Oh yeah, I consider Gaad to be fully justified in being a dick to Stan. Stan nearly destroyed Gaad's life, and only Gaad's own initiative saved things. Recall that Gaad had told him to stand down before Stan grabbed Vlad in the first place.

Gaad's dickishness towards Stan has been one of my favorite running subplots ever since Stan visited Gaad's house unannounced. Confident asshole Gaad is the best Gaad. First he openly mocks Stan's marital troubles, then he all but throws the commendation box at Stan without even a perfunctory personal…

Everything with Malvo seems to be playing a bit loose with reality, which I guess is fine. Not every show needs to go for hardcore realism. Nevertheless, Malvo seems to rely an awful lot on perfect timing, coincidence, and the incompetence of others. And no one looking up and wondering who that guy is standing on…

Yeah, I am pretty sure it is an alias, but I guess reviewers/commenters have no better option on what to call him. It is hard to imagine we will ever learn his "real" name.

I think he was waiting around so he could get himself arrested, though I am not entirely sure why. But there seems to be no other reason for him to be standing there like that. The strange thing is he must have been standing there in the Minnesota winter a very long time, because this was apparently the day after…

I had the same thought process. Obviously it doesn't really matter for the show, it just seemed odd they actually took the time to establish something that made no sense. Why include the shot of it embedding at all if you're not going to do it right?

Ah, fair enough. As I said, I have trouble keeping some of the back story straight. I guess in light of all the criticism the show has received for gratuitous sexual violence, we can give them credit for that one.

It's hard to keep everything straight, but I think there was some reference made to how he would make Jaime stand guard while he did it? Or maybe that wasn't specifically Cersei.

The Jaime-in-the-sept debacle aside, Cersei is previously established as being the victim of marital rape. Robert would get drunk and rape her. Something similar could like be said for most married women in this show, with the notable exception of Sansa (and apparently Lady Oleanna). Girls are married young for…

I hope it ends with Rickon Stark on the Iron Throne. Nobody expects Rickon.

If only that scene at Craster's had been backed by The Mountain Goats playing a Westerosi song about teen angst. And included Jon Snow giving the burning shelter the finger.

Ha! Indeed. It's not over yet; Varys definitely plays a long game.

I feel cheated that we never got to see a scene with Mark Addy and Charles Dance.

So, is this whole series really a battle between Littlefinger and Varys over the future of the Seven Kingdoms? It sure seems like Littlefinger is winning.

That does seem a bit more important than the eating schedule at Winterfell, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, which I suppose makes sense given that it's creators are former 24 writers/producers.

I feel like a 192 episode long television series that cared about continuity could have done something really interesting with this concept. But instead every "Day" rebooted the world to the present. And then recycled the same plot lines over again.

Good point. According to the 24 wiki timeline, the 8 seasons cover about 15 years (2002-2016), and there were NINE presidents during that time. Could you have a functioning democracy with that attrition rate? If seasons 7 and 8 were like Children of Men the show would have been a lot more interesting.

Right, in this world there really is no such thing as a "legitimate" king or queen. Might makes right. King (or queen) of the Seven Kingdoms is an invented position in the first place. Danerys has the strongest blood claim to the throne, but blood claims without the strength to back it up only count for so much. …

Once the show overtakes the books they can do a season of one episode vignettes. Episode one Ser Pounce uncovers a mouse conspiracy, episode two Rickon rides his dire wolf around the north, episode three a teenage White Walker dyes his hair purple and wants to date a wight.