Mostly just her shrilly and impotently talking smack, which is REALLY annoying when you know where her story goes and how little or how badly she lives up to her big talk.

Oh, it was going on. Maybe the descriptions were a little less obvious, but they were grabbing crotches, and he was groping her chest, and trying to convince her to sleep with him, despite her claim of being married to the guy building his ship.

That said, Asha/Yara comes across as kind of flat and dull. The impression I get from the books is a more vivacious woman. The Asha of the show doesn’t seem the sort to assert her rights as her father’s heir or defy conventions in seeking to put a woman in a man’s traditional place.

On the other hand, the combining of the introductory scenes of Yara Greyjoy & Theon’s homecoming work pretty good, as you don’t need THAT many scenes to make the point of Theon’s alienation from his home culture. All things being equal, I could see how it would be possible to completely eliminate Aeron Damphair from the show, with the occasional stock ironborn character standing in for him. He doesn’t even need to be around for the kingsmoot in aFfC (and coming as it does as far off as season 5 or 6 of the show, setting up a character now for a payoff that far off would be counter-indicated), as most of what he brings to the books are backstory on the Greyjoy family. For his service to the plot and his dialogue, any priest could fill the same role without the family history to further his distaste for Euron. It’s just that I wish they were more selective or discerning in which scenes and characters they trim.

I agree. Hamfisted reinforcement of his ruthless nature. Because we might have forgotten the scene of him holding a dagger to Ned's throat.

The whole episode was like that, especially in the dialogue at court. Tyrion's meeting with Janos Slynt was rushed and forced, and I wonder how many strictly TV fans even remembered who he was. What's more, they keep in the punchline where he asks Bronn if Bronn would kill a baby without asking questions, and Bronn refuses, saying “I’d ask how much” but they completely destroyed the set-up in the conversation between Tyrion and Slynt and the mention of Allar Deem. It was like they were looking for the way to get Slynt arrested and removed with the fewest lines possible, rather than the elaborate verbal trap that Tyrion set up in real life, to completely clarify exactly what the guy was up to and what was being accomplished by his arrest. It’s like they decided “once we remind the audience that this guy betrayed Ned, they won’t care. He’s a Bad guy and that’s all we need to establish. On to the smut!”

In some ways the series is going for the worst of both worlds. I felt like a couple of times last year, they relied too much on dialogue to fill in back story to establish motivations, but now they skimp on dialogue to set up petty triumphs and move on to the action scenes, or else to reach the lowest common denominator.

Well, they have to have more of an excuse for Lord Mormont to yell at Jon and be so mad at him for possibly disturbing the delicate relationship with a "friend of the Watch" that he refuses to hear what Jon has to say about the glimpse of the White Walker. In the book, CoK, Mormont was aware of his way of dealing with male babies, but seemed to think he was merely ridding himself of extra mouths and that his talk of gods and sacrifices protecting him from the Others was only superstition. The fact that he actually did have some sort of pact with the Others was not revealed until after the massacre where both Craster & Mormont died. Had Jon been able to report actual mysterious sinister figures making off with the babies, that might have been something of interest, as answers to the apparent supernatural doings are a large portion of the motivation for the expedition. As it is, now with Craster all furious about a crow lurking around and poking his nose where it's not wanted, Mormont's going to be too pissed to pay attention, not least because he prevented Jon from seeing more than a glimpse.

Other issues I had:
- Giving Rorge a nose is like casting a normal-sized person to play Tyrion. I saw an article not long ago complaining about how hard it is to tell minor characters apart in GoT. Part of that is that it is presumably hard to cast actors who meet the physical extremes of Martin’s writing, but you’d think they’d make it easier by using make-up to create things like distinctive scars and so forth. Sure, you can’t get real giants to play Gregor or Hodor, or thirty-odd weasel-faced actors to play the Freys, but a noseless guy, whose primary character trait is not having a nose – I’d think getting rid of his nose would be a priority for the make-up and costume people.

- They totally cut down the council scenes and alter Tyrion’s dealing with Robb’s emissary…so we have time for Pyp & Sam to talk about farting, girls and potatoes? Love the priorities here. Pyp does not need backstory! He is not even a character, but an ancillary figure in Jon Snow’s story, who exists to set up lines and characterization for Jon. His life literally begins when he comes to the Wall.

- Daenerys is annoying. All just justifies her is narrator immunity at this point, and when you know where she goes from there, and what she does in subsequent books, especially when she gets actual power, tolerating her braggadocio and presumption is even more difficult. And then they stick in that anachronistic bullshit in there to pander to 21st century fashions. “Khal Pono doesn’t like the idea of a woman leading a khalasar…” Yeah, because it’s totally about sexism, and nothing to do with the fact that said woman is a vain & fickle teenager, from a foreign culture who meddles in the traditional prerogatives of warriors, seduces her husband into indulging her whims at the expense of his people and their traditions, and then gets said husband killed with her own indulgences, and violations of Dothraki ways. No, clearly, his threatened manhood is the ONLY reason why he would send back the head of a man who violates custom to follow the woman who caused the death of his king. Her bloodriders are doing the Dothraki equivalent of helping a criminal desert the Night’s Watch and serving a foreign usurper all at once.