Agree about the Arya and the Waif scenes. Though with Arya's training, she was blind but the Waif was not so I don't know if blind Arya needs to kick the non-blind Waif's ass, but she definitely could have been shown to fare a bit better in her blind fighting training to establish that she would have the edge once both of them were in the dark. I agree about the stabbing and the chase: harmless and kind seeming old lady that kinda looks like the Waif approaching out of the blue saying "sweet girl..." seems like the level of ruse that she should have been pretty prepared for even without going to ridiculous levels of paranoia. And she shouldn't have been almost fatally injured if she was going to have to run, jump and fall through the streets the next day. Audiences aren't impressed when they notice a supposedly badly wounded character doing impossible things, they just think that it doesn't make sense.
Well, I buy the "Let's show Cersei a wight" thing - she actually saw it, and yet she was like, to quote what Jaimie said and that should be the Lannister official motto, "Fuck everyone who isn't us". So bringing definitive and conclusive proof of what's beyond the Wall is something I can get on board it.
The scene in the Dragonpit in the last episode is well executed and does make you feel that seeing a wight in the flesh might convince anyone. But in Eastwatch (the 5th episode) where everyone suddenly decides capturing a wight to show Cersei is what they need to do, it doesn't come across as believable to me. Not so much because Cersei couldn't be scared by the prospect of the dead but because it just didn't feel clear that they actually needed Cersei at all or that she could be trusted to help them even if they convinced her of the threat. Daenerys was the much more important ally to bring to the cause. In the show she already said she was willing to fight the White Walkers but the reason she didn't want to was because it would give advantage to Cersei: "As soon as I march away, she marches in" is the quote. This was the logic used to say convincing Cersei was necessary. But it feels like a big leap that convincing Cersei is necessary or useful if Daenerys is already basically on board, when instead it seems like Jon could have just hung around another day or two, maybe took another stroll into the cave with Daenerys, and managed to convince her to come North and forget Cersei until the dead are defeated. Since getting Daenerys is the key I think it'd be better if it was Daenerys herself that needed evidence - if she said that she refused to abandon her quest for the Iron Throne, even temporarily, without seeing evidence (either in the form of a wight or someone she really trusts seeing it with their own eyes, i.e. Jorah). Then Jon and the others would actually have a concrete reason to go Beyond The Wall rather than the small chance of convincing Cersei who a) can't be trusted and b) isn't really necessary if you already have Daenerys on side.
Also... in the same episode Eastwatch where the "capture a wight" plan is formulated, we have a scene where Sam tries to convince the Archmaesters in the Citadel of the threat of the White Walkers when they get a raven from Bran. This is the conversation:
Sam: Everyone in Westeros trusts and respects you. If you tell people the threat is real, they'll believe it. If you advise all the lords to send their men north to hold the Wall, they'll do it. And if you tell every maester in the Citadel to search every word of every faded scroll about the Long Night, they may find something that lets us defeat the Army of the Dead for good.
Archmaester: It could be done. And this news could be authentic. It's possible. It's also possible that this message is part of a ploy by the Dragon Queen to lure southern armies away from the lands they are currently defending to open those lands to easy conquest.
...
Sam: Archmaester, please. It's real. I've seen it.
Archmaester: We will write to Maester Wolkan at Winterfell for clarification. I promise you we will get to the truth of it one way or another.
Hello!? If we're talking about bringing evidence from beyond the Wall, these are the
exact guys that might actually be convinced by a live(?) specimen. And I can't stress enough, this conversation occurs literally two scenes before the plan is formulated to go and capture a wight, yet the idea of using evidence to convince the maesters
never enters into the conversation, either before or after they get the wight. It couldn't have been possible for Sam to send a raven to Jon and tell him that the Citadel (a "neutral" institution of Westeros that anyone hoping to rule it would like to have on their side) might be convinced if they had direct evidence? With a little tighter writing they could have linked the Citadel storyline with the rest of the season's main plot and given a more credible reason why a wight specimen would be needed.
Sorry for the lengthy rant about it, but watching Season 7 again it was just frustrating how even when I try to just take the capture a wight storyline as it comes and not nitpick it, they fumbled so many things that would make it a lot more credible and seem like less of a rushed way to just get the characters to the setpieces for the last two episodes.