Not specific to this episode and haven't been following the comments for every episode, but is everyone suitably impressed by Brad William Henke as Piscatella?

And Teryn Manning, for pete's sake.

Yes, Kang always suspected that Laura Gomez was a very attractive woman when not saddled with all the Blanca-isms, and he felt gratified to discover he was right!

*Puts on time-traveling pedant glasses*

She would look good with Moe Howard's haircut.*
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*Come to think of it, Kang knows more than one queer woman with a Moe Howard.

She was terrific. She may be the most affecting character in the whole show. She seemed like such a positive, innocent person and her condition has stolen her life from her, through no fault of her own. It was heartbreaking.

Agreed. Kang isn't even into Lesbian-on-Lesbian, but those actresses together?

Myles, you are an attentive, literate, and thoughtful reviewer.

Good actors either:
A. Elevate thin material, finding surprising line readings and conveying depth where their characters may be one-note and clichéd on the page, and/or:
B. Make you believe that they ARE their character in a way that draws you into the story and forget about the acting.

No you're not. Kang thought he was fine, if a little dull, but this episode made him groani-inducingly stupid. If he's the best the Starks have to offer, then the Starks really have no business being 'Lords' over anything.

Seriously, just tie a couple of rowboats to the Giant and that battle would have gone much, much more smoothly.

Based on this episode, basic intelligence is also an advantage that Ramsay holds over Jon Snow.

Kang LOVED Yara, until the moment that she got beaten by a pack of dogs. But that felt like the writers' fault, not hers.

He was a seven-layer dip of cheese, with cheese for every single layer and an extra dollop of—guess what—cheese on top. He was terrible. There's well-acted awful people with recognizable motivation (Cersei) and there's terribly acted cartoon bad guys who are nothing but repetitious plot devices and zero thematic…

Mruh-wuh now? Sansa was warning him about fighting Ramsay stupidly, out of anger, which is exactly what he did. You think she was so concerned about Jon 'cruelly' beating a notorious patricidal torturer that she thought it was better PR to feed him to his dogs?

A great ending to this saga would be if they all unite and defeat the Walkers, but Littlefinger somehow ends up on the throne at the end. The big supernatural bads are gone but still one devious motherfucker comes away on top, because it's George RR Martin's world…

Why would she think that? He's the greatest hero the world has ever—

Yes, the perfect training does feel a bit unearned. And also the show has dropped the storyline about how difficult and occasionally murderous the dragons are. One imagines that there's a superior story in Martin's book, in which two of the three dragons are put down or killed in battle, and only one remains to…

Kang supposes he's just sad that this show feels like check-the-box fan service now. It feels like a show for all the people who thought the Small Council meetings were boring and just wanted to get to the Dragons.

OK, sorry people. But here it is:
1. Why are we supposed to root for Jon Snow, who makes every dumb decision imaginable and then only wins because Sansa calls the Littlefinger Regulars?