I had meant to note that Cersei's failure in her torture of Ellaria is that she makes no attempt at building or coercing an alliance, too focused on the thrill of revenge to take hold of the Dornish army.

Ehh, the show hasn't really done much with the concept of flagships, they can tiptoe around that one if they see fit. (You're probably right, honestly, but just saying that we didn't get a villain shot of Euron on the boat staring up at Casterly Rock to confirm.)

There's actually no evidence Euron himself was at Casterly Rock—it's possible his fleet traveled there on his orders, whereas he and a smaller fleet traveled to King's Landing simultaneously.

Look, maybe he just really respects proper archiving practices! Not everything Littlefinger does has to be nefarious! (Nah—everything he does is nefarious.)

You mean Tyene? That's a good question (and one that I won't be responsible for answering). My professional opinion would be that whereas it is clear that this is the last we will see of Olenna, despite the fact she does actually die onscreen, there is a chance that we will return to see Tyene's final breaths, and…

And yes, someone already pointed out these featured comments read as sorority social chair emails, but I'd personally argue they carry more of a cruise ship "fun facilitator" vibe.

Hey everyone—as noted in previous weeks, these discussion threads have become absurdly long, and thus difficult for me to follow and foster the kind of dialogue that these reviews are meant to create. So if you have a specific question, comment, or deeply-held objection that can only be expressed through comment rage,…

There's an argument below in the comments that I buy—that he operated believing that he was battling sane and strategic adversaries, and not a GNF Cersei and psychopath Euron, but I don't know if that's actually a satisfying justification so much as a technical one.

Eh, it was probably sitting at an A- when I started writing, but as I got into it I realize that the episode itself was weirdly slow at points given how fast some of the stories were moving. I felt this hour—because it had such a finality to the Tyrell/Dorne arcs—bears the weight of the fast-paced reshaping of the…

True—is there a term that would more accurately and succinctly capture this? For me, I use castration as less a technical term and more as a general way of capturing the "act" of emasculating him, but I see your technicality.

Two potential explanations:

The Iron Islands: short on lumber, but maybe they're got some really talented boat stylists!

It seems like the men who fought at the Battle of the Bastards have stuck around in camps outside of Winterfell, which we saw in the wide shots of the castle last week.

So I was watching the episode on the west coast, which meant it was still pretty bright out, and the room I was in was limited in terms of blocking it out. That meant that I might not have been able to fully see the scale of the fleet being presented. It there were actually 1000 ships, that's a different story.

Remember that there's literally no trust anymore in terms of when scenes are happening: Sam sent that raven about the Dragonglass from Oldtown in the previous episode, but it arrived AFTER Tyrion's letter from earlier in this episode. And so while Oldtown IS considerably further away than Dragonstone, it's still…

Oh, there will 100% be a reunion—George even did the foreshadowing that the show doesn't, mentioning the wolves roaming Westeros dispensing justice. But the idea of it being this brief doesn't seem like GRRM.

The point was "it's a cool idea," but the actual utility in the story is a different question. Arguably, the only real purpose was to help play up the coming-of-age narrative for the Starks early on, and then eventually to preview Bran's transition into the Three-Eyed Raven. But once Bran gains that larger power, this…

My sense was that Euron still had a good chunk of the Iron Fleet and basically built himself a new warship or two to complement them.

I'm past the point where I'm going to fight with the show on "Why did this happen now instead of X," given the way temporality works now: I think it's more important that the conversation happened, end of day.

Touche, although—and I've seen this come up a few times—I don't think we're to a point yet where the larger view of Westeros would see that as being the conflict here.