The essentials:

- Jon and Mance meet, but Stannis shows up to save the day.
- Jon gets elected to head the Watch. I figure they need to show this, including the part where Stannis offers him a chance to leave the Watch and become the heir to Winterfell. They gotta show Jon choosing duty to Watch over the chance to become a Lord.
- Tyrion breaking out and killing Tysha and Tywin.
- Arya leaving the Hound to die, and then getting on the boat to Braavos
- Something with Mereen. Possibly the return of Xaro Xhoan Daxos to attack the city.
- Lady Stoneheart. Hopefully killing some Freys in the process.

Just once I'd like them to do an hour and half or hour and 15 minute episode or something. I think HBO would let them get away with it. Shoot, they've given extra run time to Treme, I think they can do it for their most watch show ever.

As for this episode, it worked well enough. I think I would have liked it better if they'd spread out the battle over many episodes, like in the book, but budget and time constraints probably prevented that. This episode definitely had some great moment though.

And it looks like Tormund is taking the place Rattleshirt, in that he'll probably be the one who gets glamoured to look like Mance and then burned alive. A shame, since I liked Tormund, but they're not going to let him off after he killed so many members of the Night's Watch.