[packs]

You can defend it all you want. The scenes at Riverrun were a disaster in my opinion. The whole show has been moving towards turning Jamie into a better version of himself (i.e. the scenes with him and Tyrion / his daughter / niece and the original scenes with Brienne) only to have him throw all of that away for a blind allegiance to Cersei that seemed thrown in just to drum up some drama. The ancillary things you mention about the keep and the soldiers mean nothing to the overall story. That's all surface and no substance. Who cares about Edmure or his soldiers?

The same is true of Arya. The idea of her losing her identity and reclaiming it is a good storyline. But using Bravos to accomplish that was not a good choice in my opinion. Those scenes were painfully dull. The play scenes between the Starks and the Lannisters were great but it was too little too late if you ask me. There was a ton of time that could have been cut, especially since it seems like Bran is the real power player of the story and has received a fraction of the screen time.