Bluecore

This was a good episode. As a reason it had the potential to be even better than the others, if they weren't making up so much filler folly. The duel was executed just as the trial was: perfectly. As someone not too far back said, the image of the Mountain killing Oberyn will not leave my head. It was one of the most grisly, grotesque things I've ever seen on film. Ellaria's reaction just completely sold it too, and made it so much worse. I'll be hard pressed to get that image out of my head for a while. EDIT: I almost forgot about the most important part! I have been waiting for Missandei's clothes to come off since her first scene, and I was not disappointed. She is such a sexy, beautiful woman.

The thing I hate the most is how much they are leaving out of the books, but during this season are making so much up. They could be covering more relevant and arguably more dramatic (better television) stuff, but are electing to make fillers in the most boring part of Bran's story line. I don't know, that's how I feel.... I mean think about it, the best part of this phase of Bran's journey that they haven't covered (I am referring to the development of Bran's powers, which has already been adequately addressed), is meeting Coldhands. Where the hell is Coldhands in the show!? It's mind boggling if you ask me.

Agree. McConaughey killed that role.

I agree that they're making an un necessarily huge deal out of Oberyn's sexuality. Reminds me of the BFD they're making about the homosexual who was picked in the NFL draft. However, HBO has been doing this for a while (I'm thinking of Omar from the Wire to start). The whole Dreadfort scene up until the retreat was dumb. She made this great speech, and then we got 3 minutes of fighting and then they had to bounce. Ramsey had two small daggers and no armor on, and him and a handful of his people took on the "best reavers in the Iron Islands" and made them retreat. For God's sake, they were fully equipped and even had shields. Theon's acting was good though, you could really get the impression he was a broken man. I was also under the impression that Braavosi's were more, for lack of a better term, "foreign" in the books. The representatives for the Iron Bank reminded me of 21st century Swiss bankers or something, lol. Mildly disappointing but not a huge deal. I've learned to accept the fact that Charles Dance has hair. The actor who played Shae used to do porn. Wasn't expecting much. I disagree about the trial, I think it was done really well.

You just described every HBO show since the Sopranos. Sex sells. It always has and it always will; until human beings stop having it. There is nothing particularly objectifying about it. When I read these books, they were the most violent thing I had ever read or seen on TV or at the movies. Well guess what? This is the most violent and sexually charged show I've seen, so there you go. If you consider a sort of "quota", they are faaaaaarrrr behind making the quota in terms of the sex and violence GRRM wrote in to the book. Khal Drogo banged Dany 4 or 5 more times in the book than he did on screen, and it was described in much more detail. The war in the Riverlands was muuuuuuuuuch more violent than it was made out to be in the show, and in the show it was pretty freakin violent. My point is, for every "shock" scene that they're putting in the show, they're omitting several from the books. Given where we see the show has gone in the last two episodes, the Jaime/Cersei "rape" (wasn't a rape) scene could not have gone the way it did in the books. It would have given the impression that everything between them was hunky-dorey and it clearly isn't. Show Jaime is very close to the state of mind where he ignores Cersei's letter. They are doing a good job of depicting the moral degradation of the people of Westeros, and quite frankly that's how a large part of the medieval period was once you get past the monasticism of the Catholic Church (which is all you ever really study in school). It was even worse during the Roman Empire. This is how life was for most of history. If you don't like violence and sex in a good story, this is not the show, and was not the book, for you.

This was a good episode. The trial was awesome. The Dreadfort scene was not necessary and felt out of place. Although, I knew they had to do something like that when they set themselves up for it at the end of season 3.

You can see that is exactly what happens in the "next week on..." segment following the credits. Margaery and Olenna are having a heated discussion.

valar morghulis. round of applause for tonight's episode, everyone. we made it.