You're right. It probably doesn't help that the show has wiped out ALL of the Dothraki. The only people I currently care about in Essos are Dany's inner circle, and they're a single group who appear together. With Jorah's banishment, and Arya and Tyrion heading East, hopefully it will start to improve the balance a…

I actually really like this season. I can maybe understand some of the complaints about dragging plots around to put shocking moments and gore into every episode, but when you're making an action adventure set in a fantasy realm you can't just meander through political intrigue for weeks at a time and hold your…

Ned was beheaded in episode 9 of season 1. This is the first season finale with proper shocks.

Jon was never really at risk last night, for that very reason, but when his storyline starts intersecting with others, all bets are off. He seems a viable candidate for overall "winner" of the series though. There aren't that many stereotypically "decent" people to root for as future king/queen of Westeros. Dany is…

That makes sense too I guess, if the Wall was historically better manned. Although I'm guessing that the Northernmost edge of the country wouldn't be the best place to mount a campaign to conquer Westeros from.

Random aside: I'm surprised nobody has commented yet that Jon Snow clearly watches Fargo. I was sure there'd be GIFs of Jon picking up the hammer and bringing it down with a cut to Pearl Nygaard in Lester's basement. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw Styr's death!

I guess it would depend whether they could marshall any more giants, mammoths, other creatures. You'd have to assume that the outer gate is seriously weakened now.

Yeah - I'm struggling to see how you'd really build any of those things into the middle of a mile wide wall of ice. The North gate of the Wall was directly beneath a barrel drop and archery position, and it was fairly substantial - it took a mammoth, an explosion and a seriously pissed giant to get through it.

I know a lot of people have said it, but how can you really complain about open-endedness and lack of resolution in the penultimate episode of a TV series (especially one that's been renewed)? The battle wasn't meant to be the victory of the Night's Watch over the Wildlings: we still have a whole hour and a bit left -…

No - Arya and the Hound feel like awkward manoeuvring, and if they weren't so entertaining, it'd pretty much be filler. But Arya's desire for revenge against a list of characters (and her steady learning of sword skills) feel like they're building to a more important plot for her.

Rickon is such a minor character so far that he could be killed off without any hassle EXCEPT, they've basically written him out of the show already. I can't see them bringing him back at all, unless it's to give him something vital to do. As far as Sansa, Arya, Bran and Jon - they're all right in the middle of what…

I think you've probably zoned out a LOT of the wall stuff. The tiny castle is very clearly placed on the South side of the wall, repeatedly, and it's not more substantial because there's no real reason to expect an attack from the South. It's protected on the North side by the enormous wall. Ygritte and the rest were…

If you're including Jon, 5 out of 8 of the Starks are alive - and they all seem as safe as you can be in this show!

Exactly - I don't mind that Game of Thrones doesn't behave like a typical TV series, and it realistically kills some people off if they're in dangerous situations, even if they're supposed to be 'the star'. But they can't just kill a major character in every battle. Otherwise there wouldn't be any shock when it…

I highly doubt it. I think it was supposed to be a Cohen-esque series of coincidences. Similar to the way the torrential fish killed the supermarket kings son. Bill knew what his proposed foster kid looked like - he'd been hanging posters. Even a sudden misidentification would have been pretty easily noticed later.…

My biggest surprise in the review of the episode is that Todd feels down on the show lately. I thought that seasons 2 and 3 were quite meandering before they built towards their climaxes, while season 4 has been consistently solid. Over at TV.com the reviewer's been ranking episodes from season 4, and he has episode 6…

So I'm guessing you're going with Tyrion, Dany, Jon, Bran, Arya and Sansa? It does seem like the surviving Starks are all likely to be pretty important to the story - possibly with Rickon coming back into the reckoning at some point once he's aged up a bit.

I didn't really like Stannis or the majority of the Lannisters. Tyrion was the only character who was in harms way in the Battle of Blackwater who I actually cared about, and I was pretty certain he was going to survive. Back then I didn't know what was going to happen in advance.

No - It won't make me particularly frustrated if they don't go back and spell it out, and I really doubt they will, but it's just one of those things that doesn't really make sense if you think about it too much.

I don't know - I have to believe that a lot of the doom and gloom is being used to set up some payoffs in the last book. I wouldn't be shocked if the final book contained a lot of satisfying victories for the remaining decent characters. If both the Mountain and the Hound survive that long (it's not just the Mountain…