I guess this played a big part indeed. The first time around, I was distracted by the clock and wondering what they would and wouldn't fit in this episode. Watching it a second time, those apparent pacing problems were not there anymore.

I think that's a very good example of what "spoilers" actually do. If not for the fact I watched this with someone who hasn't read the book, I probably wouldn't have noticed the intent of the writers. My friend put a great more weight than I did in Tywin's early show casual "Tyrion will be executed in two days" line. A few scenes later, he was already worried by the lack of developments - it's gonna be his execution and that's it? Shit - and minutes later mused that with Jaime apparently returning to Cersei and the previous scene with her and Tywin, it was like the KL story line had already written off Tyrion. Right as the Hound was left to die, he was convinced Tyrion died next.

So I guess they paced it as they did intentionally, but like many things they do on the show, this works fully as intended only on people who aren't spoiled.

The first scene with Jaime, rushed, had to be done as they did it to create a momentum. Readers lamented abundantly, but Jaime and Tyrion stopping for a long conversation first, like Martin pulled off in the book, would never have worked there on a visual medium.
The next bit showed well the limitations of TV adapting a story narrated via the POVs of the characters. My friends was really confused and thought Tyrion suspected betrayal from Jaime and Varys and had decided to flee by his own means. I had to explain after the fact that Tyrion had noticed he was near a secret passage into the Tower of the Hand and got into his mind to confront his father before he left.

I think they pulled it off well, better for non readers than for readers (again too distracted by the book's character to understand fully the character build-up in the show. We never know when or if they'll get back to a book development, so we tend to get lost where the non readers with only the show's information don't). First I was glad to see they got rid of Tysha. That worked perfectly in the books, where Tyrion was haunted by her in his relationship with Shae and this was present in many of his POVs. I don't think this could be done in a strong manner without Tyrion's POV, no more than the aftermath which haunts Tyrion from now on. Milking his murder of Shae, which the audience has seen, like they've seen their relationship unfold, will work as a substitute. What they did instead is make the relationship with Shae more meaningful and important so she essentially replaced Tysha's role, emotionally speaking, and on the other hand at the trial they increased Tyrion's resent for Tywin's hatred and tyrany so that on its own it was enough to trigger a confrontation that could or not have been deadly (GRRM himself confirmed that Tyrion didn't really know what he'd do to Tywin in the books, that he wanted to confront him and...). I like how they've done it. Something had to trigger it and make Tyrion lose it, and having Shae grab the knife first did that. Tyrion could have stopped at disarming her, but his emotions about her betrayals did the rest and instead he killed her, which he immediately regretted, but done is done and he'll have to live with that.

Getting rid of Tysha also freed them of the long conversation with Jaime and their sour parting. Again, not something they could easily milk next season for lack of Tyrion's inner thoughts - but this could be an indication for readers that Tyrion and Jaime won't meet again or that the soured relationship isn't something central except to Tyrion and Jaime's character development as it unfolds in the books, and which the show, for lack of "POVs" didn't need. It would also have re introduced too blatantly, I think, Cersei's lack of faithfulness to Jaime. Without Tysha, Tyrion telling Jaime out of the blue would also have made him look spiteful. The untainted brotherly bond, the only normal relationship of the family, worked well on the show.

For the twins they have done that better than I thought they did with those two, that is I saw my friend already speculates that Jaime has not really returned to Cersei but he's caught between his love and sexual desire for her and his rational understanding that she's poison and will destroy them. He thinks Jaime is either about to leave her or else be destroyed by her. So Jaime's twists and turns didn't escape him, no more than the fact their relationship is very unhealthy and very confused. He already suspects he slept with her in part for Tyrion's sake and in part to buy time and appease her, that he was all too aware that Cersei's confrontation with Tywin could destroy them all if Tywin decided she bluffed and pushed her. It should be easy enough to make him discover about her infidelities on his own next season, and to remind the audience of them first as it's been a while since Lancel for the viewers.

I loved that scene.

Nope he wasn't (we just learned that he vanished too after Tywin's murder), but it is probably all for the good. They need some Varys on-screen next season, and following the books strictly would have provided essentially none. That should give them some opportunities to build up/reveal more of his plans with Ilyrio (we'll see where they intend to go with that... will they have Young Griff or not?). Some think they'll have Varys travel with Tyrion to Daenerys, but personally I very much doubt that's how they intend to play that (unless, maybe, if they cut Aegon and need big changes to the nature of the Varys-Ilyrio plans). I think he will appear in the first episode(s), in Pentos, then he'll send Tyrion to Daenerys with new characters, and we'll see no more of him, just hear about strings he pulls in KL through his agents, possibly more scenes later if they have Young Griff. Then he'll reappear at the end of the season in KL to kill Pycelle.

I barely remember so many details of the last two books, but I don't think there was more than a couple of chapters after that (maybe even just one?). I vaguely remember Bran being fed some mixture to develop his powers. They could push him into TWOW territory in season 5, but there's something else they could do with Bran to "buy time" and it's to use him to flesh out the past as he "learns his powers" (visions of Lyanna, Rhaegar etc. and finally introduce some prophecies, lore and whatnot that they've skipped. They cold start building up the White Walkers/Night King and such too.

I think they've been terribly clever about one thing: they've delayed the introduction of too many "high fantasy" elements into the series (downplaying magic and such) until they had the audience well hooked on the drama and more likely to take it in stride with the rest. I think that Fantasy geeks tend to underestimate how put off a good part of the general audience would have been by too much of that earlier on (which lead them to downplay the wolves, the House of the Undying, much of the dreams etc. - even to reduce the screentime of the Wall/Wildlngs story line). But they've reached the point where these will be more present, intertwined with the "political" stuff and the adventure stuff.

I've read my complaints from readers that they've undermined the threat of Winter and the anticipation of the dragons etc. I think they did it on purpose, knowing this stuff probably doesn't really kick in until season 6 and the one thing that might prevent getting an audience hooked on the series more than a too overt "big Fantasy conflict" brewing is one that also never seems to come. Now they can get to that, with the rest of the North story well set up (they did a good job on Ramsay, Theon, Roose etc.). Now that they have that, and Jon's role will be more political and they have Mance established, and Stannis and Melisandre with Daavos at the Wall they'll finally be able to shift the focus to the North more now, without annoying the audience. Now that they have Daenerys stuck in Meereen for one more season, it will also be time to start alluding to her/her dragons's role in the Fantasy conflict as well (non readers still mostly see her as a political player), and (depending what they know of the timeline for her arrival... WOW or ADOS only?) they could start to frustrate the audience on purpose with her delaying her return.

In their case, it was more obvious they were purely interchangeable with other Wall players they could introduce later, and they also didn't have much of a role. In Jojen's case, it's a bit more odd, since obviously it means he won't have a crucial role in the books, or at least it's something they know they will cut. But yeah, stuff like that was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm of two minds about it. Two much of that could have an effect on the reading experience eventually (though many think Jojen is already dead in the books and we just don't know it).

I loved it much more than I expected I would if they went this way. It was a good idea, after so many "missed encounters".

I've no clear idea of the details of where they'll go with Brienne next season, but I would presume that since the audience knows Arya is out of her reach, they can't have Brienne too much on a goose chase or the audience will get annoyed with that rapidly.

She knows Sansa by sight, so they can't really have her bump into LF and co. either. I guess they may have her go to the Eyrie while LF and Sansa aren't there, but where would Brienne head after that is anyone's guess. Logically, she would have to head back to the Trident to get captured by the BWB, but as to her motive to go toward the Riverlands.. no idea. It's hard to see how she could get clues of Arya taking a ship, as she spoke only to the captain. I guess she might get clues about either girl or about something else that aren't from the books, or to make a decision about what to do next that isn't from the books.

I'm disappointed of the lack of Lady Stoneheart cliffhanger, but got over it quickly. As I also thought, if they are to bring Cat back at all (I still think they will) and since it's way too late to have the Nymeria/river scene (unless they make it one of Bran's visions...), it really lacks set up. It would be time for the audience to get an update about the activities of the BWB and to hear about Freys being hanged, then by the end of the season they can get to Brienne's capture. In a way and in retrospect, it's probably better to have waited. LS at the river at the end of season 3 would have trivialized the effect of the Red Wedding and provided "revenge" too early, happening before Joffrey's death, Sansa's escape, Arya taking a ship. At the end of season 4 it might have overshadowed the rest with a "cheap" plot twist: as book readers well know (but we have somewhat forgotten) there isn't much LS coming at all in books 4-5... Turning it into some big season finale shocker would probably have created unreasonable expectations and some disappointment when LS turned out not to be there much at all. We perhaps took too much for granted that they could simply go into her TWOW story arc by having her capture and hang Brienne as early as this season... except for all we know this can't work at all because this has to wait for other stuff to take place first.

I agree - my friend remembered the "the real fight is in the North" moment, but he thought this still lacked set up as to Stannis's motivation (he was also confused about the logistics of how Stannis learned of the battle and how he got past the Wall without the Wildings noticing. The audience didn't know of an harbor beyond the Wall). It's something they often forget about. They really missed an opportunity to have Daavos, since they had him come, to place the realization that "instead of taking the Kingdom to save it, Stannis could save it first to become its King." Had they placed something like that earlier, Stannis's motivations would have been quite clear.

That said, nice economical set up for Melisandre-Jon, and I'm really happy they decided to wait for season 5 for the matter of Jon's betrayal (though with his "I was sent", when in truth he went on his own - coupled with what Sam knows about Janos that Janos will have to deal with, one might say they've set it up already) and the election. They can proceed with that in the first third of next season, and then send away Sam, Gilly and Aemon.

Hmmm... I thought it was actually their best season finale so far - and better than episode 9, where I think they were a bit too indulgent and simply overestimated the core of their audience's interest in seeing "big battles" when in fact it's in the characters they're truly invested. As good as episode 9 was action wise, it's stuff movies do better. It's the intricate story telling and characters that have enough time for the audience to get really invested in that TV does much better. "Watchers" didn't break any record (in fact, the ratings were remotely lower.. but there were outside factors to that like the NBA) and I wonder if they'll be so tempted to put so much of their money in a single episode again (it seems likely to me that having a few shorter episodes this season was part of their plans to keep more money for the last two episodes).

I agree they've done a great job on set up, though. It was done especially well with Cersei and Jaime and the KL stuff, IMO. Now the audience is confused/puzzled about the couple itself, and Cersei's self-destructive mood and burning her bridges has not gone unnoticed. The audience expects disaster now that she will be left to rule on her own, and can't see that Jaime would be able to rein her in. They've dealt well with Gregor being alive and poisoned, and this is now ready for the introduction of the "We want Ser Gregor's head" arc. I didn't expect them to accomplish that much with a single scene (I thought they might have an Ellaria one too, for instance), but we've seen a strange kind of triumphant Cersei losing no time on celebrating her victory over Tyrion and instead her contained euphoria made her take fast dangerous and hubristic steps.. pushing her ally Pycelle aside, making a disastrous self destructive move with Tywin and then with Jaime (who went along... for now.. but soon after betrayed her). I guess with Tywin out of the way she might lose no time in making a huge mistake out of spite: depriving the Tyrells, like the Lannisters, of their heir by having Tommen name Loras to the Kingsguard instead of simply breaking up the engagement because she needs to stay as regent.

Anyway, this was good.

They also did well with Mance, Jon, Stannis.. all is in place to proceed with Jon facing problems for his unilateral decisions about Mance, then for Sam to save him and make him the leader. Daavos is there to be sent after Rickon. Between that, Melisandre, Mance, Fake Arya to be introduced next and the Boltons already at Winterfell, Stannis at the Wall and the Greyjoys, a lot is now in place for a more exciting Wall/North story arc than in previous seasons. The "merging" or regrouping of those story lines will let them space to introduce Dorne, while killing off players will let them introduce enough new ones they now need. They now look clever for having introduced stuff like Ramsay and Reek early on. They won't have to get the audience interested in that too. They've mitigated the AFFC/ADWD effect of introducing a lot of side stuff already.

It sure looks like they might do well with the condensed version of AFFC/ADWD that seems in the cards for season 5 after all. I'll be curious to watch for casting news, which will give us a much better idea of what they intend to run with and what they intend to cut.

I often wish the scope of that story wasn't so big and they could go deeper with the characters and plot details, but on the whole it remains a very entertaining show.a