI or not,
but all the shit should've hit the fan once the polar bear showed up. it comes in, kills a guide, and then kills Thoros. He should've just died there. ALL of the important convos, should've happened before the zombie polar bear shows up. it's a blizzard, the zombie bear comes, attacks and kills a scout and Thoros, and is taken down by dragonglass (btw why didn't the zombie drop dead once it was lit up?), after that point the blizzard tames to a regular snowstorm so that they can see, and they see that the rest of the dead are not far, so they do what they have to do - get their one zombie prisoner and then move their asses onto the lake.
the whole "send Gendry back to Eastwatch" was bullshit. Come on... they shouldn't have made Gendry a doofus and they shouldn't have had Gendry leave the squad. He should've been there, with the posse the whole time and in between cutting to Dany & Tyrion, they should've just shown a scene of her being so damn worried that she just goes "ok i can't take it anymore. something doesn't feel right, i'm going to to the north myself and i'm bringing my dragons with me" (of course, played out in a more eloquent way) and then we could've avoided another stupid plot point of fast travel/teleportation and instant messenger ravens, AND we would get more of Gendry kicking ass since he'd stay with the team.
i'm kinda torn about the whole "dumb cunt" thing with the hound. on the one hand it was cool when he knocked the zombie's jaw off but on the other hand, again i don't like how they killed tension by having a segment of the team on an island as a "safe zone" for time to pass in the episode. at best they should've been depicted as being there for like, 20 to 40 minutes and then Jon makes everyone fall back, feel hopeless until the dragons come.
i'm not even gonna get into the whole stupid Winterfell drama. The only reason I don't mind it is because I like the chemistry (even if it is an animosity) that the Stark actresses have together. I liked Sansa's portrayal this episode, the way she talked about Jon & the North when she was alone with Petyr but I feel like she should've been able to at least suspect that it was he who was responsible for having that letter reach Arya's hands. And it's indefensible how Bran is not in this episode; he's definitely going to be in the season finale so his absence was just to not interrupt the buildup of this stupid drama. Sansa's the only Stark who's not annoying to watch. Arya and Bran? smh. At least Arya's acting is better.
I'm not gonna get into the Jon x Dany stuff other than I'm not happy about Jon bending the knee, and there wasn't even any King's Landing in this episode, was there? Or maybe there was and I'm mistaken
edit: and the last big issue for me was how Viserion got killed. If the Night king is superhuman enough to throw a javelin with significantly more velocity than Qyburn's scorpio then he's so OP that he doesn't even need to worry about fighting humans on his own. Even though Jon has killed multiple white walkers. What they should've shown in my opinion, was him doing something similar to what Jaime did, except come out successful from it. Charge at Viserion on his zombie horse at the edge of the frozen lake, then either jump off the zombie and throw the spear & cut to a summersault after Viserion is hit, or throw the spear on the horse. I think that would've been much better than the throw. The only thing I can see how this wouldn't work is that it would be "out of character" for the Night king to behave like that when normally he acts calmly and not rash - but, we don't really know much or anything about this character and what he's physically capable of so a charge and leap off wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility in my opinion.