You know what's amazing? Miltos Yeromilou (Syrio) performed his Lannister guard takedown in one take, despite different camera views being used to convey the scene in the final product. I'm a fan of that evident authenticity. I feel the Brienne vs. Hound fight lacked that, for all its merits.

I just think it wasn't impressively edited. Same with the Mountain and the Viper fight. Brienne vs. Hound used so many clips to the point of distracting while Mountain vs. Viper wasn't as tight as it could have been to provide the illusion of a more intense duel to the death. The "denial" version of the Mountain vs.…

Nah, Shae always went first.

He just looked like a normal senior entangled in some roots. The visual storytelling was quite weak there.

AMEN.

Rofl Baratheon, you have earned your name.

Honestly, that much I could live without. I hate that line, and I'd bet good money that GRRM's editor spared us from many more instances of its use. No Tysha confession at all is what really bothers me.

Does that leave us with Meera paste?

NO TYSHA? Seriously, my rock-hard Stoneheart anticipation absolutely pales in comparison to my shock at that exclusion.

I've been pining for it, just to be relieved of that suspense, but I can wait. I'm just too preoccupied by their shocking omission of Jaime's confession to Tyrion. That's one change I find downright puzzling. They set it up in S1 and everything.

I thought it was unnecessarily sloppy, though the basis of the confrontation itself was more believable than I expected. They really earned their interaction this week despite my reservations.

I suppose his immediate submission. Yeah, that's the mark of a king…

They even had him tell the story in the first season. I'm very pro-show, but I felt let down here.

I was just put off to see Stannis magically track down the two characters that matter. Without a helmet, no less.

Lovely, lovely takeaway.

Grenn, Pyp, Edd, Thorne, Slynt… they used EVERY part of the buffalo.

A good chunk of GoT criticism can be attributed to the poor reception of the weekly gap. Binge-watching is the spoken (though not widely publicized) viewing format espoused by the showrunners.

Yes, yes. Carry on.

Some people look at the scale of the action and immediately label it the stuff of brainless blockbusters. I can't stand it. The series is great for both its intimate focus and epic scope. It's that unwillingness to recognize this week's events as the stuff of Thrones that has me in knots.

Sometimes the struggle to survive is all the substance you need. The series excels at delivering on such "low" motivations as well as more colorful, layered ones. Survival, and by extension the fundamental integrity of the realm, was the dramatic underpinning of this episode. Yes, the Wall is quite disconnected from…