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So nuking the Red Keep from orbit not sounding like a bad idea any more, Dany? Then again, the way these show runners love their invincible villains, Dany would probably lose 2-3 dragons in the process to the super-ballista. Speaking of invincible villains, Euron is getting on my last nerve. I'm really surprised no one on camera has slipped up and called him by his original name, Ramsey. I really hate they way they've made Jaime into Cercei's lapdog. I guess I wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't have his book counterpart to judge him against. Bran and Sansa reunion was nice. Littlefinger better get his comeuppance soon.

Hotpie for High Septon -- he's the only virtuous person left on the show, and apparently he's the incarnation of one of the lesser known aspects of the Seven -- The Chef.

My dislike of the characters and happiness at their demise has nothing to do with their sex. They were poorly written characters, especially considering how interesting their book counterparts are. The entire Dorne story line was a travesty that hopefully is almost at an end.

The showrunners could steal the plot from that novella about the Dance of the Dragons, The Princess and the Queen. Prince Aemon had taken most of Aegon II's troops from Kings Landing to retake Harrenhal from Rhanerya's forces. Meanwhile, her army had abandoned Harrenhal and moved towards Kings Landing. She and her husband (and a couple of others) flew their dragons over the city and basically scared the shit out of the inhabitants. Some of the citizens and some of the Gold Cloaks said "fuck this" and opened the gates, letting her forces in. Aegon II (who was in the Red Keep recovering from his serious wounds) was smuggled to safety. Use Word's "Find / Replace" and substitute Dany for Rhaenyra and Cercei for Aegon II, and they've got a script!

I'm surprised they didn't include her conversation with Ned in the Previously On segment. Then again, that would be criticized as too ham-handed, so they're damned either way. For me, I didn't make that connection until I read it here; as I was watching that scene it came across that Arya was using a cliché break-up line on Nymeria. "It's not you, it's me, I need time to figure out what I want so I think we should take a break from each other for a while. No hard feelings. I'll text you sometime."

Robert's distant cousins are Dany (and Jon though only Bran knows (yet)). They're all descendants of Aegon V. That was the veneer of legitimacy they pasted over Robert's right to the thrown after his rebellion - his grandmother was Aegon's daughter Rhaelle, who was the younger sister of Jaeherys. Unless my math is off, Dany is Robert's second cousin, and Jon is Robert's second cousin once removed, and Tommen's third cousin (though not really).

Grey Worm and the Unsullied army, plus Jaime apparently, will all make it to Casterly Rock also. Traveling at the speed of the plot.

As does Grey Worm. I don't really understand this strategy, other than to set up the at-sea ambush for plot reasons. The Dornish forces can move to King's Landing by land. Another thing -- Qyburn was hinting at some great new weapon to use against the dragons, and I thought "oh shit, he's got some voodoo black magic up his sleeve". Nope, he's just invented the ballista. Which books readers will know is nothing new -- the Dornish kiled Meraxes (and Queen Rhaenys) with a scorpion bolt through the eye 300 years ago. I also scoffed at the lack of physics the writers displayed - Cercei shot the ballista at the dragon skull from about 30 feet away on a flat tragectory, and it barely penetrated. That weapon isn't going to do shit when shooting 100 feet, UP, at a living dragon that has armor. Of course, the show will have something stupid, like a dragon will land and just the right place for Cercei to unleash a shitload of those weapons at close range.

Two Sand Snakes dead! It's not a trifecta, but we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm guessing that Yara and Ellaria are the "gift" Euron is going to give to Cercei. Good choice, considering Ellaria poisoned Myrcella. I was hoping Bran would arrive in Winterfell before Jon headed south. "Hello Queen Danerys, or should I call you Auntie?" Guess not, so now we get to see more of Wormtongue Littlefinger whispering poison in Sansa's ear. I'm bored of Littlefinger and wish they'd kill him already. Nymeria's cameo was (sorry to say) very fan-servicey. Though really cool, glad she's got a pack to run with. I'm also glad Arya turned around to head back to Winterfell, though I wonder if she'll catch up to the Hound and company. Everyone on this show seems to be travelling at the speed of the plot. I could have done without the loooooong sex scene and the even looooonger Samwell of York, Medieval Barber scene.

Thank you, I actually laughed out loud at that comment. I didn't notice the sigil, but I did notice the awful animation for the ships. They moved like steel hulled warships plowing through the waves rather than wooden sailing ships.

Ah, got it. Beric's sword is just a sword. Back in season 3, he cut his hand and ran blood down it and it caught fire for his fight with the Hound. It didn't have anything to do with Beric's frequent resurrections - that was due to Thoros praying over his cooling corpse and R'hlor reviving him. So it doesn't seem likely that the dead farmer and his daughter will be coming back to life.

Can you be more specific? I have no idea what is special about that sword.

I agree with this Unfortunately, you can tell that D&D like the actress, so she'll be shoe-horned in whenever they can, even if it's immersion breaking or damages the scene. At least (hopefully) they learned a lesson from the last time they fell in love with an actor (Elaria Sand) and won't create a separate horrid plot line for Lyanna. At a minimum, I hope she isn't one of the envoys to Dani; that would be painful to watch. Also missing from the title sequence -- the Lion sigil on the Red Keep in Kings Landing. They did include it behind the iron throne when Cercei was chatting with Euron, so I was surprised the map wasn't changed. Speaking of Euron, I wonder what the priceless gift he's getting for Cercei is. If the show was following the books more closely with him, I'd say "one of the dragons", but they skipped the entire Dragonbinder horn plot thread, so I'm guessing it's something more in keeping with his cartoonish villainy, like Dany's head or something. I understand the symbolism and stuff for why Dany landed on Dragonstone, but from a tactical PoV it was kind of stupid. They need a beach-head on the mainland, not an island in Blackwater Bay that can be cut off by Euron's fleet. I think Jaime's recollection about how Euron started the last Greyjoy rebellion by burning the Lannister ships in harbor was some heavy-handed foreshadowing.

I don't think they were communicating very well there. Sansa said, "She won't stop until she murders you". Jon pointed out that the Lannister army wouldn't come north during the winter. He missed that Sansa said "murder" not "send her army". Sansa knows Cercei, and knows what Cercei did to Ned and to King Robert. Cercei is the kind of person who would send an assassin.

I'm glad Ian Glenn's voice is so distinctive, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it either. I definitely need to see Euron and Littlefinger die this season. I was disappointed that Arya is headed south. I'd much rather see her head towards Winterfell. Hopefully Bran will head there at least; it'd be nice to see a Stark reunion again.

I dunno, Sansa's line to Littlefinger about not bothering with getting in the last word, she'd just assume it was something clever was a nice burn.

When I looked at my clock and it was 8:52 I said "Are you planning on having any Dragonstone in the episode you named 'Dragonstone', Show?" I guess that's in keeping with last season premiere "Red Woman" in which Mel featured in maybe 2 scenes. Gotta say, it was a struggle to stay awake through this episode. I realize they need to set some stuff up but we're not getting 10 episodes this season so they need to move along a little quicker. Nice surprise to recognize Jorah's voice coming from the cell in Oldtown. Also nice to see Professor Slughorn got a new position as archmaester.

For a palate cleanser, I'm listening to Cabernet and A podcast -- they hated it. It's one of their "Off The Rails" podcast, so they have waaaaay too many people, and they're all hammer drunk. But the disdain and annoyance is really entertaining.

"Aria left out 'in sickness and in health' in her vows. I just want to point that out. Does she know something we don't know?" They're getting drunk on champagne. I can't imagine a worst hangover. Might as well drink rubbing alcohol. I stopped with 10 min left, they were doing shout-outs for reviews they received on iTunes so fuck that.

I am enjoying them shitting all over the impossible time-line with the Wren / Alex off screen relationship. Benji: "I think my biggest criticism about I Marlene King is that she doesn't seem to respect established continuity." Marco: [laughing hysterically] They're so drunk that there's a 5 minute gap at 1:38 in part 2 when they took a bathroom break but neglected to edit out the gap. Also, if I never hear another sincere, non-sarcastic reference to the "straight white patriarchy" in a discussion about a fucking TV show I'll die happy.

They're incredibly detailed (translation: obsessive) analysis did reveal one thing I didn't notice before. In a flashback with Alex and Wren, Wren says "I created life for you!" meaning that he was complicit in the egg-fertilizing bullshit. When I watched the show I just figured that Alex got a sample surreptitiously and Wren didn't know. Okay, so he's even more awful that I thought.

I'm on part 2, they're savaging Aria's wedding dress. They're also drinking and becoming more rambling as the podcast goes on. Like they just spent 2 minutes discussing the gender of Pigtunia.

Listening to the BrosWatchPLLToo podcast. It's 6.5 hours long. I bought a fifth of whiskey. I'm half way through it -- shorter version, they were orgasmic about the Twincer thing.

Mona and a blind girl and a horse! It'll be hysterical! Because security was really good at Wilby, which explains why Wrollins was later able to abduct Ali and take her to the lake to murder her, and how Ali and Aria were able to sneak back in undetected after Wrollins died. Wait... I don't think that was Peter. It was an extra from the set of Mad Men.

The writers were being meta and oh-so-clever, basically an homage / fuck you to the fans that speculated they'd use the "all a dream" copout. Instead they went with the secret twin copout.