Here are eight winners and four losers from a good but mildly uneventful episode of Game of Thrones. To sum it up:
Winners: storytelling concision, the Euron/Cersei not-yet-alliance, the show’s budget, Sansa Stark, people who’ve been watching the show weekly since the pilot, Arya and Nymeria fans, Hot Pie
Losers: the Daenerys coalition, Theon Greyjoy, coherent action sequences and those of us with less-than-strong stomachs.
Other winners: Jon Snow, for making decisions very quickly; the raven postal service, for continuing to make deliveries in a time of strife; Jim Broadbent, for delivering exposition with the best of them; Melisandre, for once again getting herself into the middle of something; Grey Worm and Missandei, for finding love in a hopeless place.
Other losers: The Sand Snakes, for obvious reasons; Littlefinger, for obvious reasons; Sam, for continuing to get stuck in the most disgusting situations; Varys, for almost certainly getting burned alive at some point in his future; the Game of Thrones cosplayers I saw at Comic-Con, for failing to recognize the sheer cosplay magic that is greyscale Jorah.