I honestly thought this was one of the worst written and directed eps recently; interestingly, Martin wrote it. It featured a host of my favorite scenes from the novel but they were brought to life in such a bland, boring manner. Can't say I'm a fan of the Greatjon's casting, and the scene with him challenging Robb and being attacked by Ghost came off rather cheesy.
Other scenes dragged on for long periods of time. The Dothraki scene felt like it took forever, perhaps due to all the Dothraki dialogue. Sansa's first scene with the council dragged. All of these scenes features a series of stale lines. I must say I was surprised, given how much shit hit the fan plot wise, that it felt dull for such long periods.
Arya killing the stableboy had none of the shock or emotion it had in the novel. The kid recited some lines then got stabbed. It looked like they just threw the scene together. The last couple episodes seemed to move past such standard directing a bit, but tonight's ep brought it back big time. While there were previous episodes that I didn't think were very good, this was disappointed me the most.
