The Drunkard

What "filthy casual" attitude? Queen of Whores not basing his or her own enjoyment of the show upon the opinions of others isn't that at all, nor is it vile or deserving of some holier-than-thou spiel, jesus fuck.

6 or 7, pretty underwhelming. Some Blizzard-tier character development with Sansa and Littlefinger. "Shit, we need to show how much more adept Sansa is becoming. Let's make LF derp his way through an interrogation and require Sansa to save his ass. That'll do it!"

Gave it an 8. Probably my favourite since the first episode.

In the absence of a nitpick thread: Tywin's oh-so-dramatic talk about the Iron Bank wasn't great. It'd be better if they just lifted this passage from Jon's chapter. Each of the Nine Free Cities had its bank, and some had more than one, fighting over every coin like dogs over a bone, but the Iron Bank was richer and more powerful than all the rest combined. When princes defaulted on their debts to lesser banks, ruined bankers sold their wives and children into slavery and opened their own veins. When princes failed to repay the Iron Bank, new princes sprang up from nowhere and took their thrones. Or some variation of it.

I mean more the sword work from the actors rather than the scale of the battles. I usually feel like I'm watching people who are obviously fighting to a script, and would rather the show runners cut down on fight scenes then make up new ones and devote episodes to them, but I seem to be very alone in that, heh.

Thought it was a bit boring. 6. The parts I thought I wouldn't like coming into the season, Sansa/Lysa/Petyr and Bran/Jojen/Meera/Hodor, are the parts I enjoyed most, weirdly enough.

I think all the fights look pretty bad, even the main character ones. Maybe I haven't seen LOTR in long enough, but those battles seemed less fake (well... usually).

I think it's been mentioned, but Stannis, Daario and Benjen are all in The Bridge.

I believe it's a letter indicating the Karstark betrayal. Jon sent a raven to Deepwood hoping to reach Stannis (black wax), Tycho stopped off at Deepwood before reaching Stannis, and Stannis takes notice of the note before bringing in the maester he intends to question about the Karstarks. Him knowing the contents of that letter explains his interest/enjoyment later on as he watches Stannis verbally trap the maester (caught!) and physically trap the Karstarks.

I can't answer your other questions, but presumably Theon and Stannis have talked before this chapter. I imagine Tycho brought Theon to Stannis when he first arrived, and Stannis would have given him a look, and ordered him chained to the wall. I guess there's a remote possibility of Theon remembering him from the Greyjoy Rebellion, but I think the above's far more likely.

HAR!

That's just not correct. Take Edric/Gendry as a single example. In the books, Stannis opposed the idea greatly. He spent the better part of ASOS refusing Melisandre, and he even threatened her with a slow and painful death if she was deceiving him in anyway. He only became convinced that it needed to be done after witnessing the death of all 3 kings. In the shows, he sees Gendry for about 5 seconds and tells Melisandre to do it and do it quickly. The show misrepresents the way these situations are handled, and this is why the fans get annoyed. At a skin-deep level they're the same character, but that's it. This shallow portrayel misses what makes book Stannis so great. Oh, and as GRRM described him, righteous.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/righteous Author's words, not mine.

Fun fact, the author considers Stannis to be a righteous person.

This. Show Stannis is a bad interpretation of the one in the books.

Good - Jaime and Qyburn. - Jaime and Brienne. - Tormund (he finally HAR'd). - Most of Jon's stuff (I'm iffy on Orell). Bad - Theon's scene. Wanting the castration is fine, but the nudity wasn't done too well. - Catelyn. Why is Jeyne more important than her again? - Some of Sansa's lines seemed pretty poor. Not sure if it's the actors or the writers.

Can you imagine the shipping? But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened.

He hadn't known Edric for much longer. He didn't save him because he was personally attached.

Could be. Another idea tossed around is that Gendry will be the new Edric, and that's why Melisandre travelled to the mainland.

Yeah, actually. I wonder how they'd justify that...

Favourite of the season. Stannis+Shireen, Jaime+Brienne, Tyrion+Tywin+Cersei, all seemed really well done.