MTG Salvation

Last episode kinda sealed Stannis's fate, I'm glad Brienne finally got her vengeance for Renly, but the timing with Sansa was pretty weak... I'm glad Theon is starting to resurface, but I'm curious how thick that snow on the bottom of the wall was, I know they most likely made it, because television, but that is not a drop they should survive.

I'm happy for Sam getting to join the citadel and Gilly making out of castle black, I'd be surprised to see her leave old town, but the series will likely end before Sam finishes his training anyways, though I'd love to see some of his training in future episodes.

Completely unsurprising end for myrcella after the farewell kiss, it was a nice father/daughter moment, but I was really just counting down until she dropped that whole scene. Likely going to see an execution next season and a sub plot around tension with Dorn and Doran's son.

I liked the Mereen plot this episode, (especially how they got away from that small army who apparently only cared about killing Daenarys and just said "**** it, let's bail" when left with the option to only massacre her royal council and guard, I mean, she clearly didn't circle back around for them). But yeah, loved the interaction when Tyrion was determined to go help look for Dany despite being almost completely useless for anything more than bargaining and comedic value outside of a throne room. Drogon being stubborn isn't that unexpected, he's always been the problem child, after all, so I can see him ignoring her when he just wants to rest for a bit and their lives aren't in immediate danger. The scene with Dany alone was a pretty major cliffhanger, if this is Drogo's former khalisar, it looks really bad for her since they pretty much blame her for his death, if it isn't, she's still probably pretty screwed.

I liked seeing Arya get her revenge on Meryn. A side note, it would appear that instead of Meryn, there was another character who visited braavos with the royal representative who was confirmed to be a pedo and the two were combined for the show, to explain the disturbing scenes which apparently only existed to give Arya an opening to attack him. I'm really curious to see the explanation for what happened to her at the end of that act and what's going to happen with her moving forward. I expected her to just get that out of her system and go on with becoming no one. It did serve to show what the faceless men really are and how interchangeable the members strive to be.

The Cersei scene was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, pretty much just the walk of shame and then apparently the dishonored maester succeeded in fixing the mountain? If so, I'm calling B.S. on that vow of silence crap, just a side effect he doesn't want to explain to the public.

RIP Lord Snow. I hate what happened, but I liked the 'Julius Caesar' take on it, curious why they just let the wildlings through though since I doubt anyone who actually saw what happened at hardhome would have been involved. I knew something like this was going to happen (albeit less definitively) based on book readers spoiling it in other forums and there has been a lot of speculation that he'd just get rezzed afterwards, but based on interviews I've seen, he might just be gone, meaning the R+L=J theory for the ending might have less footing.

I think it's gonna take some time to digest this one. Looking back there were definitely some high points this season, the battle at Hardhome was awesome for instance, but overall I'm not sure how I feel about the season as a whole. Many of the story-lines didn't really seem to progress much this year. In a way it felt like clearing the decks with some significant characters from past seasons now gone.

I guess the final death of the episode was the big shocker, and it was a shocker, but I think the shock of it also made it feel kind of hollow. Usually when a character dies I expect an emotional reaction, either positive (ie Trant "yay!") or negative (ie Oberyn "noooo!"). This time my reaction was confusion, like "Huh? He's dead? Well that's dumb". Between that, the ending of the Sansa/Theon story-line, and the ending of the Arya story-line, this episode left a bad taste in my mouth.

Of political interest is that both the Targaryen and Baratheon family trees are looking pretty barren these days. Chop off only a couple more leaves and suddenly both families are wiped out, leaving no heirs. It's an interesting possibility.

Re "Wicked" - In and of itself, the poisoning was a well-executed brutal move, but it doesn’t make sense from a wider perspective.