vividox

I gotta say, I really enjoyed this one. Seems like they are starting to weave the show-only ideas together, and I have to say they are doing a pretty damn good job of it. They've made some really good cuts of material and are making it work with characters everyone already knows. It's early, but I may end up liking Season 5 more than FFC/DDW. *Expects Bowen Marsh to start stabbing him* Easily the best episode of the season for me. Lots of plot advancement, lots of threads starting to come together, signs that all the truncation isn't going to be radically detrimental to overall themes... I gave this one 10/10.

They can't count very well on the show in general. Go back and watch the "Night's Watch cleansing Craster's Keep of traitors" scene. There are at least 20 on screen kills, after which the NW is still actively fighting at least 6 or 7 people, yet the final death tally is said to be 14.

I'm guessing Varys drops Tyrion off somewhere between Volantis and Meereen, says toodaloo, goes back to KL, and does it himself.

Certainly.

Well, I was neither ranting nor raving, I was just intrigued by an alternate view of the series' departure from the books and wanted to discuss it. Yeah, I have no idea what was unbelieveable about Jon being elected in the books. Outside of that one nonsensical comment, I thought the points made held some water.

Hot take: http://mashable.com/2015/04/22/game-of-thrones-beats-the-books/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link Gotta say that's an interesting way to look at it. I've got a friend who hated FFC and DWD because "GRRM got famous enough to tell his editor to fack off and the books suffered greatly", and she's the one who sent me this link saying she completely agreed with it.

Whoops, wrong thread.

Yeah, I meant to say something about this... I thought it was a really nice nod to have Lollys in it and talk about the whole Stokeworth line of succession before plucking Bronn from the books to go on his show adventure.

What are all his little birds for, if not to observe? EDIT: Meh, that was a pretty unecessary response after a full week. Oh well.

7/10 I felt it was a little more disjointed than the opener, lots of bouncing around between storylines. Also thought it was kind of weird that we got so little House of Black and White being that that's what the episode was named after. Loved Sam's speech. Brienne's arc is starting to take on a distinct life of it's own, which, while weird, I think I'm starting to apprecaite. Really confused about Arya's storyline, though. Her getting initially refused and not a single other person even being around the house for an entire night means they've completely changed what the House of Black and White is. No one can go there for the mercy of death if people don't regularly come and go and only people who prove themselves are admitted. So, are they going to turn it into a full-on assassin's guild or something? Because that feels cheap. Jury is still out, but, I don't see how that fits with what the House is. Bronn feels like a red shirt to me at this point.

Why does Varys in Pentos/Mereen bother people so much? He was completely absent during AFfC and ADwD and only showed up at the end to murder a few important people. Varys went into hiding immediately after Tywin was killed, so him not going back to KL really isn't that big of a detour. Replacing Illyrio with Varys was pretty expected - lots easier (on the Unsullied) than bringing back a character who was in two episodes at the beginning of Season 1. I'm totally on board with the criticism of Varys spilling the beans on his entire scheme in 13 seconds, but him being in Essos doesn't really affect anything, I don't get the beef.

Thought it was a really good episode. Only part I wasn't a huge fan of was the Brienne and Pod stuff. Thought Sweetrobin's "sword fighting" was amazeballs.

10/10 for me. Loved what I saw. We all know Stannis is coming, they haven't shown it yet, so, IMO, it's kind of silly to knock this episode for not getting to what comes next. As a 50 minute show, it was entertaining as hell. The only knock slight nitpick I had was I wanted to see more in the tunnel fight. More like in the book where the bodies are piling on top of each other and blocking the way. All Grenn & Co. had to fight was one giant who didn't even bother to hold the door open for his friends.