Rusty Winchester

While I'm still mad at Sansa for holding back the info she did, I have to agree with RedViperHD. Showing up as late to the battle as they did stinks of LF to me. With the Bolton forces eliminated, and the Stark loyalists/wildlings decimated LF now controls a very large army, in an area where men of fighting age are very few and far between. Hopefully Sansa offs him soon, cause I'm sick of the guy. Of course that means SR would be nominally in charge of the vale forces, which presumably are still required, but maybe Sansa and Jon can come to an agreement of some kind.

Gave this one a 6 which makes it the second weakest this season for me after the opener. It's weird, tonnes to love with this one for me between Arya's story finally moving forward, lots of focus on the north and Al 'goddamn' Swearengen himself being present, but when I look back it's hard to remember the details. Jon seemed out of place in the negotiations, looked like season/book 1 Jon not Lord Commander Snow. I know the game has changed for him, but at the same time it hasn't. The dead are still coming, this is just a pit stop. Would have been nice to see some more passion from him.

Watched it twice now, nothing in it really grabbed me. Went with a 6, just due to a lack of memorable moments in my mind. I've expected to enjoy the show more, as it diverged from the books, but just hasn't happened for me. I don't know if that's just book > show snobbery on my part, or if the writing quality doesn't entirely live up. On a side note, I'm shocked at how many people like Daario better since his recasting. I never particularly liked him in the books (probably in part because Dany chapters don't do a whole lot for me in general), but in my mind, his personality was always metal head. The original casting I laughed out loud when I saw him, while he didn't look as described in the books, but it was like they'd shipped him straight out of some Norwegian death metal group to be in the show. His casting actually turned me around some on the character. Recast Daario is just another boring generic guy, he has no personality. Love or hate Daario, the guy was supposed to be bold, to stand out. New Daario has all the charm and personality of a high school math teacher.