That's just BS, fake suspense.

Kind of padded. Glad to see dead Sand Snakes, that was entertaining, because they are awful people and silly characters, a combination that merits death at the earliest opportunity.

Absent the reading desks and the chains on the shelves not being attached to any books means they are not appropriate to the show's setting, in my opinion.

If spoilers ruin the show, how can anybody ever re-watch anything?

Those in my opinion were not home truths. They were insults from a murderer. But then, I'm the one who doesn't like Tyrion the Strangler. But as unpopular as Lannisters are, Tyrion's alleged victims being Joffrey and Tywin, neither of whom was popular, not sure Tyrion's capture would be a feel good moment.

Re the chains: Maesters are a half-assed faux-mediaeval version of monks per Martin's delusions of realism. Being monks, chains are visual references to rosaries.

Everybody who doesn't join the X-Men joins the Avengers. But if the barber shaves all the X-Men and Avengers, who shaves the barber?

I love Alex Proyas' visuals. I didn't just buy Dark City, I bought Immortals, and I'll buy Gods of Egypt when the price drops some. But I'll never say Alex Proyas is a great artist.

The Prestige has some good things, mostly from the novel. The new stuff is melodramatic and worse, undercuts what genuine emotional weight the scifi had. For one thing, Nolan's revenge plot is deeply stupid, cliche fridged lover. I suppose Nolan couldn't accept that pretending to have real magic powers to con people…

Blue filter: A consequence of thinking the director is the true creator.

The final word on what this episode did dramatically comes from the show itself: "Shall we begin?"

There is a strong tendency to think terrain will fight your battles for you. The BEF was trapped by the Channel, let hunger and thirst soften them up first. Any battle plan that relies on geography to keep an army in one spot, or from arriving at another spot, is suspect.

A distinct point. I must admit I had forgotten Varys saved Tyrion, sharing Cersei's impression it was Jaime.

As I remember, it was Joffrey whose insistence on killing Stark confirmed war. I thought that was greatly harmful to the country. As I also remember, the power switched to Margaery upon Joffrey's death. Also, I am not sure by what standards either Cersei or Margaery count as remarkably incompetent.

Davos' motives in wanting manburner Stannis as king are suspect, to my tastes at least.

Not sure it wasn't Ned following Jon's lead in regard to the sword lessons. Not sure Ned really ever understood Arya at all, though he loved her.

Two things. First, Aemon was depicted as a warm and kindly man, which means having a high regard for the men he worked closely with for decades. It's highly unlikely he was cool and dismissive off screen, as in, we wouldn't believe it without being shown it. We weren't.
Second, if Aemon didn't know Jon was a…

It is Davos' staying with Stannis that marked his degeneration. Formally the show gestured toward it being motivated by guilt that he persuaded Stannis to leave Melisandre behind and therefore lost the battle…except that the show also has it that Davos is too pure and noble to accept the Red God. Nobody with any sense…

A man Aemon's age is going to vote for Jon Snow because he's a friend of a friend? This kind of thing is exactly what I mean by not really disputing.

Looking at this, I see I've only seen Ulrich in Ride With the Devil (Firefly done as historical fiction, except actually good,) Miracles, Jericho and Chill Factor. I have a positive feeling if I see him on screen.