About Beyond the Wall... I really couldn't care less about chains, but there were too many cliches and predictable points all together.
While I agree that the dialogue between the characters was great and the visual sequences were awesome (battle in the ice with dragons, what more do you want?), there were too many contrivances:
- Some no-names tagging along just to die (WhatsTheirNames of House Redshirt)
- No one REALLY important dying (c'mon, Thoros was expandable)
- The gang being trapped on a rock making it impossible to forget that they were literally stranded in a place in the open, and not, say, in a castle where they could withstand a siege for more days
- Their entire rescue plan counting of Gendry running back alone, the dude that never saw snow before and didn't know the territory
- Dany of course flying all of Westeros in a couple of hours
- Dany arriving AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND, who would have imagined
- Jon staying behind to fight the wights for no damn reason
- Jon almost dying because hey, Aragorn falling off a cliff in The Two Towers was so cool
- Jon's not dead, who would have imagined
- Benjen-ex-machina rescuing him and then dying immediately after
This is not to prove you all wrong or anything. If you like the episode I'm happy for you and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that for such a massive and series defining episode, the cliche of the arrival at the last second was so predictable that it ruined the moment. When in the middle of frozen nowhere three dragons arrive, you should be "F'K YEAH!!!!", not "d'uh, of course they arrive in this precise moment". I dare anyone who has seen exactly more than 3 movies in his life to admit they were totally surprised to see the dragons arrive in the exact moment they did, with the gang about to get overwhelmed with sad music playing.
About The Spoils of War: it's a feast for the eyes and a triumph of special effects, and we finally see a dragon getting loose on the relatively bad guys (come on, nobody cared for anyone in the Lannister army that wasn't named Jaimie or Bronn). What makes it so great it's the contrast between the disciplined army and the brutal savagery and violence thrown at them.
Imagine an actual medieval army marching in the open. They get suddenly attacked by actual native americans, riding on their horses and shooting arrows. And behind them, appears a fighting jet that bombs them with napalm. That's the shock the Lannister army felt in seeing the Dothraki army and of course the dragon, which was brilliantly translated on screen.