Gave it an 8. There were some great scenes : Robbwind, OMG making it seen by Arya was a really good choice, it felt like this was her breaking point. Northern army being destroyed was quite nicely shot. Roose&Walder scene was great, both of them are nicely portrayed. Roose's personality is sligthly changed from the books but this is old news, he had this ironic/tragic laugh in the previous episodes too and it suits the ShowRosse quite well. Arya killing the Frey was really well done, they had to start emerging the darkness inside her at some point, and this felt like a really good moment to do it. Small council scene was interesting, fun to see Joeffrey pwned by Tywin, but still Tyrion feels too much whitewashed. I remember him liking the idea of having Winterfell in the books but well seems like we will never get the BookTyrion, so I have stopped getting disappointed about it long time ago... still have hope that his dark side would emerge after some certain event though. Reek scene was nice, it is a good conclusion for this season's Theon arc : his identity is nearly lost. Next season they'll only need to put a little more psychological torture in 3 or maximum 4 scenes, then they can easily connect to his aDwD arc. Nightfort scenes were all alrigtht, it was clear from last week that we wouldn't get Coldhands, so no need to bitch about that. They may include him later in Bran's journey, he wasn't critical for Sam. We only lost some information about the Wall's magic gate etc Shireen&Davos !! Some scenes that could have been great with little changes : Ygritte&Jon scene : I was really hoping to see Ygritte die this episode because that would have given Jon the 'maturing' he drastically needed in the show. Next season his leadership against the wildings would have been a lot more believable and his election. They could have simply have Ygritte catch him up near the gates of Castle Black, where she has the same conversation, shoots Jon, but then gets shot by the Night's Watch. Greyjoys : Loved Balon&Asha scene but lacked something : just as Asha was leaving the Iron Islands we could have had the shot of Balon falling from a bridge. Dragonstone : I loved the acting, Davos was great, Stannis was mostly great but there were some great alterations in Stannis' character. In the books it took him the death of three kings to finally accept doing the sacrifice, and now he is ready to go with only one. I knew because of the synopsis that Gendry would flee so I was hoping that it would happen in the following manner : Davos starts get worried after Robb's death( would have been more believable if we had Balon too) He frees Gendry in case Joffrey dies And Stannis gets mad and so we end up in the same moment where he is about to execute Davos. It felt like Stannis was overly manipulated by Melisandre whereas in the books he made her shut it up. We also lost some great lines like : "Is Rh'lorr's hand is spotted and pale? This seems like Walder Frey's doing to me." and then Selyse came in "His power cannot be beheld" about Rh'lorr and "Calm down, woman, we are not at bonfire" from Stannis :'( . He felt too much of a believer in Rh'lorr and I cannot appreciate that, we lost the whole Queen's Men, King's Men dynamic too.... I feel more and more like Stannis' getting extremely deviated from the books, his 'Melisandre's puppet arc' was supposed to be over when Davos is freed from the dungeon. Scenes that made me nearly vomit : Mysha... not only it was extremely cringeworthy, it also had the uncomfortable 'White saviour bringing liberty to brown people' cliché like too, I mean the slaves there are to be from multiple ethinicities, they trade from all over the Essos, and it felt weird. Well I mean I had a hard time liking this scene in the books too but well.. I still hope she doesn't get whitewashed like Tyrion and we'll get her 'Is she mad?' side during next season. Again Dragonstone, when Stannis laughed and told Davos he was is Rh'lorr's army.. wtf? I think the only possible good ending to this season was LS and it feels so much like a missed opportunity.. Let's hope at least that they'll open season 4 with that. And with team Dragonstone leaving for the wall so early, I guess the Battle at the Wall has to be no later than episode 5. I think Arya will have to take the boat around episode 6 or 7 next season and at the finale we could see her seeing the Titan from the boat, otherwise we might end up having too much of Hound&Arya travelling. I was going to give 7 but I increased it to 8 because overall, by ignoring the books a bit, it was a good conclusion to this season and I have high hopes for the next season.
