AndyC

Well, nitpick mode on: Where do I start? Firstly, there's the ... oh, I don't have the heart for that. This was excellent! Yes, there were some changes from the book, but I fully accept that it's an adaptation. Adaptations have to have some changes - the medium is so different. The ones that annoy me are changes that detract, changes that are unnecessary or gratuitous, changes that throw you out of the world its trying to depict. In my opinion, there was none of that in this episode and some of the changes added to the storyline. Yoren, "Arry", Hot Pie and Lommy, Gendry ... all worked very well (my wife commented that Arya is going to have to start binding her chest to pass for a boy much longer, though, but that's not a criticism of the adaptation or Maisie Williams) The grief of Cat and Robb - worked very well. The Winterfell scenes worked very well. The little lad playing Rickon was very impressive for such a young actor - he carried off his scene perfectly. The Night's Watch scenes were excellent - I'd feared we might lose these ones in the adaptation but they were very powerful. The recitation of the oath to Jon genuinely got my blood tingling. The scene of them riding beyond the Wall was great. Joffrey was perfect - someone give that kid an Emmy. The scene with Sansa and the heads - and her near-attack on Joffrey (only seen - and stopped - by the Hound) worked very, very well. Plus, it set up the Hound for next season. I'd learned that there was a Ros sexposition scene. With Pycelle, no less, and when it started, my heart started to fall. But it actually worked - getting over the history of Aerys, showing Pycelle's pretences, without degenerating into a soft-core porn flick. No cringing required. Great relief from me. The King in the North. Yes! Dany - worked very well. I had feared that the dragons wouldn't come out too well, but that was unfounded. I have no choice but to rate this a solid 10/10, like Episode 8. An excellent capstone to the season. Kudos to Benioff and weiss and all who worked on it.

I gave it 8/10. The death scene was incredible and moving - the child actors for Joffrey, Sansa and Arya really nailed their roles at possibly the most pivotal scene of the first series. So did Sean Bean, of course, but I kind of expected that. The Twins was good. Jorah was excellent. I was a touch disappointed by the strategy change by Robb - an explanation that he sent his infantry to attack Tywin as a diversion and most got away, whilst the cavalry nuked Jaime wouldn't have taken too long and would (IMHO) have been realistic enough. The knockout of Tyrion did feel a bit overly comical, but I can easily accept it. Would have liked to see Jaime carving through men to get to Robb until his sword gets stuck in an unnamed lad (to be later revealed as the son and heir of one of Robb's key bannermen (ie Lord Karstark). The new Shae didn't do it for me, and does seem - at least on first glance - to be less likely to surprise Tyrion with changing her coat. Nevertheless, I'll try to suspend judgement here. Maester Aemon was great. I can see why they cut a generation out - the youngsters (Jon, Dany, etc) are all a few years older, and Aemon doesn't look over a hundred (closer to late seventies/early eighties), so a generation down makes sense. As said elsewhere, they can put Jaehaerys in as Aerys's older (childless) brother if necessary. For some reason, it didn't catch fire for me like episodes 8, 6 and 5 did and I don't know why, thus the overall score of 8. Still very good and very moving, but with some things just not working for me and the episode not catching fire like others.

Hello - new here. Name's Andy (not a surprise, given my username ...), I'm British, and living in Oxfordshire. Have been in the RAF for 16 years, and have been reading ASoIAF for 12 of those. I'm very much enjoying the TV series. Um. That's about it for now, I guess.