Everything about the scenery was gorgeously accomplished, and I can't wait until we start seeing more of the locations. Actually, everything that was VISUALLY done was magnificent. It's the smallest detail, but I was really geeking out about how it's not just talked about that Ned spent half his life fighting Robert's wars with him, you can actually SEE that he does have battle scars in the scene with him and Catelyn in bed. And I'm not sure why that in particular was the detail that jumped out at me as awesomeness, but it stuck and I loved it.
Everything really was perfect. The only thing that I'm looking forward to is the ladies getting a bit more action that isn't getting action. I mean, they all have lovely bodies and all, but I was watching it with someone who hasn't read the books and they were sort of unimpressed with how much in this particular chapter of the story, a lot of it is women being treated just like sexual objects, and I'll admit that by the end of the episode I was sort of having sympathy pains, but I promised her that ABSOLUTELY isn't the only role that the ladies play and that a lot of it was probably gratuitous HBO trying to get the non fantasy geek audience sucked in, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next few episodes (even though obvs there's a lot of sex in the books. I just hope that other things aren't taken out so that the sex can be put in. Oh god I sound like such a prude right now but idk, I'm trying to get my little brothers to watch it and it's UNCOMFORTABLE telling them to watch things with sex in it because in my head they will always be like 10 years old. FOR THE RECORD Dany has great boobs.)
It sort of broke my heart into tiny little pieces when as soon as they arrived Robert was like "eff this popsicle stand, take me to your sister's grave Ned". I thought that the relationship between Ned and Robert was fantastic. ALSO TYRION IS A PIMP. I am so enamored and Peter Dinklage is everything that I could have hoped for.
Also I want more Rickon! Non Book Reading Friend was really confused by how there were "five wolves for five kids" if Jon doesn't count, and then during the line-up when Robert arrived they only showed four. She also asked "is the other one that ugly kid that almost killed the puppy?" and I was like lol no, he's sort of complicated.