kulfi

It was as I expected - I was a little bored but I knew the scene/fight had to happen so I was resigned to watching a dark hour of TV where I had to rewind and freeze frame to see who died and when. I was bummed at the loss of Pyp and Grenn, though Grenn's was in keeping with the story a bit more and he took the place of the armorer Bowen Marsh. I'm just glad Edd made it. The only thing I wanted was for Stannis to show up but I gave that up when I didn't see Stephen Dillane in the credits. I thought it was a little too much Sam, but what we got was better than BookSam, so I was OK with it. And yes! his best scene was with Maester Aemon. Love that guy! And I do hope BAD THINGS happen to Janos Slynt. The scabrous, cowardly dog! I was surprised at how much I liked Alliser Thorne, both character and actor for the first time in 4 seasons! I kind of hope he's not dead. And I kind of hope they give the character this depth and layering going forward. This is more worthy than the one-dimensional stuff we had before where it was all "Lord Snow thinks he's all that!"

OK, I watched the beetle scene again. I did feel, as others did, that aside from some tidbits that highlighted teh Jaime / Tyrion relationship, it was tedious and kind of pointless. But, after seeing so many posters try to make sense of it in the context of the episodes, I thought I would watch it again. What I've come up with is that Tyrion is drawing a parallel between the simple Lannister and Tywin. He even says that when Tywin would go on and on about history and dynastic ambitions and the Targareyan (SP) conquest, he wouldn't hear dragon wings, but the noise that the beetle-smasher would make. He would dream about a seashore made of beetle bodies. Tyrion is the beetle that Tywin is smashing and he is talking about it now because just like with the simple Lannister, he doesn't know why it has to happen and what it's all for. I mean, immediately, he knows that this is about "did he kill Joffrey" but this has always been really about Tywin and Tyrion's relationship and the idea that Tywin cares about family legacy and has been trying to find away to keep Tyrion away and apart from that legacy since his birth. And no one will ever tell him why. So, that's my take on it. My other take is that it would have been better in the previous ep. It seemed an aggravating slow-down at that moment. Especially for book readers, who maybe aren't as much worried about Tyrion's fate. We were like Oberyn: we kinda wanted to make it about him, too. I will say that D&D do a great job of not only faking out the Unsullied but the book readers also with the "oh! maybe they will change it and let him live!"

did not even catch that as a callback to his escape. very cool. Edd doesn't die in the books. Has the actor said he is going? Am I missing something?