Yay!!! Great idea.
I have been very upset about the change to 7 hours as opposed to 10 because other than just wanting more got, I have felt in the past certain characters would have benefitted from more screen time and development. All those concerns were put to rest as this episode did a great job touching base with every single faction (aside from olenna & dorn) and I didn't feel rushed with any of them.
I agree, I was worried about the shorter season, but the thing is, there are actually fewer characters than there have ever been, so now we have ample time to spend with everyone. I mean, just King's Landing has always had so many people we barely had time to check in with everybody every week, but now it's practically empty, just Cersei and Jamie.
My favorite part of the episode was probably the part with the mountain, they have really taken his character a long way and have transitioned him from comedic one-liners to "audience voice" really well. It feels like he thinks differently from everyone else in a very real non fantasy way but is forced to fit into this fantasy world and the interactions caused by that are wonderful.
I think you mean the Hound! But I agree. He's had a great redemptive arc, very believable. They are also doing a great job of selling the Brotherhood as a group of people you would actually want to join, because hey, they're pretty good people, unlike everyone else.
I'm slightly torn be the fact that I'm happy they have set up a season arc right off the bat, Sam finds the dragon glass John needs, and Dany lands in Westeros on top of said dragon glass, but slightly frustrated at the deus ex machina nature of a giant mine of dragon glass. I would have preferred Sam perhaps discover dragon glass is created by extreme heat reacting to saline deposits and then show one of the dragons flam broiling and eating a bird atop a rock on the coast of dragonstone, show the rock that has been beaten by salt water turn into a glimmering shard of dragon glass and then pan the camera down through the earth to reveal the giant deposits of dragon glass. That gets the same outcome but feel much less cheap I think.
They really dropped the ball on this one because STANNIS ALREADY TOLD SAM THEY HAD DRAGONGLASS ON DRANGONSTONE. Why did Sam need to sail around the world for an entire season to learn something he already knew?
Oh and the actor who played yuron greyjoy lost too much weight/cut off too much hair in between seasons, curious if anyone else felt that way, I mean I'm all for gettin fitnknce you've got yourself a big role in a show but yeesh did they need to dress in in tight leather pants a mesh shirt, we get it he's supposed to be sexually threatening to Jamie, he might has well strolled in and asked Circe "how you doin?".
This slightly rebooted version of Euron is, however, a bit more in keeping with the books, which portray Euron as a very sexy/sexual pirate dude. And also a complete homicidal maniac in the Joffrey/Ramsay vein, which so far the show has tempered a bit. I don't mind it, frankly. Enough sadism.
Other thoughts:
-- I'm not sure I buy Dragonstone being completely abandoned. Stannis would have left like a couple people to guard it. I could see those people surrender to Daeny upon her arrival, since they have no one to fight for... but completely abandoned? Nah.
-- The producers did a good job of making Dragonstone, a place we've already visited, seem new and interesting again. For Stannis, Dragonstone was the out-of-the-way castle he got stuck with bitterly. But for Daeny, it's her birth rite and homecoming. That said, I didn't love the addition of the Eastern-looking dragon statues, doesn't really fit with established Targaryen aesthetic.
-- All the costumes, in general, while very cool-looking, were a bit too modern and sci fi ish. The Kingsguard members look like Cylon centurions. Even Sansa looks like she's ordering her dresses from the Mad Queen's catalogue.
-- Similarly, the dialogue has gotten too modern--probably because the showrunners no longer have Martin's written dialogue to rely on. (These are small complaints, mind you.)
-- Where is Melisandre? I thought maybe she had gone back to Dragonstone, but apparently not.
-- Show!Jamie, unlike Book!Jamie, still seems pretty devoted to Cersei.
-- It was nice change of pace to encounter a group of random soldiers who were just, you know, friendly.
-- I love Arya, and her revenge is cool, but it's a little morally uncomplicated for my tastes. (I prefer the Lady Stoneheart revenge arc from the books, which is cool but makes you start thinking hey, is this kind of just as bad as the thing they are avenging?)