The point is that no matter what happens next week you will still view this episode, which existed solely to setup the next episode and next season for very logical reasons, you will refuse to change your opinion of it and consider it "stupid and lazy" even though it ties up many of the difficult connections that were caused by the disjointed nature of the storylines in the book(The Hound and his brother is one example)

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Whoa. WHOA. You don't talk shit about the books.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Yes. Correct. It tied them together in a very stupid and lazy way. That can't get fixed by future storytelling. I don't really know how else to say it. It was very illogical writing. The reasoning behind it isn't relevant to that point.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm not arguing the plan wasn't stupid. I'm arguing that it was the best way to tie up the major issues that were apparent. I'd rather get into them next week though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

After the show next week, will you be able to give me a better way of tying the story together?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I probably can, but lets assume I can't. So what? I probably can't do John fox's job better than him either, but I still know a dumbass coaching decision when I see one.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Wait, what about the Hound and his brother?

If you said he did a dumb coaching decision but couldn't say what one would have been better then you probably shouldn't say it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I don't know any spoilers on this part(and neither does anyone) but his brother burned his face, and is currently in Kings Landing, and now a bunch of people are going to Kings Landing which would presumably include him, and getting the Hound to Kings Landing again would have been very difficult if he was just roaming the forest saying swears all day.

The only thing I know is a lot of people think he and his brother are going to have a fight one day but that was from like season 2 and on.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

That's a bad take. We aren't paid professionals. It would be rather embarrassing if we were as good as John Fox or HBO writers at their job. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have opinions on any sports or tv shows.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You are going to extremes here. It's like when Pete Carroll did the Russel Wilson throw rather than running Lynch. People didn't say "The throw was a bad choice". They said "They should have run it instead".

The point is that the bad option the writers used may have been the best option still. You refuse to acknowledge that this is even a possibility.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Quit your whinging.

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Coulda worked that out other ways, but it's not worth arguing.

Your last point is correct. I would hope it's blatantly obvious to everyone here that this is not the best option plot wise. The best option usually doesn't include a bunch of extremely inexplicable choices being made by every character on the show.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The Hound is the one taking the dead guy to King's Landing.

Seems like Dany and Jon are going as well for the Yalta Conference of Westeros, based on the previews.

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You know me like that.

Yeah, WTF is this new behavior from the WWs all of a sudden they are walking dead zombies.

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Well, if there were blatantly obvious better ways to have united the storyline then I hope to read them in the next few weeks by someone or it all rings hollow.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Is it safe to assume the dragon shot by Bronn is not poisoned?

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Peeps is right. These writers are flying blind.

It's possible that it was supposed to have been Lady Stoneheart that was brought to Cersei to convince her of undead status but they didn't know back then that she was important enough to keep in the plot so now they had to come up with some other "plan".

It's a bad plan but the Magnificient 7 stuff at the beginning of all these characters coming together was great. My biggest problem was the time. I thought they'd only been there half a day on that rock but apparently it was supposed to have been more like 4 days if you science-up how long it takes a lake to refreeze. Still, bad plot point but cool episode.

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You know me like that.

I mean, literally almost anything would have been better. Just show a 30 second clip of Hound saying he forgot a pair of shoes there and turning around or something. That could have saved us an hour and 20 minutes of bad storytelling if Hound going back to Kings Landing was the only purpose for this storyline

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

What is this four days shit, some know it all pulled that number out of his ass. Ice could re form over night and be thick enough to walk on.. It depends on temperature, wind etc.

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Not really a convincing argument there but I now believe you that you couldn't write something better than the last episode.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think they probably did it based on distance and reasonable running time for (Dennis) Gendry

What about the hound hearing Brianne is going to Kings landing and he's going to meet her ugly Ass there for revenge.

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Rick has dug in. My post was clearly a joke but there's literally nothing you can think of that he will admit is better than one of the more contrived plot points in recent memory

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Dug in? Your suggestion was awful.

I admit the quest beyond the wall was dumb. I can't come up with a better way to tie up major issues with the story progression. I'd love to hear some.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

What major issues? Contriving a way for the Hound to fight his brother? That's the only one you mentioned so far and I didn't even take it seriously at first because it's such a minor issue to care about in the grand scheme of the show

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I don't think the quest was dumb. They need the zombie and more importantly it was the only way they could get Dany beyond the wall to see firsthand how dangerous the real enemy is. Otherwise it would be pretty unbelievable for Dany and others to join the fight just based on Jon's word and a cave painting.

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I'll answer in a week.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

There was no reason they needed a wight.

And Dany could go see anytime she wanted.

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