>As for Xaro, wasn't he locked in the vault with Dany's
>traitor sexmaiden? It's conceivable he/they didn't die, but
>IIRC it felt pretty definitive.

I'm going with how the books roll: If you don't see a character die, he/she probably isn't dead.

>For the Meereen scene, I'm guessing we're going to get the
>goatherder with the burnt kids (leading to next season
>probably opening up with the dragons chained).

Yeah, that would actually be perfect. And it contrasts with the dragons killing the sheep earlier in the season.

>And damn... children-eating dragons, Tywin on the shitter, The
>Hound left for dead and (hopefully) Lady Stoneheart condemning
>Brienne to death... If we don't get Stannis saving the Wall,
>this is going to be a depressing ass finale for show watchers.

Tyrion killing Tywin on the shitter should make the audience happy after the shit that Tyrion has gone through this season. That and him strangling Shae with the Hand's chain.

And re: Lady Stoneheart, that's why you've got to show her and the Brotherhood killing the Freys first. The initial "Oh shit!" moment has to be that she's back and she's getting revenge on the people that betrayed and killed her and her son. It adds too much if she's back and she's hanging Brienne.

>Edit: Agreed on Tormund. Although it makes me wonder who Jon
>is going to treat with to eventually bring the Wildlings into
>the Wall.

Well, I guess they could create someone new. A bring in Val in a different capacity. It does reinforce why I didn't like they had Tormund leading the raiding team in the first place. They should have introduced the Thenns the last season, or had Rattleshirt lead them.

>Also, this is a longshot considering we didn't get Stannis
>last night.. but I thought for sure we were going to get a
>shorter Janos Slynt in the finale. There's no way they were
>going to get a convoluted election for Lord Commander and with
>Thorne injured and Slynt dead, it seemed an easy (and TV
>friendly) path for Jon to become LC.
>
>A bitter Thorne could still be the catalyst for daggers in the
>dark...

Well, if they had eliminated some of the extraneous stuff in last night's episode, they could have fit in Stannis. We really didn't need 20 minutes of Sam mooning over Gilly. Episode could have ended with Stannis coming to the rescue, and the election could have been done in the final episode, only in a less convoluted way.

And I would have like Slynt's be-heading to happen in Season 5 opener. Good way to end the first episode. Dunno if that will happen though.