[Cali Panthers Fan]

Wasn't really thrilled with that episode on the whole, but there were some great moments, like the Dothraki conversation (It is known), the Melisandre reveal, Arya's new training, and Ser Davos and his band of merry men.

However, I'm extremely pissed at two things in that episode:

1) Lack of Bran. Sorry, but I've been patient. I accepted they were taking a season away from his story to catch up chronologically. But for christ sakes, when last we left him, Bran, Hodor, and Meera had narrowly escaped a bunch of skeleton army wights attacking them way beyond the wall. Jojen was stabbed to death by one of them, and they fled into a nearby tree that was magically protected by the 3 eyed raven and the children of the forest (presumably). That's a lot of payoff for a story that took forever to get there, and I've been waiting a very, very long time to find out what that's all about. Are you telling me there wasn't something that could have been cut or delayed in that episode to catch us up a little with Bran? Did we really need that scene with the Septa and Sparrow that basically advanced nothing? Did we need any of the Dorne scenes? I cannot believe they didn't provide any info on that and left so many other plots stagnant.

2) Speaking of Dorne: Was that the easiest coup d'etat ever? They literally had to kill one guard and then the leader. Was he that universally hated that every single one of his sworn guards were glad to be rid of him? He didn't seem despicable in any way, so it's hard to imagine that not one of them would have been upset at his dispatching by his own family to usurp power. Ok, sure, probably just needed to get him out of the way so the story could progress, but that was some of the laziest writing I've seen, and it was especially bad considering how good the writing on this show has been. That was painfully disappointing, as was the scene on the boat. The kid didn't have a single guard other than those two girls? Come on, there's usually a contingent of 10 guards for a person of royalty in direct line for a throne. Just ridiculous, and extremely clumsy.

I'll give it a pass because on the whole the episode was decent, but I hope they sharpened their writing skills for the rest of the season.