I liked this episode a lot because it really played on tension. Often times I'm very much waiting to see how something unfolds, but this episode wound things up nice and slowly while still having an actual moving plot. Even the scene with Maragery and Joffery was pretty tense because at any moment I thought he'd turn the crossbow on her! Felt it went a little overboard, trying to cram all that suspense into the Arya/BWB parts, but that final fight was just so well executed. I think it's my favorite duel of the series thus far. Appropriate, since everyone loves it from the books all ready ;) I can say that nothing had me majorly questioning in the episode. Very well-packed mythos and the usual great introductions to new characters. Queen of Thorns was a bit unusual, but I certainly liked what they were going for with the character. Jojen (or Paul, as I shall call him) was a bit less than anticipated, but Meera was Gods-damned awesome for what little she had to say! Perfect mirror of the book character so far. If I had one complaint about story flow it'd be that we didn't get to see Dany which is both a blessing and a curse because I have no idea how they're going to handle the storyline seeing how fast it traveled in episode 1. Of course, there needs to be talk of Theon. I am all ready completely feeling bad for him and it was a clever use of exposition, getting him to fess up as he did. Again, this is a point where the story is moving along where you wouldn't expect it to, and it's much stronger for it (whereas I worry with others). I do feel they pulled out all the possible "torture" stops though. There's nothing else you can really do when you've all ready had indiscriminate stabbing, dismemberment, and the "fooled ya" trick. Very solid episode overall if nothing entirely special for the show. Kept good focus and really set-up situations well.
