Ahh, got me there. Okay, fine, every other episode ends this way from here on out.

Interesting idea! Keeps the drama going, frustrates the fans, not really that bad an idea in practical terms if this were really happening (apart from the whole "Ramsay is hellsatan" problem). I like it.

I thought those were pretty rich odds on the Waif, for sure. They were on a clear collision course there, one way or the other.

That's going to be every season finale from here on out.

I say Ramsay, Rickon, Tormund, Wun Wun. No way Jon Snow goes now, Ramsay's like the perfect "won but at what cost" stepping stone, Rickon's…not in good hands at the moment, and Snow et al have to lose some dudes. (Plus, what are they going to do with Wun Wun, past a certain point?)

It's funny, because in one sense I get that she and her ilk are making something of themselves, and that they're doing it through perceptiveness and hard work. In another sense, they drive me insane because what they're making is money for themselves on what I view to be a moral failing in our society: lacking social…

It's the first StarWipe article I've ever linked, and I've linked to it a lot.

I actually took that as an element of the meta-commentary: he was the necessary source of exposition who wasn't really supposed to fit in.

My kid is three and I am tongue-in-cheek dreading the day he discovers that movie. As it is, he'll stop playing at the playground if an interesting truck (or motorcycle, or convertible, etc. etc. etc.) drives by to just stop and watch.

Oh yeah, much agreed. Especially early on, he'd just hover on the knife edge of discomfort for what seemed like as long as he could. I'm not saying he's wrong or it's wrong, I'm just saying I don't enjoy it at all.

I assume it's animated to look like it wasn't written exactly the same way each frame for some reason—which only increases the charm.

The sentence that really jumped out at me was "cringe comedy," which, I can't stand cringe comedies; I walked out of Meet the Parents less than a half-hour in. For people who like them, I get how this could be an act of sly, subversive genius, but for those of us who are practically allergic to them, the…

Not just careless outrage, but careless outrage commodified into clicks, used for buying advertising at more favorable rates. In unrelated news, I grow more sour on the internet economy by the day.

The version I'd had in my head was that they'd been raising hell in the midlands ever since shortly after the Red Wedding and that the action simply hadn't made it back to them yet. In the books, they were hardly a focused politically-relevant force, after all. There was no real reason for Cersei or Sansa or whoever…

Yeah. Last week I was actually wondering if Jaqen was making good on Arya's naming him as her third name by being Arya, wandering around waiting to get stabbed by the Waif. That could've worked. Or what you said here, that could've worked. This seemed super straightforward, and doubly so in GoT terms for having…

I've got bad news for you, friend…

No, you're right, but the show's been looser about that sort of thing than the books. I went from 60 to 0 on the Stoneheart Truther scale with this episode less because Dondarrion was "alive" than because structurally this was a great moment to have her scare the crap out of everyone, and they didn't do it. Why…

I didn't hate it, but for me that opening scene set the table for a meal I never really felt like I got to eat.

Thanks much! I write these stupid things so longform that I was wondering if people really even read them.

Wow. Reminds me of pen-and-paper games back when I was in high school and none of us knew a thing about how adult life actually worked.