We review every commentary on the Game of Thrones season 7 Blu-ray boxset

Episode 705, “Eastwatch.” Commentary by director Matt Shakman, writer Dave Hill, and director of photography Rob McLachlan.

• The original script for this episodes includes a discussion between Jaime and Bronn about how to kill a dragon. No discussion of how Bronn dragged an armored Jaime out of the water was mentioned.
• By this point in the show, the production hires actual drill instructors to train the extras on how to move like a real army. For the Battle of the Bastards, there were two drill instructors, one training the Bolton soldiers and the other training Jon’s troops. The rivalry cut deep, to the point where the two groups had separate wrap parties.
• Everyone tells the story about how high the winds were while filming the scene where Jon and Drogon meet at Dragonstone. It was so bad that they had to hook a rig up to Kit Harington lest he blow away.
• Hill characterizes the scene where the Archmaesters dismiss Bran’s warnings about the Night King as he, David Benioff and Dan Weiss “getting back at all our professors.” Apparently, Benioff and Weiss were planning to become professors when they met.
• At one point, Varys describes the Mad King burning people alive and watching their hair catch on fire. The producers have a fun time researching exactly when and how that kind of stuff happens.
• The fermented crab was actually crab. Hooray for prop verisimilitude. Although in the next commentary, they say it was cole slaw. I don’t know who to believe anymore.
• Part of the reason the writers decided to give Cersei a pregnancy was to give her “more stakes in the game” and to keep her from descending into “maniac mode.”
• Dave Hill made John Bradley take calligraphy lessons for the brief scene where we see Sam transcribing an old scroll.
• Yes, the final shot of the six dudes walking beyond the Wall is an homage to The Wild Bunch. Also, Paul Kaye (Thoros of Myr) himself thought of the bit where Thoros toasts the Hound right before going through the gate at Eastwatch.

Epiosde 705, “Eastwatch.” Commentary by Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) and Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont).

• These two are adorable, but not terribly knowledgable. Cunningham struggles to identify Oldtown in the opening credits, and correctly notes that “250,000 geeks” are going to call him out on it.
• Jerome Flynn is the godfather of one of Iain Glen’s sons. Who knew?
• By their own admission, both Cunningham and Glen get sucked into watching the show and don’t have an abundance of helpful things to say. (For example, here’s Cunningham on the how good Drogon looks: “On the computer. Jesus Christ.”)
• Cunningham puts the army of the dead at about 100,000 soldiers. Whether that’s correct is anyone’s guess.
• Sam Tarly is Carice van Houten’s (Melisandre) pick for the person who should sit the Iron Throne in the end, unlikely as that is.
• Iain Glen on passionate Spanish fans: “They don’t ask permission. They just grab you and stick their tongue in your mouth.”
• Cunningham gives an interesting explanation for how he chose Davos’ accent. If Westeros were an analogue for England, he reasons, that would make King’s Landing London, which would give Davos a cockney accent. They didn’t go in that direction, which is probably for the best.
• Cunningham loves Maisie Williams and the character of Arya Stark, but is adamant that Arya not be held up as a role model for young girls. “She’s a fucking serial killer!”
• In case anyone was wondering, yes, Davos’ “Thought you might still be rowing” line is a reference to all the Gendry memes that sprang up between the last time we saw him and now.
• The actor playing one of the guards Davos and Gendry encounter on the beach in King’s Landing has played multiple roles; he played Fake Ned Stark during the play Arya watched in season 6.
• When shooting the scene where Stannis saves the Night’s Watch from the wildlings back in season 4, Liam Cunningham did some “fighting from horseback.” We never saw that stuff, so the show can get away with the line that Davos “isn’t much of a fighter.”
• Cunningham is pretty delightful. He regularly steals props from the set and gives them to his spoiler-phobic daughter, including Shireen’s stag and a scroll containing information about what happens in future episodes, the latter of which he gave to her knowing she’d have a hard time not reading it. He lost Davos’ fingerbone bag, though.

Episode 706, “Beyond the Wall.” Commentary by director Alan Taylor, director of photography Jonathan Freeman, and camera operators Sean Savage and David Morgan.

• Apparently the Game of Thrones theme song is used as hold music for the production department.
• It was Taylor’s idea to start the episode by panning over the table at Dragonstone before picking up beyond the Wall, which struck me as too artsy for Game of Thrones when I saw it.
• Taylor notes that he shot the scene where Lord Commander Mormont gave Jon Snow Longclaw, so it’s neat that he also shot the scene where Jon tries to give it to Jorah.
• The group is agog over the quality of the fake snow on this show — the Winterfell courtyard is covered in it. No show does fake snow like this one.
• Taylor considers the developing relationship between Jon Snow and Daenerys as the main through-line of the episode.
• Obviously, the production shot a lot of this episode in far-flung locations: Iceland, to be specific. But not all of it. Both the scene with the polar bear and the whole frozen island fight were shots on sets in Belfast, although the frozen lake set was at least built outside.
• The crew named the zombie bear Lumpy. They named the wight the Hound chucks a rock at Chinless.
• It’s interesting to hear where the directors are coming from versus the writers. At several points, Taylor expresses concern that dialogue-driven scenes are too long, the idea being that it’s harder to make them interesting visually. But there are fans who think that that writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss could have stood to write more dialogue-driven scenes, particularly in this episode, where the plot is kind of a mess. Ultimately, Benioff and Weiss have the final say-so, but it may help to remember that they probably have people around them encouraging them to shorten things.
• “All of our zombies go to a kind of wight school where they learn how to move [like the undead].”
• During the big wight battle, Taylor tried to give viewers the impression that this was the end for Tormund…even though it wasn’t. Mission accomplished. Also, the guys freely refer to the random wildlings who died as “red shirts.”
• “Dany seeing the wounds Jon suffered when he was killed the first time…and also an amazing six-pack, I believe. So many levels.”
• Taylor talks about meeting George R.R. Martin on the set of Game of Thrones season 1 and recalled that, in the author’s mind, Jon and Dany were the main characters. “And at that point there was [a] tremendous sea of characters and competing storylines and possibilities for the future. After talking to him I got the impression, I sort of realized that Dany and Jon were for the long haul, were sort of the long story. Cause back then, y’know, Robb was still around, and seemed like he might become king, and it wasn’t clear who was gonna rise and who was gonna fall. But in George R.R.’s mind, it was always these two.”