[SPOILERS] 5x10 Episode Discussion (airs 14th June 2015)

Still better than Brienne, who appeared only for 8 seconds between episodes 5 and 10

What song played during FTW?

It was one of the Stark theme tracks, perhaps Winter is Coming or Winterfell, don't remember exact one now

Has Martin said anything about the finale?

"Goodbye Brother" from Season 1

I think the show missed an opportunity to parallel Dany's and Cersei's small councils in 5x10. With both queens away and sizeable swathes of both populations in rebellion against the queens, both small councils are in similar positions, but they're dealing with the situations completely differently.

Dany's small council still has a competency problem and a tendency toward putting Dany on too high a pedestal. But they're gung-ho to get their queen back, they're trying to respect her wishes in the meantime, they speak to each other honestly, and they make meritocratic decisions.

The Kings Landing small councils tend to have competent people on them - Pycelle is less incompetent than he pretends to be and Mace is a figurehead for the competent Tyrell women. But most of the counselors are working at cross purposes to the monarchy most of the time and the small council is always notably disrespectful to the monarchy, especially during this crisis. And they make a point of avoiding honest conversations and meritocratic decisions.  

Further, a Kings Landing small council meeting would have given us a check-in on the people actually running Westeros at this point, which would have been interesting.

Pushing back Sam's departure from Castle Black changes things for both Sam and Jon, but I think the show did address those changes.

In the books, it was Jon's idea to send Sam, and it was part of a slew of forward-thinking policies coming from Jon. Jon was trying to protect Maester Aemon and Mance's son, but Jon also expected that Sam would come back in a few years as a maester.

In the show, when Jon agrees for Sam to go, it is much more fatalistic and more about saving his friend. Jon doesn't really believe that there will be a Night's Watch for Sam to maester over in a few years, but he also doesn't see the point in making Sam die at the Wall and doesn't want Sam and Gilly to be murdered by night's watchmen. So the show change takes a positive decision from Jon and turns it into a fatalistic decision to spare a friend from his duty. But this is Jon's first selfish decision in a long time, and we've seen a lot of strong leadership from Jon in S4-5 - Jon can take the hit. ShowJon won that election fairly because he'd impressed the men of the Night's Watch, not through Sam's manipulation. Jon won over some Wildlings through solid diplomacy. The timing of the decision to send Sam away isn't important in terms of the bigger stuff Jon has been doing.

The more interesting impact of the change is with Sam. The show took away Sam's big moment of manipulating the election, it is fitting that they give Sam something else. Figuring out how to save his arse is a lot less grand than getting Jon elected LC, but it is an important decision for his character. Sam never wanted to be a man of the Night's Watch, he seems to be an atheist, he doesn't feel conflicted about looking for vow loopholes, he doesn't feel family loyalty, he doesn't seem to care much about the realm - Sam just wants to take care of Gilly & lilSam and be there for his friends. But most of his friends are dead and Sam's been trying to figure out how to get away from the Wall with Gilly for a while now - he's thought it through. He's not accidentally or unwillingly abandoning Jon - he's deliberately taking advantage of a good figleaf to get the heck out of there.

Sam will feel guilty about leaving Jon alone, but he'll feel more relief that he got Gilly out in time.

Really?  I was pretty upset about Shireen.  Melisandre could revive Robb Stark, Jon, Ned and Catelyn for all I care and I would want her to die.  

same here!