Yeah, that was pretty neat. And of course, even if Team Machine had figured out Samaritan's plan in time, Samaritan is so powerful by now that stopping it would have been no trivial matter at all (or rather: once we finally get to that part of the story, it will not be a trivial matter).

Not necessarily. You can have villains squabble amongst themselves after all. A large part of what made Justified, well, Justified, was more or less that. Only with less fewer dragons and on a slightly less grandiose scale.

According to the maps on this page Qarth is practically the easternmost City in Essos, or certainly among them:
http://gameofthrones.wikia….

Yeah, I've been thinking along very similar lines. It would make perfect story-telling sense to have that showdown this season, but for some unknown reason I am still rather unsure whether we'll actually get to see it.

I am honestly not sure how seriously we were ever supposed to root for her in the first place. There's a theory stemming from the fact that her book chapters are told from her POV which is basically that she's actually rather insane indeed but considers herself to be the good guy. And because we see everything from…

Oh yes, there definitely would still have been disgruntled underlings who wanted to kill him. My point is more that if he were able to communicate better, the number of those disgruntled underlings who actually try to take him out might dwindle low enough for them to be a less serious threat and he would have more…

Yes, a very refreshing change indeed. I despise "saving the day ex machina" with a passion to be perfectly honest.

Oh, very interesting, thanks for that tidbit!

Oh yes, from a meta POV I think the scene was constructed rather beautifully as you nicely lay out. Still, trying to be genre-savvy I am generally of the opinion "more bullets, less monologuing" in these situations.

Yup, even before bringing Samaritan online Greer was a rather formidable opponent. I do look forward to him getting his comeuppance I must say.

Yeah, his "fewer" bit reminded me of Shireen teaching Davos to read and write way back.

The more I think about this, the more I think Jon lacks one of the key points of a good leader: good communication skills. Whether that is the case merely for plot convenience ("There has to be conflict and if he explains this shit like a competent leader actually would then that conflict would be resolved!") or as a…

Depending on how much they streamline the show compared to the books I would not even be surprised if they just dropped the Jorah + Tyrion with the pirates arc and brought them to their target location in a more direct manner.
Not that it has to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Ha, nice! I was reminded of his daughter teaching Davos reading and writing, language skills must run in the family then.

Stannis the language teacher reminds me of his daughter teaching Davos to read and write. Must run in the family. Nice callback imo, intentional or not.

He still killed and burned (at least I hope he killed them first) two innocent kids though. Sure it wasn't the ones we care about because plot, but you know, not exactly something I'd put on my CV.
Of course the consequences for the relationship between him and Sansa are indeed rather different between the two…

I have always wondered about that: What good are high moral standards if they cost you your life and thus prevent you from actually being around and making the world a better place? Sure Ned stuck to his code of honor, but he got his freaking head chopped off as a result and a whole lot of mayhem ensued because of it,…

I wonder if The Machine and Samaritan will merge at some point. There was a video game back in the year 2000 (Deus Ex, one of my all-time favourites) which had a very similar plot. Good AI and bad AI go to battle, merge, and the bad guys think they've won (or rather, their AI has won), only for the merged AI to turn…

Captive Reese was great, indeed.

On a general note: I really loved that Samaritan was basically able to carry out its master plan (the Correction) without hickups, with the exception of Team Machine (although that was still a work in progress as the screen faded to black). Reminded me a bit of Watchmen's "It's already done.", especially when Control…