this episode was A fucking MAZING! lots of story progress, great looking scenes, some surprises, and the acting was excellent. predictably, the low points were the wall, danerys and melissandre, but they were a bit better than their average.
arya/hound scenes 1 AND 2 - excellent! notice how they are exchanging the roles of fragile human and stone cold killing machine.
tyrion scenes 1,2 and 3 - pretty good. i knew bronn would be given the classic choice of "silver or lead" and choose silver. oberryn (sp? who cares? he shall be known as keith olberman) had the best scene of the 3.
the wall - predictable, didn't add much. at least it was short.
meereen - silly and lame. surgical friendzone received an ultimate triple friendzone smackdown.
the mountain - the 2nd or 3rd guy playing the part. i kept thinking he should be racing other freaks with huge safes on their backs, world's strongest man-style.
the inn at the crossroads - great scene! i liked hot pie's appearance - not a larger-than-life character, just a shmo that's established at this location and the big characters interact with him. brienne's lines were a bit heavy-handed and not at all discrete, but i guess that was necessary to move it along towards the eyrie.
the eyrie - wow! sophie turner is hot as hell, and she looked great contrasted against the snow and cool tones (tv/photochop magic also applies). the snowy scene provides her character with the first bit of relief she's had in years. when the camera reveals winterfell, i said out loud "whoa! she's REALLY good at that!"
. i thought the bomb was dropped when she slapped the kid, and then i thought the bomb was REALLY dropped when looney tunes saw baelish kiss her, but then the bomb was REALLY, REALLY dropped out the moon door
this might go down as 1 of the best episodes of the whole show