4/10 Arya: Story Butchered. tywin situation not making any sense. no soup, no bolton, no coin, no epic losing innocence due to murder. Cat: No riverrun, no hearing of Bran and rickons death, not making any sense. a nice rounded character got flatted. Danny: um.. yea - lets get to that house of the undying part next season, yes? Jon: four scenes of plain soap opera. not getting on with the story. not building towards halfhads climax. blah. Tyrion: no chain-strategy to date. no reason to react to the whore-swap. half-baked at best. bran: no jojen - no biggie. why drop out the dreams? why not build this character? he is more of a liability 'till now. overall - the show is doing a bad job for the past three weeks at least (if not the whole season). for a book adaptation it is sloppy at best, dropping out awesome parts and replacing them with pointless sex and cheap drama (too much telling, not enough SHOWING, ya know?). when considered on its own terms, as if the books aren't there to guide it: a generic soap-opera with a dazzling coat of paint. worst pacing i have ever on hbo. looks like a million dollars, but slow and lacks intelligence and/or soul. all you people that agree with this (and i read your reviews and know that a lot of you see eye to eye with me on all of the above) and still give it an 8/9 - well... lets get our proportions straight: 8-10 is community-level wit, six-feet-under deepness, soparnos coolness-factor. 8-10 is GOOD TELEVISION. something that season is simply not.