I disagree a lot. I think the idea was very good and it has good chunks, but overall it was even below average for SNW due to not so good writing. I felt the same about the first episode of the season. I feel it hid to much information just to be able to give a twist in the end, at the expense of the first part of the episode, which I think it dragged too much.
I feel the writers are trying very hard to show SNW can have a very wide range of themes but I dont think they are delivering that well when it comes to war.