I could do the usual episode recap but I’m curious about two things:

1) How does everyone feel about the direction of the plot in general?

I guess I felt a bit like we’d seen last night’s episode before. A lot of things happened that at one time would have raised our guard (Arya and the Hound, Littlefinger and Sansa, Margaery and Cersei). But because they keep raising and easing the tension in those relationships, I don’t feel a lot of menacing danger any more. But maybe that was the point of last night’s episode. We see formerly fearsome characters humanized and stripped of a lot of their power (Hound, Cersei).

Cersei’s conniving with the judges to get Tyrion convicted was interesting. Hadn’t seen her play the “mom” card in a while.

oh and 2) How did everyone feel about Danaerys’s decision to stay in Slaver’s Bay and “rule” like a Queen?

I mean everyone’s assumed that she’s gathering an army to hit King’s Landing. But now… Joffrey’s dead, Khaleesi’s experiment in freedom is revealed to be in tatters. What’s that doing for the viewers who wanted an epic dragon battle against the Lannisters?

And by the way, I was shocked with the Lysa / Littlefinger reveal happening so early. It’s a really strange thing they’ve done with that and Joffrey’s death to reveal Littlefinger as the manipulator of the events. That’s a huge reveal in the books and I’d have thought they’d have played up the mystery til the end of the season.