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Where were Drogon and Rhaegal during Jon and Dany's sexy-time cruise north? One horribly minor nitpick -- I hate the establishing shot of the Love Boat as it's sailing -- the seas are way too calm.

There's a discrepancy in what MMD told Dany between the show and the books. In both, Dany asked when Drogo would recover. In the show, MMD said "when the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. When the sea goes dry, and mountains blow in the wind like leaves" and that's it. She didn't add the bit about "when your womb quickens and you bear a living child". When reading the books, I kept thinking "you are wildly misinterpreting what she said". I really don't see how Show!Dany came to that conclusion at all.

It was really hard to tell. It looked like a blue laser beam of some sort, though it was pulverizing the Wall rather than melting it. We'll probably get a better idea of what it is next season. Rhaegar and Viserys looked disturbingly too much alike. I think if they'd used a better wig it would have looked more plausible that he was a dream-boat that everyone lurved.

You asked for an example of her sadism. Gouging out his eyes and tormenting him was sadistic. The attributes of her victim have no bearing on whether her actions were sadistic or not. Moving goal posts is boring.

The way she murdered Meryn Trant was pretty sadistic.

I posted this last year in the Climbing the Spitball Wall thread: I meant it as a joke, Show!

I have a similar reaction, but I've applied a heavy dose of cynicism to it so now I think "that thread has been updated - so what's the latest excuse for why the book isn't published yet?"

What's it like having a kitten that's trained as a Faceless Man? One day, she's a calico, the next she's a Siamese... I think I'd have a hard time sleeping. :) Hmm, that's an interesting parallel with Nymeria. If he's headed to Kings Landing with the rest of Dany's crew, it's possible they're setting up Cleganebowl. Tis the season of fan service after all. I'm not sure how the circumstances would arise where Sandor would have to face off against Gregor though.

I would be happy with that. And annoyed (in a meta sense) like BitterApple says: why drag it out. My biggest problem with any of the "Sansa, Arya, or both of them are pulling a long con" is that they set up something similar with Arya and the Waif last season that turned out to be that Arya had no plan and is in fact a moron for swanning about Braavos when she knows the League of Assassins is after her. Fool me once, shame on the writers. Fool me twice, shame on me. Maybe, just maybe, they read some of the feedback after that episode and took it to heart and decided to make Arya (and/or Sansa) clever, but I doubt it. Gotta pad this season out to ten seven episodes! Oh wait... If they are going to kill Baelish off this season, they probably should have just gotten it over with shortly after Dr. Branhattan said "Chaos is a ladder".

I heard a rumor that they've hired M. Night Shyamalan to write the series finale. Okay, I didn't hear a rumor so much as make one up.

I perused the Unsullied thread (don't worry, I treated it like a museum - look, don't touch). It seems their consensus was pretty "meh" too. Also, they're referring to the wight hunt expedition as "the Band of Brooders" which made me chuckle.

Based on the Inside the Episode comments (something like "Sansa has a genuine fear that Arya will try to murder her, and that fear will carry into the final episode") I don't think Sansa is play acting at all. I'm holding out the very very (x37) slim possibility that Arya is playing them both. I can see a confrontation where she exposes his treachery, kills him, then says to Sansa "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was planning, but I needed your reactions to look real". Eyerollingly contrived, but then this entire plot thread has been.

I've always wondered if the Night King's true goal was just to get the wildlings out of his territory. He's really just an old man wearing black socks with sandals and his pants pulled up to his ribcage yelling "you kids get offa mah lawn!"

Episode 2 (maybe 3?): Maester Walden says something like "Maester Lewyn made copies of all the raven scrolls" Episode 5, Littlefinger, holding the Incriminating Scroll of Plot Contrived Family Conflict, says "are you sure this is the only copy?" This episode: Arya reads the scroll and mocks Sansa's pretty handwriting. So, I guess Lewyn kept the original and didn't make a copy. This could have been fixed easily by changing Walden's dialog: "Maester Lewyn kept all of the raven scrolls". Just drop out the "copy" bit. Or show that Lewyn had a medieval Xerox machine in his tower.

Thank you, I thought it had been addressed but I couldn't remember. I wouldn't put it past the showrunners to hand-wave away that incident though. I mean, according to GRRM, the Targs aren't immune to fire (Summerhall disaster being a good indication of that). Dany's survival of Khal Drogo's funeral pyre was supposed to be a one-off, super magical event. Then last season they had her do a repeat at Vaes Dothrak, so who knows.

In the books, he definitely got burned. I don't remember how much they dwelt on it on the show. I was just being silly, though I wouldn't be surprised if the writers use the immunity-to-fire thing as a way to convince Dany that Jon is a secret Targaryen.

Yeah, and we all know how well it worked out when Cercei had all of her enemies gathered in one specific location last season. Though I do admit I think it'd be kinda funny if Cercei set off another wildfire bomb and both Dany and Jon walked out of it unscathed. Dany: "You're immune to fire also? Huh. We must be related. Let's make out."

He is tiny next to 6'4" Jason Momoa, but Jon definitely has more going for him than Hizdar zo Lorak. Maybe she saw him bathing at Dragonstone and had a George Costanza moment. "I was in the pool!"

And then Dany takes a boat back to Dragonstone... umm why? Other than to spend time with Jon that is. I'd like that too, but it isn't going to happen. They'll be at each other's throats (literally) and it'll take some deus ex machina (Bran) to end it. Alternatively, Winterfell is going to decend into chaos just as Jon / Dany / Cercei are joining forces.

The show dropped another plot time-bomb: when the Seven Snowmari (plus disposable wildlings) ambushed the scout pack of zombies and Jon killed the white walker with them, most of the rest of them dropped dead. Later, Beric said that if they killed the Night King, all the others would stop moving because he's ultimately responsible. So eventually we'll get an epic battle between Jon and the NK. NK will die and the entire threat will go away.

The one bright spot in the continuing stupidity in Winterfell was Sansa calling the other northern lords a bunch of weather vanes. Truer words have never been spoken. The rest of her interactions with Arya and Littlefinger were just asinine. I seriously can't tell them apart.

I'm rethinking my speculation that Arya was playing along with Littlefinger just to see where he'd lead her and that she wouldn't blunder into his trap. It give WAY too much credit to the writers for being clever. My evidence is from last season, when Arya got stabbed in the stomach by the Waif. Along with everyone else, I thought Arya was baiting a trap for the Waif by being so nonchalant, gadding about Braavos like she had no cares in the world. Surely she actually had picked up some tricks from the mummers and had a bag of fake blood under her tunic. The whole thing was a ruse to put the Waif off her scent so she could escape. Of course not; she was just an idiot. Exact same thing is going to happen here. She's going to fall for Littlefinger's manipulation hook, line, and sinker. All the remains to be seen is how many people are injured or die before she figures it out.

Whoa whoa whoa, no grumbling required! :-) I'm just speculating that Arya and Brienne would have to fight, but not necessarily to the death. Waaay up thread I guessed that this could go two ways, either Arya confronts Sansa and they yell at each other, or Arya sees through LF's manipulation and starts working with Sansa to bring him down. This is just a third option to contemplate, depending on how hacky you think the writers are. Personally, I hope that Arya was allowing herself to be led around by LF, mainly because if she was serious about snooping she would have used one of her bag-o-faces tricks to do it incognito. I just don't give the writers credit for being that clever though. I think they'll go for the trite confrontation scene because of angst and drama, and also because heaven forbid that a hero tricks a villain. Do we know for certain that someone has to die in order for Arya to wear their face? I mean, there was that montage back in S5 where one of the No Ones drank poison then Arya removed several faces from the corpse, including her own, so it's possible faces can be borrowed non-lethally, right? I'd love to see a scene with Sansa sidling up to LF and getting him to spill the beans, then whipping off her face to reveal Arya getting stabby on him.

I have seen PLL (yes, that says something about my taste in television that's none too flattering). Your description is spot on: Littlefinger (A) leading Arya (Aria) and Sansa (Hanna) around by the nose. I'm concerned that the hack writing will wind up with Arya violently confronting Sansa and Brienne will have to fight her for real this time. Because it'd look cool, not because it'd be at all interesting. I'll have to watch again, but I got the impression he did see them, stopped to consider his options (run, hide, fight) and figured he was best off trying to bull right past them acting in a way that would cause the least suspicion. He should have changed clothes into something lest conspicuous, though I'll give him credit for at least not wearing the Hand of the Queen pin. Myrcella was always bound for Dorne regardless of who turned out to be the mole. Tyrion actually sent a scroll to Doran Martell; the propositions he floated to Varys and Littlefinger were lies. Cercei confronted Tyrion with "you're not selling my daughter to Dorne" which happened to be the truth. If Varys or Littlefinger ratted him out, she would have confronted him with "You're not selling my daughter to the Vale!" he would have responded with "no, but I am going to send her to Dorne where she'll be safer than here".

I was wondering if Gerard was the Scarecrow, but that's a much better explanation. Chris Argent gave him the magical cure all plant after Gerard's knowledge helped them defeat a past season-arc baddy. I forget which. I guess that says how much this show sticks with me.. I want him and the guidance counselor dead soon, not at the end of the season. Scott was effectively useless, and Liam is so dumb it gives me a toothache. On the flip side, the Argent / Melissa scenes were fantastic. Two terrific actors with some decent material to work with.