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TV:  Game of Thrones, penultimate episode, season 3

Fuck the Lannisters.

UPDATE:  After a night of rest, I am reading more about the Rains of Castamere.

I would call the episode anything but underwhelming.  I was hurt watching "the scene."  I literally had the reaction of "how can the author/storytellers do that?"  It was too cruel.  I was mad.  I started packing my bags to head off to Westeros to plan a revenge on behalf of Robb Stark, but then realized Game of Thrones does not really exist.

As for how it was executed, etc, etc, the A-storyline was exceptional.  Humor, creepiness, a slow, gut-wrenching feeling of terror, hope, and then hope shattered.  It was just brutal.  This was why I didn't read book 3.  I knew something was coming.  I could even sense Robb was doomed.  But I guess I never imagined in this way.  It felt like many of the real horrors of GoT had all happened in the past - the mad King burning people, the Targaryen children being slaughtered, and that while Ned Stark's death was surprising and awful, in some ways it felt like a single dumb mistake of Joffrey.  This brutality was worse - an orchestration of multiple powerful people against a noble family for being noble.  That said, Robb and Caetlyn each made mistakes that brought them there.  Caetlyn letting the Kingslayer go lost the war for Robb.  Robb ditching the Frey daughter sealed the mechanism for his slow motion demise.

I hope to find out why Bolton betrayed.  I suspect he lost faith in Robb somewhere along the line.  Or perhaps, like Littlefinger, he is simply a man of ambition who was always going to betray.

Those who read the books say the slaughter was better executed in the books.  Judging by the fact it happened midway through book 3, I'm inclined to agree.  You would never see it coming.  I wonder why the showrunners decided to ditch this strategy.  I told my fiance before the episode began "someone important is going to die tonight."  I felt something big had to happen in the penultimate episode the way the season was heading.

In the end, Robb was constantly let down by the people around him - Bolton, the Karstark, his mother, and Theon.  Did he bring this on himself by being too above it all?  Too noble?  Too good?  "No one trusts you unless you have a little dirt on you."  Maybe so.