An unexpected meeting for Arya on GOT, dealing with Don on Mad Men and the winner of The Amazing Race is....

It was a two hour finale for this season of The Amazing Race this past weekend and the next to last stop was in Ireland. One of the Detour challenges was to serve a five course meal to folks celebrating the first and last voyage of the H.M.S. Titanic and several flights of stairs had to be endured to bring the food to the waiting diners.

Most of the teams that took up this challenge were thrown by the seating chart,which only listed the choice of entrees for their table. Instead of checking the posted menu, a couple of them went around in circles trying to figure why the meals were not what was ordered.

  After that leg was over,it was down to three teams-Hockey brothers Anthony and Bates,roller derby moms Mona and Beth and annoying newlyweds Max and Katie.

All of them went to Washington D.C. to finish up the final leg and after a switchback challenge that involved playing secret agent and fishing through a ball pit to find globes that highlighted the countries visited, the winning team was Anthony and Bates.

 Congrats,guys-you played the game well and weren't cranky(*cough*Max and Katie*cough*)or vindictive in your strategies. It would've been nice if Mona and Beth had won,but maybe they'll come back for a redemption run of TAR,who knows? All in all, this was a pretty decent season and I look forward to the next time TAR takes off:

Much has been set up on this week's Game of Thrones, with Jon and Ygritte climbing up the Wall, Rob working on a truce with the Freys and Sansa mourning her upcoming marriage to Tyrion.

 However, it is time that we looked in on Arya and at the moment, she's a hostage/guest of the Brotherhood Without Banners, along with Gendry who is eager to use his metal working skills on their behalf. That plan seems to have changed,since Melisandre showed up and paid off the BWB leadership to claim Gendry for her own sinister purposes.

This is somewhat of a change from the source material but I can see where this is going and it really won't alter the intended course too much(semi-spoiler; Gendry is taking the place of a minor character who will be offered up to the Lord of Light to further Stannis' cause but he'll be okay, I'm sure of it). Arya's anger at the Brotherhood and Melisandre for this betrayal is more fuel to the fire that will forge her true destiny and if I were Melisandre, I would not be wanting to run into this steadfast Stark maiden again, fate or no fate:

 Don upset the apple cart quite a bit on Mad Men this week, as he got sick of dealing with that creep from Jaguar and broke off business with him on a whim. That unexpected decision threatened to impact on SCDP's plans to go public,along with Pete's father-in-law deciding to take his business elsewhere after running into Pete at a brothel.

 Roger and Don chose to focus on the positive,with a golden opportunity to get the account for a brand new Chevy car. However,that deal wasn't totally in the bag for them which lead Don to make another game change by teaming up with a rival ad agency that just so happens to have Peggy on the payroll.

 Nice way to bring her directly back into the fold,so to speak and yet, the reception from the rest of the SCDP crew may not be the victory cheers that Don hopes to hear. Charm can only get you so far in life and with people, no matter how long they've been together:

 RANDOM NOTES:

RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE: Condragulations to Jinkx Monsoon as the winner of this season's Drag Race and props to Ivy Winters for getting the Miss Congeniality nod. As always, it was fun to attend the church of Rupaul and will be happy to give an amen when called upon for it next drag time,same drag station: