I thought maybe they had done that intentionally, that it was basically just some crooked / dummy election to legitimize Thorne as Lord Commander.

that was another damned if you do/damned if you don't situation. if he let Karstark live he risked having his other bannermen openly defy him (as opposed go secretly defy him like Roose). it was a situation he could have avoided if he had acted more decisively regarding Jaime.

using the Unsullied as a police force seems like such a terrible idea. "these soldiers are renowned for their ability to fight in formation on the battlefield, so let's split them up and have them stomp around in narrow alleyways."

Pycelle is loyal to the Lannisters, which means he may well side with Jaime or Kevan in any major dispute. Qyburn is loyal to Cersei, which is obviously more appealing to Cersei.

does getting Jaime back to King's Landing count?

also, if Varys had really pinned his hopes on Dany and/or Viserys then holy shit was he backing the wrong horse. Littlefinger is running circles around that dude.

I like Jon's story and can't stand Daenerys's, which I've found to be an unpopular opinion among other show-watchers.

yeah, the Sonics were kind of an outlier in that era, though Payton was a distinctly "old-school" point guard who wasn't a great shooter but could push smaller guards around.

he's mostly right though. 20 years ago every offense ran inside-out. you didn't necessarily need a great center, but you needed some way to work the ball into the low post. the Sonics and Jazz had Kemp and Malone, so they were pretty well set there. the Bulls ran the Triangle, a system designed in part to get good…

Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton tho

to be fair, the early-2000's Spurs WERE dull. they were based around working the shot clock, running the ball through the low post, and defending the rim as the top priority. it wasn't until Parker took control of the offense that the Spurs started to get more fun.

having said that, "The Big Deporter" (after he dominated Smits, Divac, and Mutombo in back-to-back years) was a pretty great nickname.

speaking of bizarre song choices for ads, I distinctly remember hearing "This is the Day" in a Dockers ad. because nothing says "wear our pants" like a song about having a mental breakdown.

"there's a lot of debate about whether this is a fumble or that is a fumble, can the ground cause a fumble, but a fumble's a fumble, and that was a fumble."

Collinsworth has this whole "drinking-but-not-drunk" demeanor going on in the booth every week, which I tend to like.

the Tennessee Titans remind me of one of those generic teams from a SNES-era football video game that couldn't get the NFL license.

not for nothing, but the first actor to portray the Mountain gave a pretty interesting take on the character - that he has some form of gigantism and, as a result, probably has some kind of undiagnosed brain tumor altering his behavior. it also means he's in constant pain and is doped up most of the time.

I guess to elaborate, what I liked the best about this episode is that it's so far removed from all the Machiavellian bullshit. it was only a sheer struggle for survival involving bastards, convicts, second sons, the guys who backed the wrong king, and all the other people that "no one cares about," and on the other…

if you're complaining about tonight's episode because you "don't care about the characters," then you've kind of missed the whole point, I think.

another neat little moment in the episode: Ygritte firing off arrows at everyone who looked like Jon.