Game of Thrones - Battle of the Bastards

Holy cow, it's taken me quite a while to catch my breath after this episode.  My first thought is how the battle scenes in S06E09 could possibly the most thrilling sequences I've ever seen in a piece of visual entertainment in any medium.  Not just one either, but Drogon swooping in, landing on the arch, then dropping down inches away from Dany, then laying waste to the master's ships...just totally unreal.  Does Dany have a telepathic link with the dragons?  How else do they know what she needs and wants them to do? 

I'm trying to think of things I've seen before similar to the epic Battle for Winterfell and I'm coming up with things like 300, Excalibur, and the Battle of Helms Deep, and none quite compare.  this scene feels unlike anything I've seen before.  Everything was so visceral and felt real, I'm sure due to how almost the entire sequence was shown and felt from Jon Snow's perspective.  The image of Jon getting borne out, (or perhaps shitted out) after almost being suffocated and trampled under the sea of dead and dying warriors is burned into my brain, even though that particular sequence did drag down the proceeding for a little too long.

The Knights of the Vale riding in at the perfect moment to save the day (or well, possibly twenty minutes earlier might have helped more) was equally thrilling, but it does beg the question to me, why was Sansa keeping the potential of adding an entire army to her brother's strength a secret from Jon?  If she really wanted him to wait to shore up his strength it would probably have influenced him if she mentioned the fact that Littlefinger could be on his way.  My friend pointed out that the little omission lent significantly to the dramatic rescue coming seemingly out of nowhere, but my feeling is that the dramatic finish comes at the expense of Sansa's character, because again why would she withhold this crucial bit of information?  But really, anyway, GO SANSA.  Her last words with Ramsay before he lost face in the most literal sense were a fantastic topper to her character arc.  it was her first real clear win after years of suffering and torture at the hand of evil  villains using her for their own plots, schemes, and twisted machinations.  Very nice to see.

Can't wait for the finale.