Great episode.

...wait, I did that already. Oh well, it still fits.

I'm so glad you guys brought up the issue with possibly doing Stoneheart's awakening. My impression from the books was that it happened fairly soon after the RW, so that she wouldn't be all bloated and decomposed, and so if they were going to do that scene, it would have to be at the end of either S3E10 (which would be too soon from a TV pacing point of view), or it would have to be done as an episode ender earlier in this season, only they could have shot it so that the full significance of the scene (show Beric kissing something he and his men pull out of the river, but never show what or who it is) wouldn't be immediately obvious until the presumed reveal at the end of this season.

Liked the change up of the after-show transition music. Sounded familiar. A piece from the GoT soundtrack? Might be interesting to throw in different music there each week.

Kyle, I think you had a bit of a Shocking Lack of Knowledge in the "the Red Viper in a non-lethal tournament?!". since in the books he injures Willas by knocking him off his horse in a joust. Of course, tourneys aren't without their risk, but iirc precautions are taken to not cause participants unnecessary risk (like giving the people who participate in the melee blunted weapons)

Will listen to this after game 1 of the Stanley Cup.

What was that sound in the middle of the review? Oh my God it's the Ashley that rides into the review.

Good fanfare for Ashley's arrival!

Regarding the pardon: the communication from the first season may have been a letter, "Come to King's Landing and get your pardon." Then Tywin sends the actual pardon document that Robert signed to Jorah/Dany. Also, if he confessed about his espionage when the wine merchant attempt was made, it wouldn't matter how Dany would react - chances are Drogo would have killed him.

yes it's great to have ashley back!

still, he could have told her when they were in the red wastes, hell it probably could have been any time before barristan comes and rats him out/

Yay for Ashley being back! I disagree they haven't shown Sansa's kindness in the show - she saved Ser Dontos, comforted the women during Blackwater, helped Tyrion by picking up the goblet at Joffrey's wedding etc. they also did some weird stuff like some of her terrible lines in season 1 and telling Margaery she didn't want to marry Tyrion because he's a dwarf (which was part of the reason in the books but it was mainly because he was a Lannisters and couldn't trust him). I agree though that I really hope don't go the full ice queen seductress route going forward and show her fulfilling her role as a bastard.

Thinking about it I think it's fine that they've made her a bit more aware of her sexuality than in the books at.this point but this could very easily go wrong in terms of how they writer her next season. For now I'm fine with it though but I am a bit worried about how they're going to handle the LF Sansa relationship in her future.

But great episode!

Damn the Kings!

Damn these false Kings indeed. Bow before the one true King of Hockey!

One King vs. many Kings. Henrik will be the last of his name.

Great episode guys. I loved Ashley's 'I'd flip a lot of tables is what'd I do' comment. Also the brief aside about cheating on people was classic.

The thing about filler vs. sped up on the show is almost totally about the producers being unwilling and/or unable to just do like Martin can and ignore major characters for long periods of time. I'm not sure whether they've got actual contracts where actors have to appear in 5 episodes, or 8 episodes, or whatever.

I also really liked they came up with a distinct fighting style for Oberyn. It made sense that the Dornish spear fighting would be different because of the Rhoynish influence and that Oberyn would be a show off.

Enjoyed the trumpets as Ashley triumphantly returned.

Shouldn't Stannis be King of "Hokey" actually?

The fighting style is wushu, an actual Asian fighting style and it was used to great effect here.

Ashley needs fanfare whenever she is introduced.

Definitely!

Also I put this in the comments but the third Vale Lord was Vance Corbray. An unknown/made up Corbray.

Lyn Corbray's 'nuncle'?

Is his price gold and boys too?

I thought I might switch up the end music with something more sad given the Viper's fate. I found that song on my laptop already, which I used to record and edit this week's podcast on. It is from an anime, I'm not sure which. The listed artist is Yuuki Hayashi - looking backwards it seems to be from the Blood Lad OST ("pf-mix")

I put the fanfare sound in there from Civilization 2. I had also thought about adding the cheering crowd sounds from Civ2 but it seemed long enough already.

Beetle sex

Uh... is Kyle asking the entire fanbase to come to a consensus on something?

This is definitely an achievable goal!

"Thinking about it I think it's fine that they've made her a bit more aware of her sexuality than in the books at.this point but this could very easily go wrong in terms of how they writer her next season. For now I'm fine with it though but I am a bit worried about how they're going to handle the LF Sansa relationship in her future. "

I'm just as worried about how GRRM is going to handle that situation as well, but that's a different kind of worry.

"The thing about filler vs. sped up on the show is almost totally about the producers being unwilling and/or unable to just do like Martin can and ignore major characters for long periods of time. I'm not sure whether they've got actual contracts where actors have to appear in 5 episodes, or 8 episodes, or whatever. "

I read that s3e1 had Arya scenes, but they moved them to e2. That might be evidence that it's more about making sure the audience remembers the character. I wonder if people would have forgotten about Theon, Asha, Davos, and Stannis

I'm worried about what's going to happen with Sansa in Winds too - and I feel like this episode was a bit of a spoiler in terms of going in that direction which I'm not entirely sure how I feel about. I don't expect Sansa to be naiive and innocent and chaste forever or anything, but basically everything about that whole situation creeps me out. I want to see what happens with Sansa through the books first so I'm really conflicted about watching next season!

Perhaps they didn't want to introduce another gay male character and didn't want to make Lyn non-gay either due to backlash of book readers, so they just replaced him with another Corbray.

I really don't think they care about backlash from book readers at this point

Well played!

I don't believe any Kyle SLoK moments anymore after the reveal that he was trolling everyone with the 168 pages hype. He's just trying to stir up comments.

It's not like he would be overtly flamingly gay though. Especially in the one scene he appeared in here.