It's just like when LeBron teamed up with D-Wade! Who is the Chris Bosh of this movie?

We (the People) demand the extended intro to the video, or the youth of tomorrow will have no idea why the lute player and Cardinal Richelieu are hanging around!  And what made that curly-headed gentleman tear up his papers?!

Then we'd have gotten to see some… act-ING!

Saw that All Shook Down tour at… the Double Door? Avalon?… jeez, who knows.  Didn't realize at the time that I was supposed to be disappointed to have missed them when they were "good."  That t-shirt just wore out a couple years ago.

Um, no.

McCloud!

That's not blonde hair. I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.

And turn the Iron Throne around, swing his leg over it, lean forward to rest his arms on the back of it… if only it wasn't so pointy there.

Yay, Sam, buuuuuut, this has always bugged me… how the hell did Sam escape the White Walkers the first time he encountered 'em?

gah! right? if you're gonna make all the scary threat bits just seem like kinky foreplay (and you make an cool scene setting the premise that you have a good reason for needing to do it that way), then you've gotta figure out how to keep up the charade through the leeching.

Yeah, right? Stannis, Gendry, Sam, Hound, Tyrion. Just missing a Bran shout out to complete the title search.

OH for frakkin' sake yes. I haven't even read the books, and I knew that was how it should have gone.

Yes, but he only took the one souvenir with him, which he has now left in the snow.  Gah.

What was the audition monologue for Hodor?

Connery and Pfeiffer are both splendid, but I could have spent several blissful seasons of TV with Fox and Russel and Roy Scheider and JT Walsh and John Mahoney and everybody. Loved those guys.

Absolute Friends was the last Le Carre I read, and I was sorely dismayed by the gummy editorializing. Especially since the characters were otherwise very engagingly conveying everything he wanted to get across before he'd turn all pedantic.  Anyway, maybe this one will be the one that draws me back into the great game.

I watched the first two seasons in online binges after they were completed, and the wheel-spinning and the inconsistencies were just washed away in the tide of crazy, scenery-chewing intrigue and backstory. Now I'm watching this season as it airs, and this kind of shit is driving me bonkers.

Melisandre is the only one with a decent travel agent. She can get from/to anywhere in half a scene.

YES. Tonight's versions were clearly done by a more expensive post-house than previous iterations.

All this makes sense, but they could do a much better job of laying the groundwork for these issues.