Begging the question, who gets to be the Lane Meyer of Westeros and bitch slap him around for a bit (not counting the people sticking needles under his fingertips) .

I think adoption might be a bit strong of a word since he was given to the Starks as a hostage by the Greyjoys after their failed rebellion, but I don't disagree that it's not an excuse to do what he did.

daddy issues to the extreme. The ironborn are all about paying the iron price (i.e. taking what they want from those they conquer) and view the gold price (i.e. buying shit like normal people) as the wussy way. His dead neatly laid that out for him in season 2, which of course ties in to his wanting to be a badass,…

@avclub-9ff7c9eb9d37f434db778f59178012da:disqus while their words are "We Do Not Sow" I think that has a lot to do with their philosophy on paying the iron price (as theon alluded to last night) as opposed to the gold, or presumably agricultural, price. (not that it looks like you could grow shit on Pyke anyways).

Craester is/was a whole bunch of asshole, but his dwelling was in between the wall and further north where Mance and his boys are located. So while he was an inhospitable and creepy dick, he deserved some respect for having provided shelter and food to Night's Watch rangers for a long time (as mentioned in season 1).

ice zombies against fire-breathing dragons……somethings gotta give

I think they'd need more than the fire. I think Dany's presence in the fire with the dragon eggs had a lot to do with them being born.

@avclub-7833d176ad6f6dde5efc95848e6f47a8:disqus  Joffrey's claim is horribly undercut by the knowledge that he's the product of two people who have no claim to the throne themselves, in Jaime and Cersei. Lannister's may have some dragon blood in them, but that doesn't mean that puts them ahead in the succession line…

@avclub-d019eb089e65903455cc52308f00b997:disqus she obviously didn't know the consequences of what she was doing, but regardless, she is directly responsible for the Lannister's finding out what Ned had planned and thus at least somewhat responsible for his death. Pretty bad to me.

@RedScarab:disqus demoralizing, yes. But certainly not trust-building, and if part of this guys point is to pump Theon (no pun intended) for info, gaining his trust like that seemed to work since Theon spilled the beans on faux-Bran and Rickon.

@beans246 That's funny since I state repeatedly all over that I found this episode to be the weakest of the season. It was your condescension not the point you were making. Nice leap of "logic" though.

@avclub-da518aecddbf5c94588f53562012c452:disqus  I don't think we know enough about the contrasts of how Hurwitz runs a show vs Harmon to say how much one was ruled by one man's vision versus the other. We know Harmon's a dick, but I honestly don't know squat about Hurwitz.

@avclub-9b7b0109c992b2904b1cb4640cebc223:disqus ahhh that makes more sense - my bad.

Why are we bandwagoners? Those who stick with something through thick and thin, at least in the sports world, are not considered bandwagon fans. It's those who jump on and off with their fandom that would be bandwagoners .

I agree with almost everything you say, but as someone whose entire family was torn apart by adultery, I don't care if it is an outdated concept - at least here in marriages where fidelity is assumed (i.e. no talks about open relationships). It's still incredibly hurtful and can cause gigantic issues in family's…

The majority of writers from last season (or at least the highest percentage from one season to another) made it to this season. So the people who made those jokes to begin with are writing many of the callbacks.

I really feel like this is the kind of issue every sitcom has. Not to go to deep into the cliche well, but this has been a problem at least going back to Seinfeld/Friends.

I really liked the direction they were going with Chang until the (first?) tag that showed he was faking. Would've been much more interesting and amusing idea if we didn't all know he was faking.

Not really. I think they made it as clear as they could that that was in Abed's imagination. But you never know.

Can you imagine the outrage around here if they didn't try enough?