The costumes look like costumes my mother made for the Wise Men for a Christmas pageant a few years ago. I love my mother but she didn't get paid Hollywood money or anything.

There has been zero momentum. Something big happens in one episode but when we return to the scene next episode nothing in the atmosphere has changed. Except for King's Landing there is no gathering tension, just back to square one with each episode. Take the Wall: an epic, game-changing battle occurred last week, but…

I think the showrunners could have created interesting story arcs out of the material if they had been given the scope to do so. Having to squeeze a bunch of material in solely because it's relevant to what happens later is the worst option.

I took from his comment that it's hard to write something when you don't know what endgame you are heading toward. The Red Wedding was an internal endgame and D&B proved themselves by building up to it very well, I think. I think they then created a thematic endgame out of Brienne and the Hound's fight which also…

Todd's review of last season, which got pretty angry comments, was on point. The show is increasingly going for water cooler moments.

Actually, didn't they say 19?

But it isn't moral hypocrisy. One of the purposes of fiction is to make us care about the people of Nepal by making them into characters we care about.

I would not be surprised if Brienne doesn't finally make a decision to crash into Winterfell and come face to face with Sansa and they leave it there.

I don't think we see Dany again this season. I think we see the first three things on your list and just the beginning of something happening at Winterfell. I bet Stannis and Boltons don't actually meet. Maybe Brienne and Sansa meet but I bet not much more happens. Edited to add: Maybe Arya kills Trant, but equally…

She will go and get Needle because she is going off-training to do it. And then she will pose as a prostitute. No way she does this with poison.

Not really. It's a flaw. I don't know why people would rather twist themselves into pretzels defending the "realism" of it rather than just admit the show has this one flaw in it.

But they do a terrible job of policing the city, seemingly.

Successful and also really, really fast considering they put it all together in the time it took the Tyrell guy to get to Braavos.

Phew.

Well, I saw it as she had capitulated to their big demand to open the fighting pits AND she's marrying one of the noblemen so why would they choose that moment to go after her? I mean, yes there should have been more security but it didn't seem so outrageous to me that there wasn't.

It would have helped if someone had said something like "Shit! What the hell is going on?" If that had happened I would have assumed that the huge numbers of Harpies meant that something else was going on with them that no one had realized. As it was it just came across as unrealistic.

Totally agree that it's a big test of the showrunners' vision. If Olly kills Jon we'll have a good idea of their estimation of the audience's intelligence.

We've agreed on more than this!

I think he's a good guy. I therefore think Lady from Rome, Luther, and Jekyll is the one playing possum and Dr Bashir might be doomed.

Ramsey is a comic book character. I almost see speech balloons coming out of his mouth when he talks.