I saw the leaked episode but because I was about to go away on vacation, it would have sucked to come back only last night, and find already spoilers and memes
I agree with the mixed reviews. On one hand, absolutely mindf'kingblowing episodes, ice dragon and all that shit
on the other hand... geez. The distances. Gendry runs back to Eeastwatch on foot, they send a raven, the raven flies along an entire goddamn continent, Dany makes the trip while the guys spend seemingly only ONE night on the ice, she saves them at the last minute... then Jon stays behind to fight more wights, he goes down, gets out, gets saved once again in the nick of time by Benjen, oh cool, Benjen's back, who knows what they will do together aaaaaaaand he's dead.
It should have been one of the biggest episodes ever - like "the Red Weeding", "the one with the battle of Blackwater", "the one with the dragon attacking the Lannister army", but it was really brought down by the absolute disregard for time and distance.
I think they could have had a siege at Eastwatch - being inside a castle would have been a better excuse for 7 people to survive while surrounded and vastly outnumbered, they could have made them resist a week or so (30 seconds of dialogue abou the supplies lasting only one more day), and there could have been still the dragons arriving. The way they did it in the show was dumber, it almost feel like they wanted a dragon dying in the frozen lake, and wrote back the entire thing from it, justiifying dumb actions by the protagonists in the process.
It's a pity 'cause the character writing was there - the various guys "bonding" were all excellent scenes.