They really had to do a lot in this episode to bring the story back towards where it should be. I don't mind it but many of the scenes didn't have a lot of time to breathe.
It wasn't as good as the other episodes , but I still think it wasn't as bad as some people are saying.
I don't really mind them.Killing mat's mom since she didn't really do anything in the book to begin with and can be used for motivation for mat later on.
I think they will skip over most of TDR. They will use TSR for the bulk of season 3, with taking the stone something that RAND lead the As well to do, instead of Cairhien.