Maybe publicly, but we don't know how their contracts define "season".

He also likes making love at midnight.

I thought the actors were only under contract for 7 seasons, and this weird split season is a way to keep the actors without renegotiating the contracts (Breaking Bad did something similar)

Hibernating

Chekhov's MacGuffin

"Not trying to earn cool points or anything"

There must have been some equally terrible weeks in the 1988-1991 period, which was after the hey day of true 1980s classics and when the likes of MC Hammer, New Kids on the Block, Color Me Badd, and Vanilla Ice were at the top of the charts.

Possibly, but the show hasn't emphasized Howland Reed to anywhere near the extent the books have (though Meera did mention his name at the wall, so maybe he'll be brought up again).

Meera is probably the most forgettable named character in the show. She appears out of the blue, is overshadowed by Jojen while alive, doesn't have much to say or do other than drag Bran around after Hodor's death, and then is unceremoniously dismissed from the show. I bet a good portion of show watchers don't even…

And even before that, like in season 2 when the show had him deliver his stupid, smirking "knowledge is power" speech to Cersei implying that he knew the truth about her relationship with Jaime. Cersei followed that up with "power is power" and threatening to kill him.

That's how I paid off my student loans, but no one at Sallie Mae seemed to mind.

So it will be the perfect time for Tyrion to unleash his armored Hilltribe horde to conquer the Aerie while the Knights of the Vale are away.

Exactly. My guess is that Littlefinger plays a role in the endgame that would make sense if things played out as they are in the books, but don't make sense in the show due to the show's streamlining and simplification of the Littlefinger story. Since he's important to the endgame the show can't get rid of him, so…

No, yo're not. I think that many book readers sympathize with Jamie. He's one of my favorites as well. But D&D tricked me tonight- I legitimately thought he was going to die in his charge against Drogon.

It would be great to see Euron the mistake fixer murder Daario in a humiliating fashion, just like he did to the Sand Snakes.

I agree. I think that ASoIaF / GOT is at its absolute best when D&D are pruning GRRM's best work. Seasons 1-4 were moslty terrific, but that was largely due to the first three books being so good.

Agreed. I think that most of the plotting problems of this season and the prior two have stemmed from D&D trying to untangle GRRM's knot. This season D&D are like, "fuck it, we're just going to end some of these stories, coherence be damned." It has made the first 3 episodes weak, but I think with this episode D&D…

By Brienne's standards she was.

I thought that too- but the dragons burned the front line guys with plate armor (which is what Jorah was wearing during his duel), so the Dothraki were able to storm through the less heavily armored troops in the rear.

While I agree that the dialogue and (especially) the plotting have been spotty lately, I think that this episode was a marked improvement in both areas.