Dany is about as cut off from her family history as possible. Until this episode, she didn't even know that her father was really mad; she thought it was just Team Baratheon PR.

"….because, yeah, that's what we have in the west. Democracy."

9.5 months of waiting… 60 minutes… 6 days, 23 hours of waiting… 60 minutes…

Now I want to see the SNL Jeopardy skit with three GoT characters roasting Will Ferrell's Trebeck.

If this was the first of more flashbacks to come, I kind of wish it had had more of a trippy, dream-like quality Like Dany's flash-forward/hallucination in the House of the Undying; something a little less concrete than the witch just telling her future.

My guess is that Stannis reacted to Mance as if he was usurper because the wildlings had never unified under a king before, and because "King Mance" got so close to invading the Seven Kingdoms.

Or even for scenic landscapes and great orchestral music. It's got it all.

"Cousin Lancel, meet my friend, Zombie Mountain. Zombie Mountain; Lancel."

Uncle Aemon! I wonder if the old coot has known who Jon is all along. Maybe got the info from Benjen Stark?

It's every adolescent D&D nerd's revenge fantasy. And I say that as a former member of the club.

And in the dark about how responsible he is for them being messed up. Chickens come home to roost, Ty.

And the sound design, too. Those oil barrels going down the Wall; the skeletons popping through the ice. Subtle, but it adds so much.

Cersei can see Dorne from King's Landing.

Too clueless to know better, plus too honor-bound to simply lie about it. She's the female Ned Stark.

Despite it's flaws, I kind of feel like The Wire has to go in the 0th tier all by itself. Then GoT can happily join The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc. in the 1st tier.

"Viking Caesar" made me laugh.

4, 1, 3…. 2.

"I suspect that in the old days she would have gotten a lot of training tips from older, more experienced dragon people…"
Yes, the Targaryen dynasty probably had an entire dragon-handling infrastructure. More like a top tier horse ranch than some wild mules in the pasture.

Right — what's he supposed to be, cheery?

I'm not too worried about Jon getting a standardized ending. It seems we're about halfway through this story. Almost everything that's been done so far gives me faith that there's plenty of time for some corkscrews to Jon's arc — especially if he does indeed make it to the end — and that the assorted writers will…