Alboin

Definitely not agreeing with ppl who are calling this episode the weakest of the season. For me it was the strongest. Do we really need each episode to be action-packed? Tarly's family drama, KL confrontation, Arya's choice, the MAD KING for Christ's sake! And Coldhands was cool as hell... What's not to like??? My first "more then 7" vote in two years.

Walk of shame, Jon's fate and Dothraki I liked. Those were done with some passion and some cinematographic temperament (although I honestly can't see another shot of Olly anymore, I sincerely hope Ghost will eat him). Terribly bored by Jon and Sam/Varys and Tyrion bromances. Disgusted by whole Dany crew worshiping Tyrion. Stannis' death and Sansa's escape came out neither epic, nor entertaining in any way what so ever. Oooook. Dorne was as awful we get used to, but Jaime and Myrcella bonding over incest is beyond stupidity. Arya stuff which started painfully and bloodily cool, ended up like some travelling circus in a low budget sci-fi channel.

Stephen Dillane as Stannis and Drogon made this episode for me. Made it so strong, that as much as I hated, through gritted teeth hated, Dorne and Indira Varma acting and idiotic sand snakes games and lines, it only brought my rating down by 2 points. Arya scenes were good as well, although they didn't let her finish ser Meryn so not a fan (I know they will in the 10th episode)

F**k the ratings, this is unbelievable!

dp

Jonathan Pryce is priceless. Sorry, couldn't hold myself.

Dorne is beyond awfulness. I haven't seen anything so badly executed, staged and acted, so clumsy for a long time on US/UK television. (1/10) and that's being generous. Carol's stuff was just boring where it should be heart-pounding. It is so obvious that the essence of this plot should be queen infidelity instead of gay persecution! All those scenes scream about it. And "if there's nothing else?" she says to Baelish after SHE summoned him from another part of the world and he made that journey? WTF? Writers just needed him to leave Sansa and didn't even cared to come up with some issue why she needed Baelish? That's some poor job. (4/10) Mormont and Tyrion scenes were somewhat raw. They needed something else to work. Like for example some concrete obstacle of their journey they have to overcome WHILE having all those interesting conversations. Just like that - walking on the beach as if these two guys accidentally bought holiday package for a wrong season and have to walk around the beach fully clothed cause it's cold - it's just not good. Slavers were made in the quality of Dorne (see above) (5/10) Arya's stuff was great. Pillars with faces were weird but epic. (7/10) And "that scene" and everything that was leading to it was so awesome as the show once was. Frightening, full of suspense, tragic, violent and heart-breaking. (10/10). Average? I'll go with 6, just for Winterfell.

The only downsides of this episode for me were Myranda's storyline (but Charlotte Hope is so hot, that I don't actually follow it :) and The Great Northern Conspiracy in the form of tavern servant and random old lady instead of well thought-out vivid Martin's characters. These two brought my score down to 9 points. Everything else was great: Dragons were badass; Mormont/Tyrion scene were a thriller (although i was spoiled by twitter about Jorah facing JonCon fate); Bolton's dinner was fun; even all the setup sequences with Olly the Commander Killer and even clumsy "a Targaryen alone in the world" montage from Aemon to Jon were entertaining; and no KL sequence was kinda felt like a rest, lately it became not so fun to watch. Impossibility to make a trip to Valyria in the books doesn't bother me at all.

I could't believe my eyes how awful Dorne was. Not in terms of Martin's books, but just as a random show I watch. Shallow characters, 80's style poorly staged action, stupid monotonous location management. Rating Dorme alone I would give it 3/10 being very very generous. Loved Sons of Harpy sequence. Poor Selmy (I'm sure he is alive though, he will be Belwas of the series) Loved the Shireen scene of course as everyone - writing, performance, body language - everything in this scene is great. Kerry Ingram is becoming my favorite actress on the show. Arya gets to kill Ser Meryn? Fine by me. Lyanna and the blue rose and Harrenhall? Great. Finally. Bored by faith militant and "Loras is gay" theme. Everything is one-dimensional, shallow and predictable in those episodes. Nothing awful, but not entertaining either.

I will probably bring down a lot of hatred on myself, but I have to say it: I never really liked this whole fake Arya plot in the books. I was waiting for it to end all the time and was disappointed when it didn't in aDwD. So I absolutely don't mind "Sansa goes to Winterfell" twist and actually enjoy it for now. How it will play out is different story, it can fail, it can succeed, but I'm intrigued.

I liked drunken dwarf I liked frightened Sansa, who just saw her road to vengeance and power. I liked Brienne showing her pain. I liked how Janos's death was adapted (didn't like "I always afraid" sobs though, he should be shrieking, not sobbing) I liked ominous Red priestess And I was sort of bored with High Sparrow (I guess because his introduction lacked of proper introduction of "sparrows" theme as it is - if sparrows are a sect as it is shown here, not victims of war I'm less interested) And very bored of Tommen/Marg happy marriage.

Liked this one way way more then the first episode. The highlights for me were: - Masandor's story (or whatever his name is) , which vividly represents the complexity of Dany's situation, not digging too deep inside Mereen's politics - Election at the wall, which were perfectly staged and were not at the same time weighted by all Sam's conspiracy from the books - Drogon, which is as a badass dragon as it could possibly be - Brienne and Pod's fight which was very very well choreographed - Prince Dorane - Arya Minor setbacks for me were: -Tyrion and Spider in a carriage (it would be much better scene if Tyrion would manage to liquor Varys and learn some of his secrets) - Weird behaviour of Jaqen, who shuns Arya for unknown reason and then immediately takes her back. Why? I didn't get it. - Indira Warma performance with her hand gesticulation of a silent movie melodrama actress. Somewhere between 8 and 9

What if that was the first episode I have ever seen from the show? Would I go on watching? Would I be thrilled or intrigued of events to come? With all my good intentions towards the show I wouldn't and I would be not. Emilia Clarke is especially weak in this episode. Clumsy rhythm and overall dynamic (yes, I know, season opener). Claran Hinds is just the worst possible Mance, Even if show's Mance is a whole other character, he overacts it beyond any possibility to like this new character. I hated the prologue. In the first season the show succeeded with mystic scenes several time: birth of the dragons and maegi, prologue... Since then maybe not, and this "witch" looked like some stoned club whore from a cheap holiday resort. I liked Brienne and the Wall, although I still have to chew the whole "let's ride to Winterfell" Littlefinger/Sansa thing. Maybe 5.

(-) No Tysha, no Stoneheart, cheesy fireballs, videogamish skeletons, lack of wildlings, so-called 100,000 looks like 100 at best for me, it's easy, cheap CGI nowsdays - wide shots with ant-like troops and Tyrion/Jaime kiss (brocest?) (+) Brienne/Hound fight (suddenly), Jon's mourning over Ygritte (suddenly), Dany's mourning over dragons (suddenly), Maise as Arya

Is Stannis being moved to e10 officially means no Lady Stoneheart? :bawl:

For some weird reason my vote is always coinciding with third most voted grade.... 8 this time. Battle was great. Deducted two points a) for badly constructed build-up about love. The theme itself is what it should be, I just find boring most of the Sam's talk with Jon and Aemon. The only part I liked there was Ygritte's frustration. b ) for not showing what Gilly had to say to Slynt while he was shivering there.

(+) Nathalie Emmanuel beauty. I don't care about anti-nudity hypocrites, she is gorgeous. (+) I enjoyed how they've changed the Vale. It gave Sophie Turner so much material to play with and she did amazing job. I never was a fan of that singer Marillion explanation. (+) The rage of Oberyn and the horror of his death - I, actually a 37 years old man, who saw death in real life, had to close my eyes :))) lol!!! (+) Alfie Allen and Iwan Rheon. This was just first class acting. Didn't need anything else from Moat Cailin stuff. (-) Beetles. What was that about? It was like I've been suddenly sent to some low class film film festival screening, where everything is so pretentious, you just can't figure out what's their pretension exactly about. (-)Thor Bjornsson. He is miscast in my opinion. It's not enough to growl and make faces to be scary. A person has to have it or be a brilliant actor to act it on believable level. He is neither in my opinion. I gave it an 8. would be 9, if bugs would be at least not as long as they are.

Oberyn and the Eyrie are so brilliant, I am speechless. At the same time - Mountain? Shockingly weak. Gave it a 9 either way, just because I'm grateful for those amazing scenes.

Not a lot of people are openly giving credit to Nikolaj Coster Waldau in this episode (which is understandable in the light of Dinklage's acting). Whole Nikolaj performance tonight was incredible: Jaime's shuttle diplomacy and then, at the trial - his disillusion on father's justice and unease on what's coming - and a lot of that played just by silent looks... Brilliant work!

Stupid "Yara" save is the only downside of the episode I can think of. Amazing.

That show's Pod extraordinary sexual abilities are putting Brienne of Tarth's romantic life into perspective...

(-) Dany scene was awful in terms of drama itself (everything said right out like it is daytime soap-opera) and (sadly) acting. (-) Wasn't it weird that Cersei who's hating Marg guts, which was repeatedly established on the show, suddenly and diligently starts to forge the alliance??? I didn't get it. (-) Bran, who yelled "Jon! Jon!" just a few seconds ago is saying literally "Oh, well... He won't take me North, good-bye"... This is just stupid IMO. (-) Arya and the Hound are first time in a "minus zone" for me. If she wanted to kill him and he just stands - God, hit him in his ugly face with your Needle, you're bad enough for that at this time... Omitting "meh" stuff, the only thing I really enjoyed (like most of the people) is Jon's attack. (not Eyrie, because of some suddenly very unsatisfying performance by Sophie. I always like her acting a lot). But besides Bran thing (see above) I had some trouble wolf-wise (wHo let Ghost go? Where the hell is Summer?), although I understand that this is most likely budget thing. It was 6 for me being very generous.

Fantastic episode, the best of the season for me so far. The only clumsy thing I have a problem with is this casual revelation by Jon that he knows that Bran is alive and North of the wall. It looks like show runners have cut out Sam's oath last season not thinking about it really well and had trouble dealing with this mistake this season and then just took a lazy decision and made Jon tell viewers those lines... This is just not a very good job... Everything else I enjoyed: all North sequences, Jon/Thorne opposition, mutineers, white walkers, Locke on the wall. Mereen scene left me with that pleasing feeling of non-rushed, thought-out story telling, I actually thought that they maybe need to make more of their scenes longer each episodes like this one. It will cover less characters, yes, but will give us more story about those that we see. Great scene with Marg and Tommen, poor frightened kid, got right into it. I enjoyed Jaime scenes as well, there was actual character development there. I strongly believe that Maclaren is a better director then Graves for GoT. She just has a style for GoT. It's not given that any good director has a style for any material. 2d and 3d episodes this season felt somehow out of the style for me and I'm glad things got back on track.

I don't think I liked synopsis of the episode. Scenes alone are good, some are better then the others as usual, and its normal, but after KING"S DEATH I would expect to see more of an aftermath. Seeing Sam and Gilly running around Mole's town in such dramatic place of the story was just boring for me.

(-) Anyone else hated that huge lion head at the feast? It looked like some cheap park amusement thing where kids can jump. No Penny I kinda hoped the show will clear things up about the poisoner... Well, poor me :) (+) Joffrey's death face was fun :) Relieved by the end of Shae/Tyrion. Finally!