Episode 1 - Two Swords (spoiler free)

[Ash]

To be clear, no spoilers past this episode are allowed in this thread. I'm not sure how many show-only fans we have, I guess we will find out!

[Saggins]

The imagery of Tywin melting down Ice was tearjerkingly beautiful. The Rains of Castamere playing as the Stark heirloom turned to liquid Valyrian steel and spilled its orange lifeblood to be reborn in a new mold, was just perfect. Then finally, Tywin feeding the furnace with the symbol of the cold North, a wolf-pelt-scabbard, could have only been a symbolic reference to the Song of Ice and Fire.

Seeing Margaery and Olenna Tyrell talk privately with an audience of only their cousins/handmaidens was also a treat. It's conversations like that, between non-POV characters, that you just can't get from the books and makes the show very special.

Bringing in the Magnar of Thenn in and making his people cannibals in place of the Ice-river Clans made for beautiful imagery,

I was really glad Dontos the Fool and Janos Slynt's actors return from Season 2, even if others could not. It is always more enjoyable when the continuity of actors remains unbroken.

And Colonal Sandor!