Looks fairly interesting. I could completely buy all sorts of nutty cults getting traction in the wake of something like this.

I see van der Werff gives this a C- or whatever and what is the first thought in my mind?

Fucking hell - I really want to like this show but it is just OFF. It almost feels as if you could take the premise, idea, setting, and even the characters and tweak it just so slightly and get something fucking awesome. But because it falls short it falls short badly somehow. The "uncanny valley," if you will.

Not disagreeing with you as to anything you said except the one omission - a French Canadian girl baby born circa 1940 named "Megan." Someone actually checked the records on that in Montreal and it turned out there were a total of about 2 for the decade.

I get the sense that in the end, Weiss & Benioff will have presented the "canonical" version of ASOIAF and George Martin's version will be to an extent the alternate. There is just NO way that Martin will be out ahead of these guys in finishing the story. And I suspect the story will just get finished for him many…

Why did Malvo need to kill the entire elevator after being "outed" by Lester? If it's me, I'm staying cool and staying with the "who is this gibbering idiot" line while Lester makes himself look more and more like one. Eventually he goes away.

Oh FFS, Team Red/Team Blue silliness even infiltrates this comment board. Is nothing fee from this idiocy anymore?

The entire episode was a bunch of "disquisitions on masulinity!?!?!?!?!"

I wish I could like this comment 10,000 times

IBM - "in the world of the show the exemplar of petty capitalist dickishness."

AV Club memo to reviewers:
All shows with WHITE MALE ANTIHERO are shite and must be relentlessly slagged at every opportunity.

Surely that was a high-end hooker making eyes at Lester at the Casino. He certainly did look more dapper and confident, but in the end that would be "punching way above one's weight" for him.

This might actually be the funniest show I have ever seen. Can't pick a favourite episode but this outing surely ranks up there with the "trip to Finland" ep from last year.

Thought so. And why is Sansa out in all her glory rather than staying on the down-low as Alayne Stone? Isn't she more or less wanted for murder by the Lannisters? Wasn't Littlefinger's game to keep her hidden for YEARS and then marry her off as a Stark in some sort of eventual Machiavellian power play?

File under "reviewer trying to be too clever by half."

Also it seems as if GRRM has plans to do a lot more with the Dornish when/if he writes the next two(?) books in the saga.

So Arya and Sansa are both "out" as Starks in the vicinity of the Vale? Did this even happen at all in the books? Not by the end of number 5 if I remember correctly.

I think the book does mention him being bisexual. But as with almost everything, the show amps the "sexual" quota from the book up a good bit.

Harry Hamlin as Jim Cutler - fantastic work as ever and I had to again remind myself "holy hell, that's Harry Hamlin." Virtually unrecognisable as the same guy when you really have his work on LA Law burned into your subconscious. Granted, quite long ago, but still.

Top show.