They may or may not be the actual Brotherhood. Posing as the Brotherhood to pillage and murder could either be:

Yeah, she'd have to make the trek all the way to the potion merchant in Asshai for more (or at least Essos), and she hasn't unlocked fast travel yet like Littlefinger, Jaime, the Greyjoys, and Sam.

Agreed. If it's not my favorite passage in the series, it's easily top 3. One thing GRRM does better than pretty much any other fantasy writer is examining the true impact of war, and the Septon's speech is the high point of that aspect of the books, in my opinion. I try not to be too much the bitchy book reader as I…

Great point about the difference in audience. Hell, McShane's casting is even tailored more towards the Hound. Love the guy to death either way but if it was Brienne meeting him, it would probably have called for a different casting, someone a little more solemn. I still think he could have gotten more into the meat…

On the bright side: CLEGANEBOWL! Wun Wun! Bronn! Margaery is caught up in complicated religious-political shenanigans after all and we have no idea whether she's winging it or has an actual plan! Al Fucking Swearengen!

Yeah, agreed. The Viper and the Mountain was also episode 8 as I recall, so it would have a certain symmetry for Cleganebowl to happen in episode 8 this season.

I feel like this was definitely at least a contributor. For all that they seemed to frame the season around the Longwater/Veronica Dean plot, the season felt like it had a weird balance of digression to main story episodes. It started off a lot tighter and more focused, then spun off in random directions for…

75-1 on nobody on this list is pretty damn good odds IMO. Unless CLEGANEBOWL happens this week, I don't see any of these people biting it. I'd put $100+ on that easy if I were playing this game. That and "any Tully" are really the only good bets here if you ask me.

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creatively exhausted show's life painfully extended

The second book is a lot better, with a certain prominent arc in particular being one of the better things I've read in a fantasy novel, but I can't really blame you as I found Gardens a little boring as well. In Deadhouse Gates' favor, though, it's not really a direct continuation of Gardens. A few characters…

If you're a patient soul and can deal with extremely indirect world-building, Malazan Book of the Fallen is good. People's opinions on the series tend to be very strong one way or the other, but at a minimum it's quite different from almost any other fantasy you'll read. Worth checking out for sure, but be aware that…

The scene itself wasn't really that random, but the placement of it 100% was. We don't see Dany or even Mereen all episode until that point. Basically ended the episode with a non sequitur.

Isn't Gendry supposed to be with the Brotherhood? I'd say there's an excellent chance we see him before the season's over.

I don't know, based on what we've seen him actually affect so far, it's rather doubtful that he can just change things willy-nilly. It looks rather like anything he could have done has already been done; no changing the past.

The Dany scene this week. It had her reunite with Drogon, I guess? Other than that just a speech that's almost a paraphrase of things we've heard her say before. Is there a reason we couldn't have that speech as she, you know, returns to Mereen? Or maybe when they're about to actually leave for Westeros, when it might…

Favorite bit of the episode if I'm being honest.

Seriously, random check-ins are the bane of the show. It slows the pace down to a crawl, disrespects the audience's intelligence, and results in episodes like this one that feel really underwhelming. It wouldn't work for every plotline, but sometimes I wish the show only covered like 3-4 characters/locations a week…

Almost every show's "previously on" music is weirdly, terribly incongruous.

Well said, and a further example of how both he and Paige are different (read: better) than almost any other teenage/child characters in TV dramas. They don't invent stupid "Dana Brody in a hit-and-run" plots just to fill space - Paige and the church appeared to be that at first, but it soon proved to be integral to…

And setup time can be a real bitch with complex games, no matter how well you organize the pieces. Versus just starting up the Xbox or whatever and starting actual gameplay in like, a minute tops.