screamin

I agree that LF is not a true ally, but Tyrion had no real potential to be one either while they were together in KL. As Lady S. remarks, all Tyrion's power was given to him at the pleasure of his father, and can be removed just as easily. Nor is Tyrion really invested in ever changing the power Tywin has over him during the period of his marriage to Sansa...He entered the marriage at Tywin's behest and for his own benefit, not to benefit Sansa (this is more explicit in the book). So as long as he willingly remains under his father's thumb, serving his father's interests and obeying his father's will, he willingly remains the instrument by which Tywin claims victory over the Starks in general and oppresses Sansa in particular. Any effort Tyrion makes to make Sansa's oppression a little more cushy and comfortable doesn't change that essential fact. As I said, I think Sansa needs allies that she can work with, not someone she clings to as a protector and hands over her fate to in blind trust. LF wants Sansa to trust him and hand over her fate to him as such a protector. I'm hoping that Sansa has developed wiles enough to realize that blind trust is a really bad idea and to treat him at best as an untrustworthy ally whom she should learn to use while learning his weaknesses and watching for his treachery and being ready for a suitable backstab as necessary while staying on the lookout for more trustworthy allies - all while convincingly feigning blind trust. From both recent book spoilers and the last TV episode showing Sansa's gaining of skill in power games and duplicity, I am hopeful that that is indeed what will happen.

Not as far as I can tell. He admires her beauty, yes, but... My preference would be that Sansa learn to be more self-sufficient. Not just more adept at finding a protector she can blindly trust and handing over her whole fate to him, but more willing to take control of her own destiny and learn to find allies who can help her with that, while shrewdly keeping in mind her allies' weaknesses and hidden agendas. Thankfully, the story seems to be trending that way.

IIRC, in the book, Tyrion

After the scene, I guessed that Dottie's mission on going there with the rifle was to shoot Peggy's boss, and she was asking Ivachenko if she had the go-ahead to do so. He signed that he wasn't ready with the items he was supposed to obtain or an escape plan (it was only afterwards that he asked about the emergency exits) so the assassination was postponed. Seems to me that if Dottie's supposed to try again later with the shooting, she might not be able to use that dentist's office again - a rotting dentist could attract attention fairly quickly.

Operation Hug Zod. I think I said it first (forgive my putting my ego in here, but it was the only phrase I ever tm'd and I'm shamefacedly proud of it). If SW had played Zod this season, I think it would've gone somewhere entirely different, as I'm still halfway convinced (based on little to no evidence) that Chloe would've been pregnant by Davis Bloome and the storyline was junked when SW refused to come back.

I'm not sure this is the place to put this, but for those who followed the GoT fanfic thread at TWoP, the fanfic The North Remembers has come to its conclusion: http://archiveofourown.org/works/336407 I've liked this work since its start, and I think it's likely to be as good an ending as we're going to be getting for awhile...

This. I saw it when I was about thirteen, and I swear fanfic would have been written if I were aware that the concept existed at the time.

I like that notion. I can even imagine that Varys would lead Tyrion to wherever Tysha is so that he can tip Tyrion's allegiance against Jaime and his family. HOWEVER, it's hard for me to imagine why Tyrion would believe her over Jaime. His first suspicion would be that Tysha had been bribed by Varys to lie - because after all she was a whore and apparently according to the show All Whores are Lying Whores. (It still pisses me off that the showrunners didn't feel that Shae's actions required any dialogue from her to clarify it - to me they're handwaving it by implying that all prostitutes are alike and therefore their motivations are all venal and require no explanation except that they're whores. Which I hate).

Tommen is the king of King's Landing. And Cersei is his mother, and Jaime is his father, and Cersei is the mother of Jaime's children. Tyrion couldn't harm KL OR Cersei without going through them as well and risking their death as well. As for merely making life 'miserable for Cersei' (presumably stopping short of actually killing her), Cersei quite sincerely believes him guilty of Joffrey's death - and the gods agreed with her in Tyrion's trial by combat. Tyrion's wanted for murder, and Cersei would do her best to have his head if he ever came back. For Tyrion to risk that merely to prank Cersei doesn't seem like sufficient motivation....

But if Tyrion leaves, all reconciled to Jaime, what is his motivation for ever coming back to Westeros at all - much less come back determined to wage war on Jaime's children?

So, if that wasn't the actual canonization of St. Tyrion, to me it looks so close as makes no matter, IMO. He didn't kill Shae because he was explicitly pissed off at her humiliation of him - he killed her, like, in self-defense, which makes it totally okay! As for omitting Jaime's confession about Tysha and Tyrion's disgusted rejection of his brother, they carefully sanded away all the offensive rough edges of Tyrion's vengefulness against his surviving family members - and with that they totally removed all his motivations for ever returning to Westeros to wreak bloody vengeance on them all (thus screwing up the future plot) - because God forbid Tyrion should ever be unlikeable, ever. Damn....

I was...a bit bored. It was fairly obvious that the kid was going to get Ygritte since the beginning of the episode, and I was waiting impatiently for him to DO IT ALREADY long before the episode ended.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/game-of-thrones/10679012/Game-of-Thrones-star-Sophie-Turner-films-rape-scene-in-front-of-parents.html FFS. How did I miss this back in March and NOT want to tear my eyes out? "Beautiful"? "Choreographed like a ballet"? Really!?

I think that King Bob only sent assassins after Danaerys after she got pregnant - and thus started seeming like a more imminent threat of spawning a dangerous new Targaryen Dothraki dynasty. And it was through Jorah's report that Robert heard about the pregnancy. Barristan was in the Red Keep in KL at this time and could have appraised Danaerys of this fact.

Okay...so my unease at the way the showrunners are adapting the book are proceeding apace. The Oberyn/Mountain fight at the end was everything I hoped for...but the rest? Not so much. ANOTHER near-miss meeting between Starks when Arya and the Hound make it all the way to the Bloody Gates? Filler. However sweet it is, will it make any fucking difference in the plot whether or not Missandei ever finds out if Grey Worm still has his cock? Filler - at least ten minutes' worth. That endless story about the beetles? Filler. And I don't like the way they've villainized Sansa by letting her save LF. It seems to be giving away - years in advance - the book spoiler that Sansa will turn to the Drak Side. Which for me is a bit of a letdown, because GRRM has withheld Sansa's story for ten years and I was hoping for something better than that.