I find the Winterfell plotline so visually beautiful and atmospheric and intense this season. The controversy makes me sad when it overshadows all those things.

I really wish she had. It would have made it a much better scene. See, finding yourself in the mood after fucking up your would-be rapists is something I can understand much better than "Ooh, I was nearly raped just now, until by pure chance that giant wolf was nearby. Horny now!"

"Now bring me my sword."

You call those giant? Perky, yes, and able to pass the pencil test, absolutely, but giant?

This is both the saddest and the truest thing I've read all day.

Jesus, is that really her height? I'm 5'9", and I don't tower over many men the way Sophie seems to do. I would have sworn she was taller than that. I guess she's just played opposite some shorter guys. Huh.

Yeah. The really depressing thing is, it could have been some good material if it had been better written. I mean, trying to run an occupied city after you've conquered it really should be an interesting situation. But the scrabble-winning names were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to how gadawfully handled…

Stoneheart wandering around the Riverlands like a murder robot and Manderley going all cannibalistic House of Atreus were supposed to make everything seem less plagued with despair?

Just wait until next season, when they'll have no way to tell whether they're talking about the holy words of Martin, or the heresies of Benioff & Weiss. It will be hilarious.

ETA: Never mind, just saw that you had included the 'unreliability' clause. My bad.

Because they're holding off to make his death a factor in Mel's trying to convince Stannis to kill his daughter?

Especially given that great line about Tysha from Shae in S1. A girl who has just escaped being raped doesn't just fall in bed with her rescuer! Why on earth would being pawed at and threatened by those two assholes, then seeing the guy she likes having the crap beat out of him…why would that put her in the mood for…

In last night's episode alone, Aemon's dying mentions of Egg were fanservice. In spite of Sam providing exposition, half of the Unsullied are still somewhat perplexed over it. Including it there, rather than altering it to something requiring less explanation, was fanservice for the book fans. They even included one…

I think a possible reason for the writers delaying Balon's death for so long has only now become apparent.

Scruffy Loras is indeed a thing of beauty. And Lancel has apparently been spending long hours at the gym.

And disturbingly enough, they seem to have an excellent inside spoiler source. They just never bother to ask their source for spoilers about anything but nudity. So odd.

I hope you are right about the nature of ones final hours. It seems…merciful.

Using their actors' previous roles as wry nicknames for TV show characters is, um, a fairly well-established recap/review tradition by now. Bear in mind that reviews of this sort are a fairly new phenomenon to begin with. Twenty years ago, you didn't see reviews of single episodes of TV shows like this. This…

Incorrect. He is every bit as tedious and one-dimensional in the books.

She is awesome. I also like this thing she does whenever Cersei is dealing with someone whose motives she can't quite fathom. She did it with Ned in S1, and this season with the High Sparrow. It's this hilarious kind of appraising "You must have an unspoken ulterior motive somewhere, and yet I can't seem to find it.…