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As soon as I saw a male guest star listed, I said "Oh no". Aaaaand they went for the utterly predictable cliche. Blah. So now we know what Elizabeth Hestridge was doing while the other cast members were filming the pilot; she was with the second unit out in the Mojave desert. When Jemma screamed something about wanting the sun, I thought "just tell the cameraman to take off the blue filter." Seriously, that was some of the worst day-for-night "effects" I've ever seen. The only thing moderately interesting was the evil sandstorm demon thing.

Tywin did tell Tyrion that Joffrey needed "a sharp lesson." It would have been interesting to see what Tywin came up with. Too bad Joffrey died before he could receive it. If you buy the "Tywin was in on the murder" theory then it becomes an incredibly sharp lesson, though not particularly effective as a teaching tool since the student is, you know, dead.

One of the differences between Show and Book pops up here. In the book, Tyrion knew that Oberyn would be his champion before he called for a trial by combat. I liked that part of his motive was to tear Tywin's grand alliance to shreds. Either Oberyn wins and the Tyrell's get pissed or Oberyn loses and the Martell's get pissed. In the Show, Tyrion was really rolling the dice and throwing caution to the wind (and other metaphors). It made for a good cliff-hanger, and set up that really nice scene in his cell where Oberyn tells the story of how they first met. I liked how D&D repurposed that snarky story into something nice and hopeful. Momentarily hopeful at least. Definitely different, and I liked both versions.

The Hound's plan of ransoming Arya to Lysa didn't make a lot of sense to me, book or show-wise. The whole reason they skipped going to Riverrun was that the Blackfish wouldn't recognize her since they'd never met, so would be unlikely to pay the ransom. Lysa at most knew Arya as a toddler (it'd been 5 years since Lysa and Catelyn had seen each other), so how likely is she to pay the ransom?

I'm still anticipating (not in a good way) 3-4 chapters detailing Marywn's travelogue on his way to Slaver's Bay. To keep it from being repetitive of Quentin's and Tyrion's journeys, he'll be stuck in Lys instead of Volantis.

Alternatively, a ninja squad of Agent Koenigs were watching over him. Strucker Jr. would certainly be freaked out by 8-10 identical twins swarming the place to rescue Andrew. LOL

It's starting to get a bit convoluted. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen. I'm glad Josh is back, but it begs the question of why he's not interacting with Davina. They're supposed to be really good friends, right? She should at least be on the phone with him bitching about her disrespectful coven, etc. I could actually tolerate Cami this episode since she seems to be involved in forwarding one of the plots. I was completely taken out of the interrogation scene because it was being conducted in a police station. Yeah, you know they video tape all that, right? They could have at least had Vincent do some quick magical whammy on recording devices. I guess he did that during the commercial break. None of them are exonerated, because Tristan and Lucien obviously have minions who could do it on their orders. About the only one who couldn't be doing it is Aurora. I played Sudoku while averting my eyes. I did enjoy that they acknowledged how stupid it is for them to be with Hope given the time-bomb nature of the spell keeping them in human form. Acknowledged and dismissed unfortunately. "What if I'm holding her when I start to change?!" "That's not gonna happen!" Okay then.

I also think that Andrew is alive. Strucker Jr. was scared running from the convenience store, and none of his fellow goons were with him. It hadn't occurred to me that Andrew is Lash until reading it here, but it makes some sense. Adding to the evidence, Strucker Jr. said something about Andrew being hard to find. Maybe because Andrew was in Lashform attacking the truck earlier that day.

Heee, Made me literally laugh out loud at that. My guess is they're going to go for a Death is Redemption for Ward. He saves Daiskye and gets killed in the process. It's quite a cliche, but as long as he winds up dead-dead and not only-mostly dead (therefore resurrectable) or TAHITI'd (therefore bring-backable) I'll be satisfied.

That was one of the few times when I didn't despise Catelyn, since she had a legitimate (npi) point. "You trust Jon, but can you trust his sons?". Westeros had suffered through 4 generations of rebellions because Aegon IV legitimized his bastards. So her concern was valid. Maybe if she hadn't been so nasty to Jon all his life, Robb might have listened to her. As it was, I could easily see him dismissing her argument because he could attribute it to "she always hated Jon". Agreed, and I'd like to point out one spot where I thought the show actually improved on the written word: Jaime and Brienne in the bathtub. The chapter was from his POV; he noted to himself that he must be feeling feverish otherwise he wouldn't tell the story, but most of his dialog came across as flippant. The show was from 3rd person POV, so the audience could genuinely see the physical and mental distress Jaime was in. It was much easier to see why he'd be babbling about a secret that he's kept for years. Also, the show wisely cut out Jaime getting an erection when he sees Brienne naked. NCW even noted on the DVD commentary track that he thought it was a good move

So Hayley and Jackson are living in an apartment under his name (to keep vampires out) with Hope. Two people who actually know that their curse is only suppressed and that if Davina wants to release it or even if she just fucks something up (which, come on, that's her M.O.) they'll turn back into wolves. Two wolves in a room with a toddler. I'll take Stupid Ideas for $600, Alex. I hope they invite Elijah in, and I hope they let Freya put a lupine-o-meter spell on them so she'll know the instant they start to transform.

I’m so glad Shimpy has read the second encounter with the creepy woman on High Heart hill. I think quite a few people (based on some of the previous comments people had spoiler tagged) were wondering what your reaction was to the bolded part, considering he’s still alive in the Show continuity.

Lincoln, you nitwit. You're being chased by a government agency. You have time to stop and buy a new burner-phone, but you don't bother getting some black hair dye to slightly alter your appearance? At least shave off the scraggly beard. Then maybe a half-asleep bus passenger won't instantly recognize you. I liked the continuity with Fitz and Bobbi discussing rehab. I really like that they're acknowledging that Bobbi has to do physical therapy, and didn't just hit the instant-heal button after last season. My guess as to why Simmons has to go back: she's not really Simmons. She's some kind of replica sent to collect intelligence on the Inhumans on Earth and has to report back. Mid-season cliff-hanger will be them returning to Mysterious Planet and finding the real Simmons in a suspension pod thingy like the Kree at TAHITI was back in season 1. I have no idea why I think this other than it's insane. I thought it was a warmup jacket he was wearing before hitting the ice to perform a figure-skating routine. Edited to add: Ward's recruiting technique seems seriously flawed. The way into his organization is to beat a member of his organization to death. Okay, how does that increase the size of New!Hydra? Reminded me of that old SNL sketch about the Change Bank: "We make change. Bring in a $5 bill, we'll give you 5 ones, or 4 ones and 4 quarters, however you want it." "How do you make any profit doing that?" "Volume!"

I think the Show repurposing Oberyn's story about Tyrion's birth was one of the times the show improved on the source material. Similarly, I think the show version of Jaime's hottub talk was better.

Carbon dating sand. They carbon dated sand. I can't even... Is the Asgardian going to become part of the team, or at least a consultant? Seems like he's too good a source of information for them to let him just disappear. Ward and Hydra Reborn just seems so superfluous. They already set up multiple antagonists last week with Lash and the new government agency, plus they'll have to deal with new Inhumans popping up. Continuing with Ward's story just seems unnecessary and distracting. Though I do have to say, von Strucker Jr. is kinda hot.

That's how I felt. Rose Leslie gave her warmth that was lacking in the written word. She seemed to genuinely care for Jon, so the continual "YKNJS" seemed like friendly teasing instead of degrading mockery. Season 3 at least. Show!Ygrtte became such a stereotypical Woman Scorned in season 4 that I was glad when she died.

As someone else pointed out, there are lots of Arryns running around the Vale. The problem would be figuring out which one was the "correct" heir. They'd have a disputed succession, sort of like Scotland after the Maid of Norway died. Pretty much..

Honestly, I hope they don't go there. Introducing a new character to become the designated love interest of one of the regulars isn't that interesting to me regardless of their orientation. I'd kind of like it if they had two characters who happened to be gay who also happened not to be interested in each other beyond friendship.

I'm glad I read this thread to get some details on what happened with Simmons since I couldn't see a damn thing it was so dark. Great episode in general. I didn't miss May until Coulson mentioned that she went on vacation and didn't come back; I assume tht's set up for her to either a) be in someone else's custordy like Ward or b) come roaring back unexpectedly to save the day in some tense situation. "Miss me?" smashcut to commercial.

In one of the DVD commentary tracks (S01E08 I think), GRRM stated that he initially thought Natalia Teena was all wrong for the part until he saw her audition video, and that he really likes how the show has expanded her character, to the point where it may influence how he writes the character in future books.

Ah, I see you answered my KotLT question earlier, sorry I missed that. I'm firmly in the "Lyanna Stark with some unknown possibly mystical help disguising her voice" camp. For some reason this made me think that Ned had a milder version of Stannis's Middle Child Syndrome growing up. Loud outgoing boisterous older brother, charming and well-loved younger sibling, stoic honorable duty-driven middle child.

Jorah’s saying “Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought honorably, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died” is one of my favorite lines from the books. I’m glad they included it in the show. I’m really interested in hearing your speculation as to who was in the Knight of the Laughing Tree’s armor.

If the Tower of Joy is shown in a Bran Tree-o-Vision, why does IHW need to be on-site? Is he going to be like Forest Gump, spliced into the footage of an historical event? And yes, I realize I made a horrible pun there.