I'm not somebody who bashed Game of Thrones. Hell I really enjoyed episode 3 despite its flaws and even made a statement about how some people seem like they want to hate the show.
That being said, I was really disappointed with episode 4. People are joking about not petting Ghost, but I think that's actually a serious problem with the last couple of seasons summed up nicely. The character of Jon wouldn't send off Ghost to roam the North, he would want Ghost by his side. And if Jon doesn't want Ghost to come with him to King's Landing, he would give Ghost a heartfelt goodbye and yes, pet him. But the show didn't because that's more money for SFX and they think it looks weird to have a large dog, so the reduce how big the dog is and they relegate Ghost to the side.
They don't spend the little bit extra to keep consistency with a character. Seriously, Jon going over to pet Ghost and struggling to find a word to say and then walking away with a sad look on his face couldn't have cost much more or taken very long to film. But D&D chose the easy route.
Just like D&D chooses the easy route to contrive abysmal strategy on behalf of Dany to make Cersei have the military edge. And they contrive Cersei suddenly not being ruthless and instead of killing Tyrion and firing all of the Scorpion Ballista at Dany and her dragon she chops off Missandei's head and I guess waits for Dany to attack?
Honestly, the fact that they decided to have two shortened seasons instead of two normal seasons feels like them throwing their hands up because they just knew the broad strokes of the narrative and they just wanted to get the show over with.
And the most contrived thing I've seen in a while is how Dany lost her second dragon. Why is she flying/sailing out days ahead of her ground troops? Why has she forgotten Cersei has a weapon that can kill her dragons? Why has she forgotten Euron is on Cesei's team and he's kind of good at sailing ships? But you know what, just forget all of that.
Why is she flying the dragon so close to the damn ground? Fly it a couple hundred feet up and you are likely out of range of the Scorpions and you can actually see way more and be able to spot an ambush or see what King's Landing is up to from far away. But nope, that dragon has to die for things to seem fair.
The octopi tentacles on the retention arms of the scorpions were a great touch though.