HOT DAMN!

Happy that episode got a bunch of balls rolling, but could the pushes been any lamer?

"I prefer being an only child"
WOW

No complaints here whatsoever... episode had a solid handful of great scenes.

The whole last scene was a little underwhelming.

Do you mean the wall push, the knife push and the bridge push?

Did anybody else notice the intense joy on the direwolf's face right before the reveal?
No?
Gawd I'm such a dog person...

That was what I was paying attention to the most, dire wolf

If you thought you couldn't possibly hate Ramsay any more......

Giant at the gate was far & away my favorite scene

He was like "MASTER? YOU'RE AWAKE? I KNEW IF I LAY HERE YOU'D WAKE UP EVENTUALLY!"
Those dog...errr, direwolf/master feels.

I am happy see some of the dangling book plots finally come to light (e.g. king's moot). One thing that really bothered me with last night's episode though was the recasting.* Honestly, I get not everyone can be expected to come back, and there are always some reasons what an actor or another might be unavailable, but for all the changes in this show, it just seems too obvious, and I find it quite distracting (and probably unnecessary, or in the very least, handled poorly).

* Full disclosure being, I will always happily take more Max von Sydow in everything. Seriously, with Ian McShane poised to join the cast, if they somehow could rope Jürgen Prochnow in for a role - say Cold Hands or as a WW king - they would have my butt in the seat no matter how much the show dropped in quality.

I think the mishandled the whole Iron Islands thing greatly, but I might misremember - in the books, Melisandre burns three leeches filled with the blood of Robert Baratheon's bastard son (in the TV show it is the smith, Gendry) and three usurper Kings die (Robb, Joffrey, Balon).
That was really interesting to me - does she/the red god really have that power, did she foresee those three deaths and just made it look like she caused them or was she just knowing that in a war there was just one king to remain anyway?
Balon's death in the show is totally unconnected to Melisandre which is kind of a wasted opportunity?!
Also, in the books it is not shown how Balon fell - having the Crow's Eye do it himself takes away of the mysteries of is character and his powers.

Agree completely. While it is good to finally see Balon fall (both metaphorically and literally), I don't think the show handled it very well. Euron isn't really introduced into the story, so I think it would be hard to follow his role as a casual viewer. I actually liked the way the books handled it, in leaving Balon's death a complete mystery (for now); one of the many plot lines in the book you can form your own opinion on. That is one thing Martin has done consistently from the start, whereas on the show everything is thrown right in your face (Joffrey's poisoning being one of the main points that irked me). Anyways, the death didn't really develop any impact, as we have yet to see [on the show] how important the Iron Islands are and to develop any kind of history (or anything, really) connected to the brothers or the rule of the Greyjoys. A lost opportunity indeed.

Jon's revival was a letdown I felt. You knew it was undoubtedly coming, but still, in the execution of it, I would have liked to see either (a) more mystery, or (b) more suspense of him actually being dead. It was just too much of a fake tease and playing up for tension. I will be happy to just move on already. It remains to see what 'state' he will be in. I honestly kind of held out hope for a 'glamoured' fJohn to die, since they didn't use the effect with Mance in the show; would have made more sense in the end than dying from all those stab wounds, lying there for several days to a week, and then somehow being brought back by Melissandre, who has suffered an incredible loss of faith (and thus it remains doubtful how effective her powers would be/connection to the Red God) in addition to fully admitting she has no idea what she is doing.

I second that sentiment about John's resurrection. It was kind of lame.
The one thing I cannot wait to see play out though - Davos learning that Melisandre burned Shireen. That will be her end!

Yeah, you are right, I was wondering too how that would play out. To be honest, I am still not sold on the whole transition of Davos from incredible skeptic (willing to be put to death for speaking against her) to holding out her magic to revive Snow - when (from his POV) he has had no outward sign that such a thing would even exist, or be possible for her to do. It also seems like a big leap for him to suddenly be so devoted to Jon, whom he barely knows outside of dealing as messenger for Stannis, supporting this whole mutiny against the brothers, but in any case.

Some other thoughts:

I will go ahead and say I have never been a fond supported of the TT angle, so I am really hoping that the show, despite what happened last episode, does not go there. Do we really need any more secret Targaryens running around?

I don't think it was made quite clear, but did no one else get thrown into jail at the Wall except for poor Olly and Thorne? Not sure how that is really going to work with the 'rebellion' either way.

I though the portrayal of the Three-Eyed Raven was just getting worse, frankly. I'll grant maybe they didn't have the effects/budget to it properly, but it seems like it is even worse than last season. Rather than being more tree+skeleton than man, we just see a normal dude basically sitting in some vines. Okay, fine, they want to let MVS shine, but in that case how are they going to square the whole point of Bran's journey and everything we have been following to 'take over' for him. On a related note, actor aging was always something they were going to have to deal with, but I am curious as to how the in-world explanation runs. Um, was Meera just there chilling this whole time with the tree roots? No wonder she is pissed off!

I also don't really understand how or why HBO, when it knows it has this massively popular and hugely important (to the network) property, they don't give it a little more attention. Yes, of course they are spending boatloads of money on it, and I would never expect them to bend to the nerd-rage of fandom. But what I would like to see is that they respect their audience. And for as much as they are giving us, in delivering more story, I honestly feel a lot of the time that they really don't care what any viewer thinks - which is kind of a shame since that is what produces your business. I suppose it is a cash cow for them either way, but man (like WD) I wish they could sometimes give a little respect to the fans.

Yeah, the whole 'we must protect his dead body' thing did not make too much sense to me either.
But Davos is such a great character that I am willing to buy into it - he just does the just and right things, no matter the cost. It's his thing.

Tyrion being a Targaryen is not my favorite theory either but I am just reading the books again and the hints are there (I just read the part where Tywin learned that Robb captured Jamie and he says something like 'They got my son' with Tyrion present, who thinks 'They got ONE of your sons'...) but I really hope it does not come down to 3 Targaryens riding 3 dragons to save mankind. That would be too master-racey for my taste (I am afraid Star Wars could do the same (Rey somehow being a Skywalker)). Stuff like that spoils stories for me - I want that the hero overcomes the odds because he fights and has a good reason to do so, not because he destined or made to do it.

On the Max von Sydow thing - I do not understand, why didn't they just mask him like before when in the tree - they could still have his less masked appearance when he 'travels' bran - we could get his acting and would not have the feeling of inconsistency.

Anyway, I am curious where it goes from here.
I just hope they do not ruin Arya.

That is the way I would have handled it as well. It would have allowed them to present the 'withered' appearance of him, whilst MvS could have still portrayed himself and lent gravitas to the man he was (Brynden/Bloodraven) during the dream sequences as he 'trains' Bran. This also would have have offered an ideal opportunity for them to portray Bran is his now older form, matured, as he sees himself as the man he would have become, in the dreams, and explain away the difference in appearance, while letting actual Bran be more different, as be begins the transformation. I just feel it was another way the show has removed - at least visually - some of the mysticism/magic/fantasy from the adaptation of ASOIAF. I always pictured the last Greenseer as something more like this:



or http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Ca ... -eyed_Crow



where he has really become so integrated with the weirwood's roots, he has almost become indistinguishable from them as a man. IIRC he has been there a long time, and he 'human' side is little more than a skeleton at this point, only his bond with the tree keeps him alive (I think he might not even have moved his mouth in speaking to Bran?) Anyway, like LSB, I was hoping to see some really cool effects here to bring us some of that other side to GoT. I didn't really care for the change/substitution to the Children of the Forest either, but anyways.

Arya's storyline will be an interesting one I hope. I was a little disappointed after her 'test' Jaqen just takes her back to the temple anyhow. Doesn't really seem like she had to give up anything in the end anyhow, except saying a few words - which I guess she didn't know, but still, I felt it took away some from the implied 'intensity' of what she did. I was hoping to at least see her become a blind badass from the Waif's tauntings, but we really just saw her keep getting beat up so far. I think she is afforded a lot more development and training into the order of the Faceless Men in her POVs, and they seem much more serious, rather than a bunch of bullies who probably have some secret code, but they won't tell you what it is.

Is the 3 Eyed Raven in the show even Bloodraven though? Can't say I can remember him ever calling himself that. Nor can I recall anyone else ever referring to him on the show at any point. Show runners probably don't even want to start down that road. Too much history to get into, when they can just do major deaths with zero impact instead.

No, and I wouldn't expect them to either. Aside from the fact it plays little import, I think it is just one of those signs that I was pointing to how the show writers give so little credit to the viewing audience. And I don't even mean playing it up to followers of the novels or geeks, just generally.

So, we now have Wylas (other than being able to make the one-time joke, Whatcha talkin' 'bout Wylas?) instead of Walder [but nevermind the fact that it at least rhymes somewhat with Hodor, so there is that], adding to the pile of Asha/Yar (because wimenz, right, who can tell them apart? ) and many other names of characters that GoT changed, evidently because, duh, peeps be dumb yo! - which honestly, fine, I don't really care about anyways, but the alteration of 'Seastone Chair' to 'Salt Throne'? Sigh. I am just confused as to the reasons. While ruling in Westeros is tentative at best do you really think that the Greyjoys would want to remind themselves of this fleeting analogy constantly, by having a ... ahem.. 'salt' throne ruling over the sea? I mean, if anything wouldn't they be even more apt to call it 'Iron' something, if they were so inclined to change the name? They suppose wanted to call it the something-something throne, because this is Game of Thrones after all, and they think people are too dumb to figure out it is the seat of power if it is called a chair. Sigh. Yep, Salt Throne, thanks for that one guys.

I think we can all agree that the most interesting revelation that can be gleaned from tonight's installment is that Never Have I Ever has been played for a very long time.

Why change "Woe to the Usurper?" Just... why?

Hmmm, while we finally got to see the ToJ, I was not really impressed (at all) but the casting for younger Ned. Now, this was roughly 15years before season 1, which isn't an incredible amount of time, and age differences between the actors aside, I think I would have just liked to see more Sean Bean. Makeup, filters, whatever it takes. I think this would have come across better - and be better received by the audience. Plus, GoT owes its success to Bean, really. S1 and his portrayal of Ned is what really brought people in, IMHO. I wasn't sure what the point of the whole implication that he wasn't the great fighter/honourable man that he was always thought to be was. Is there any point to taking that away from the fight now, really? Since the character is dead, and there is tons Bran is going to learn anyhow, surely it isn't just for the sake of having some revelation tied to the Reed's. I dunno, I would have just left it as Howland 'saving' Ned maybe, outmatched by the skilled Dayne, but not be so overt about the outcome as it was and the whole back-stabby stabby thing.

Arg, I am so tired of all the Tommen storylines, but most especially the High Sparrow stuff. I think Martin included that whole plot line (which was at least developed in the novels and didn't appear out of nowhere) as a sort of deus ex to orchestrate the fall of the Lannisters, but it really just needs to go now. It isn't working and doesn't jive at all with all the political machinations, lies, and general debauchery that the show+books have made King's Landing out to be.

Sadly, more going nowhere in Mereen and Vaes Dothrak.

Finally, really disappointed in Jon giving up the mantle of Lord Commander. After everything they did, and all his development as a character, how does this make sense? Not a fan of the ending. I don't know where they are going with all of this, but how does that stand for all the BS about duty, honour, life commitment, etc., which has been his entire arc through the series. Not to mention what everyone sacrificed for him, for these goals. Nope, just going to give it up and go on my merry way. Maybe I will be the new Wildling King [below the Wall]. Plus he just straight up killed four dudes, as one last FU before stepping down. Um, couldn't you have just done that before Jon, you know, when you came back to life? If you don't want to be Lord Commander anymore (which is fair, you did die after all), let some other guys handle the duties. Heck, they don't even really need to know he was brought back to life if he is just going to abandon them. I don't think an undeaded Jon is all that inspirational for them. Kinda like the show was trolling us, ooh, that great guy Jon is dead..... but not really though, HA, he is alive again .... but psych, now he is going to be someone else.

I really liked that part. I thought it made perfect sense that his duty as lord commander ended since the one way out is death and he was indeed dead. I don't buy the whole everyone has sacrificed for him thing since his own people murdered him and the handful of guys who were still loyal(some of which weren't even part of the watch)were seconds away from being killed themselves only to be saved by Wildings. You can't even say the Wildings sacrificed anything for him since he was the one who saved them all despite themselves. He did his duty and tried to save everyone but all he got for his efforts was a bunch of swords through the chest. It also seems pretty obvious even the watch with the wildings won't be able to stop what's coming and Snow needs to get more armies willing to fight. Look how easily they were annihilated last season. Attacked killed and turned in a matter of minutes. And killing those four assholes before he left is exactly what he needed to do. Even if revenge had nothing to do with it how long would the new lord commander last if people knew they could get away with killing him? I think Snow has way more important stuff to do then sit at the wall waiting for a horde of ice monsters to come kill him and everyone there before marching south and conquering the world.

Well stated & completely agree on all accounts, Waterbear.

We've not-so-subtly been hinted at a Snow/Bolton showdown for a while now, which was never going to happen with Jon tethered to the Wall... this departure finally gets that ball rolling.


That and what happened with Rickon

I thought that this was somewhat amusing. Somewhat. (given how crazy the pace has been with a lot of it, jamming all the book stories into one now, and how little 'time' is left in the show life for the complete AOIAF epic to be completed)