Anyone who knew the name knew who he was about three seconds into his first scene.

Odin giving the least inspirational speech ever has made the entire season worth it.

Exactly. If for instance Arya had been wearing a mail vest and had headbutted a surprised Waif, led her on that merry chase, and ended up in the same place for the same reason it would have been far more believable.

The worst part is that it makes it hard to engage with the show on its terms. If the show had established that named, important characters can survive what we assume are mortal wounds and bounce back almost immediately it'd be fine, but up to this episode I would have sworn that a wound is a wound, regardless of who…

I'm pretty sure the answer to this question is "war of succession."

You know, I was thinking to myself "Those look like the kind of stab wounds that kill you in modern times, much less back when the humours theory was the hot new thing. Also, probably not great to hop in the canal that, I have to assume, is full of piss and shit." Thank you for confirming that either the show is…

True. He might have been aware that the Waif is a sadistic ass and would choose to kill him/Arya in such a way that he'll be able to survive and… correct her.

Agreed. If it had been condensed into half the time it would have been a perfectly serviceable plot thread. As it was every single goddamn interaction dragged.

Nope, at least one Faceless Man has appeared as Arya already, at the end of season 5, right before she's blinded.

Just heard a different, better theory. That was Jacquen, not Arya. He still owes her a death, so he's decided to die in her place. Evidence for said theory being that Arya is suddenly walking like Jackquen, using her right hand, doesn't have Needle, and is being super obvious.

Like Mallory Archer says, step two is a bitch. You could certainly be right, the sort of "one step ahead" plan I'm suggesting is more at home in a less gritty series, but that look could have been "wow, getting stabbed sucks even more than I thought it did."

It's possible that was intentional. If she ever wants to truly get away from the Faceless Men she needs them to think she's dead. So she obviously and dramatically books passage to Westeros in a public place, then waits on a bridge for (she hopes) the sadistic Waif to show up and kill her. Now that they think she's…

To quote my favorite show ever, "We get it. You're evil."

At the time Theon was desperate to be perceived as powerful and worthy, so having Osha come on to him, after rebuffing his previous seduction/rape attempt, was a validation he deeply desired. Ramsay isn't interesting enough to require validation.

He's philosophically stupid. He believes that he can rule the North through nothing but fear and violence, and that's going to bite him in the ass sooner rather than later.

It's a pity he was made legitimate, but I'll always think of him as Yosemite Snow. He's cartoonishly violent and stupid.

Learning may be an overstatement.

It would have been funnier if she hadn't already had an iPod as of season 3's Halloween episode.

So those last four minutes were an actual preview and not Archer's dream sequence? Given that Archer has a tiger and Pam gets all hot I assumed it was his imagination.