Ramsey is married to Sansa and Rickon is the only known living person who can undermine his own legitimacy as Lord of the North. You just saw what he did to the other one in Episode 2. As far as Ramsey knows, Bran is dead and Jon is a bastard who isn’t allowed to get involved in these matters once he joined the Night’s Watch. If anything, he was willing to attack Jon and the Night’s Watch at the Wall. So I’m not sure what holding Rickon as hostage really accomplishes.
One thing I was waiting for that didn’t happen:
Arya always gets a whack when she lies. She got a whack when she said she had four brothers, but not a whack when she said one was a half brother.
Maybe the Many Faced God hasn’t got that bit of info, but if Jon is a Targaryen, seems like she would have got a whack for claiming him as a half brother.
Would have been a good twist if they wanted to drop a hint about Jon’s lineage. Keep whacking her until she got around to calling him a cousin. 
Also, the way he said it, it sounds like it’s fairly well known how Roose actually died, or at least well suspected. Seems like everyone knows that Ramsay is a mad dog, and sooner or later he will be put down.
What I’d like to see is Dany bringing the widows together and pointing out that it’s bullshit that they have to hang out in the temple for the rest of their lives, and they get some sort of insurrection going. Dany didn’t choose to marry her Khal, I’m guessing some of the others didn’t have a choice either. But I don’t know how likely that is.
After the wildlings came back, there were some that dropped their swords and surrendered, and some that wanted to keep fighting until they were dragged away to the prisons. I had guessed that those that surrendered were either forgiven, or had to do some sort of penance or received other judgments, while the four executed were unrepentant and very well might have tried again.
Ned was big on doing the dirty work himself of executions that needed to be done, it makes sense that Jon would feel he needed to do that before he moved on. Although I wondered about him handing over his cape; even though the resurrection was unprecedented, I figured there still needed to be a new election or something to choose the Lord Commander, not just handing it over.
I thought the same thing at first, but realized that she wasn’t lying. She simply doesn’t know the (probable) truth.
I think it comes down to Ned’s line from the first episode, about how the person who passes the sentence should be the one doing the execution.
I’m really tired of this storyline and I hope it comes to a climax soon. Pretty much every scene with them has basically been:
“I’m the Queen!”
“Don’t care”
“I’m also the Queen!”
“Don’t care”
“I’m the King!”
“Don’t care”
Made they died when the wildlings attacked? I don’t know if we actually saw anyone die, but at least a few people fought back.
Two members of the Watch died, and no Wildlings. One of the Watch was smashed against a wall by the giant Wun Wun. The two who died could coincidentally have been the other two who actually stabbed Jon, while the others who only stood by were spared hanging.
It could have just been an economy of staging, though. The four who were hung had all had at least brief speaking parts. Adding two unknowns would have diluted the impact.
It’s not the god feeding them info, they can just tell when someone is lying because of their training. She didn’t get a whack because what she said she honestly believed to be true and there would have been no telltale signs of lying.
I just realized one more thing, Mellisandra’s story arc could well be complete and Sir Davos still doesn’t know the role she played in Shireens death.
Edd may just be Acting Lord Commander until an election can be held. (Did Alliser wear the cape when he was Acting Lord Commander?)
It was pretty funny and telling when she basically did all the “work” in bringing Jon back from the dead, only to have Davos shoo her away after time for only one question.
Mainly I don’t like his sneering, snotty face.
While watching that scene, I realized that I have a Seventh Seal poster not 2 feet away from the TV. That movie is also 59 years old(!) so Sydow is a credible centuries-old guy.
I got a pedo vibe from his scene. Considering that his predecessor is a bald, creepy, doughy eunuch who uses terms of endearment for children, that’s a mean feat to seem creepier.
For the same reason he didn’t pawn off Janos’ execution. What Ned taught in I think the second scene of S1E1.
“My fellow Americans: Soon you will make a choice between Senator Clinton or Trump… SYKE! ALL HAIL PRESIDENT BIDEN!”
Best line of the episode was “Hhrmmm”.
I think so, it was a (fairly noticeable) cinematic shortcut, both to frame the camera sequence and, as you said, because two more anonymous traitor’s last words would have diluted the impact.
Agreed.
Also agreed.
Nitpick: Cersei and Jaime.
I see what you did there.
Every rule was made to be broken. Maybe he was testing to see if she would notice?
Is this Jaquen the same Jaquen she saved from death at Harrenhall or has that been established?
Okay, I just realized it may be I’ve been misunderstanding what the Game they’ve been playing with Arya has been all along.
See, I thought it was a training exercise to teach you how to lie in a perfectly believable manner. These assassins take on new identities and basically ‘go undercover’ and must be able to act and speak as if they actually were an oyster monger or whatever. So the way to succeed in the game ISN’T to tell the truth, it’s to include lies in what you say, but so smoothly that the listener cannot tell when you are lying versus telling the truth.
So during the training sequence Arya got whacked for saying she had the wrong number of brothers BECAUSE she knew she was lying AND the Waif could tell she was lying. Failed attempt at lie = whack.
Tell a lie and have it believed = you’ve basically won a point. Though how they’d know you’d managed to lie successfully versus simply telling the complete truth all the time I don’t know, and if you actually win some reward for managing five successful lies in a session or something like that, they haven’t shown.
But when Arya said Jon was a half brother she was telling the truth (as she believes it to be) and thus she didn’t either fail or succeed and the Waif didn’t react to that statement.
Anybody else see it this way?
A man has many faces. And a face has many men.
When Khal Drogo died, Dani the Khaleesi was a widow surrounded by his army. Most left to join other clans. But the loyal stayed on to march with her.
Question: How is it that not a single person, from her internal group to one of the thousands of others, happened to say to Dani “oh by the way, you’re now supposed to live the rest of your life in a hut on a hill. Maybe we should take you there?”
I mean, I guess the rest of the former queens, having grown up in the culture, already know about the rule and just go there. But I’m pretty sure a few would need to be gently reminded of their duty.
Soooo…is this whole situation a retcon? Or just a conversation they conveniently skipped over near the end of Season 1?
Yesterday I did a play through of Civilization 5: A Mod of Fire and Ice.
Interestingly, I had two direwolf units die in battle near the Dreadfort. All Civs, except the Iron Islands and Littlefinger (The Vale), have declared war against the Lannisters. During the brouhaha, Littlefinger slipped in with a sneak attack and suddenly owns The Twins, The Riverlands, and The Iron Islands.
Based on this augury, I think Littlefinger is seriously going to shake things up next episode.
It was discussed in one of the earlier seasons. I believe sometime after the wedding they visited that place. Dani knew she was supposed to go back when Drogo died and decided not to. Which is part of the reason for a decison needing to be made on what to do with her, since she knowingly disobeyed the rule.