[Honolulu_Blue]

Some more thoughts on last night's episode.

Another very solid episode. It wasn't until well after the episode ended that I realized that there were no scenes at the Wall or across the Narrow Sea, so no Jon or Dany "chapters" in this episode, if you will.

I thought everything about the Eyrie was pretty much spot on. They did a good job of making Bronn look like a bad ass during the fight. Dinklage continued to be outstanding and it was good to see him get into the action. Both Lysa Arryn and Sweet Robin were fantastic. Irritating, weird and annoying as they have always been.

The end of the tournament went pretty much as expected. It was quite brutal to actuall see the Mountain chop his horse's head off. The fight between the Hound and the Mountain didn't carry as much weight in the show as it did in the books, because they didn't have time to really build up either character. I am definitely glad they kept it in and continue to be interested as to where they go with the Hound. We all know where they are going with Mountain.

I enjoyed the small council scene. I thought they played it perfectly with everyone hitting the right notes.

If I recall there was really only two scenes at Winterfell, both pretty Theon focused. I liked how they continued to try and educate the audience about the world. It was a little more elegant this time - than some of the exposition in the last episode - with Bran's lesson while Theon shot his bow. The scene with Theon and the whore was more solid character development for Greyjoy.

There were at least three pretty long scenes that were not in the book. The first was the banter between Varys and Little Finger. That scene didn't blow me away, but I think it did a decent job of showing that Little Finger and Varys have their little networks of spies and that they are sort of the "behind the scenes" players at Kingslanding. I really liked how the scene ended with Varys sort of "winning" the little verbal duel. I really like both characters and how they've been portrayed on screen.

Then we had the HBO-ized scene between Renly and Loras, with the shaving and the suckling sounds. I think it's fine that the show is more open about their relationship than the books ever were. The scene did a good job of setting up the Renly character, which was needed, and it was also the first time we ever heard of Stanis.

The scene between Robert and Cersei was the best of the bunch. It was outstanding. I think it did wonders for both characters. I was really impressed with it.

I didn't mind the change the whole Ned/Jamie scene at all. They needed to make it a little more dramatic and they had been building up the Ned/Jamie rivalry quite a bit up til that point. I always feel bad for Jory though. I like Jory. He fought pretty well up until he ran into the Kingslayer. I really like the guy playing Jamie. I wasn't convinced at first, but I feel as if he's nailed it.