The Waif is super petty. In fact, she derives so much unseemly enjoyment from her job that it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Jaquen isn't testing her as well, with this assignment.

I think he probably does want her dead, now. The Faceless Men have to obey whatever orders they're given, and Arya has proven that she won't. That means she has preferences and judgment, which means she's "someone". . . and a "someone" who knows far too much, at that.

In the books, trial by combat is an unconditional right extended to anyone accused of a major crime. I'm not sure how much the High Sparrow knows about Frankengregor, but trial by combat is a religious tradition as much as a secular one - he'd be taking a risk by denying that right to Cersei.

The "play within the play" has been one of my favorite elements of the season. I'm hoping against all hope to see a third installment.

Yes. Margery is absolutely brilliant. The High Sparrow might seem to have won, but really he's running a terrible risk. His predecessor was close to the Crown as well, which was fine when times were good… but during the siege, when things went bad in King's Landing, he got blamed right along with the Lannisters.

Having the public support of the Crown is a double-edged sword, particularly when it's reciprocal. The High Sparrow seems to have forgotten how he got his job in the first place. . .

From the viewpoint of 2016 America, this episode looks like the most prescient and disturbing of the lot.

Especially since he's just become the presumptive Republican nominee.

You know, in light of recent events in U.S. politics, I'm pretty sure this review needs to be rewritten. As the commenter Sameera correctly noted, this episode is exponentially more disturbing in mid-2016 than it was 3 years ago, thanks to Donald J. Trump. . . who is pretty much the human incarnation of Waldo.

Pandemic is interesting. . .but as a game I don't think it overcomes the inherent requirement of conflict so much as it outsources the role of antagonist to the game itself. In that sense, I'd say that Pandemic can be best understood as an advanced, multi-player successor to older games like Solitaire and the…

Interesting points, but it occurs to me that games themselves might have an inherent bias in favor of "harm".

It's not quite topical today, but I think the most impressive use of violence to critique violence was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Exactly. Tyrion had to make some sort of ambitious-sounding demands, to prevent his enemies from figuring out how weak he really is. . . and to give them a chance to feel like they've outsmarted him. (The slavers' arrogance is perpetually working against them, but they're -of course- too arrogant to notice).

I thought she was only fireproof on special occasions, but it looks like she's straight-up fireproof 24/7. Fun at parties.

She wasn't wrong, though- I think he was probably looking to do both. Where she messed up was in letting Ramsay know she wasn't frightened of him. She should have just pretended to be scared, since that's what he would have been expecting.

Osha didn't have a lot of good options left at that point. Or any. Personally, I kind of admired her for at least taking a shot at Ramsay. That's more than anyone else has found the courage to do, except (sort of) Sansa, who tried to manipulate him into confronting Lord Bolton.

Heck, everybody forgot that. . . but that's a big part of what stoked Cersei's jealousy to the point where she hatched the crackpot scheme of having Margery arrested by the High Septon in the first place.

That's very possible, but if Tyrion lets them continue to believe that he's sold them out, he's apt to get the Jon Snow treatment.

That's a reasonable goal, but unless each and every one of those remaining 13 episodes pushes the story along at least as much as the last one did, I don't see how they can wrap all the outstanding storylines up quite that quickly.

22 more episodes would come out to 7.5 seasons. My guess is that they're planning on telling the whole story with an even 7. Fractional seasons are hard to program, cast, and write for; and anything longer than 7 seasons, for any show, would be pushing the boundaries of audience patience and interest.