like this.  As for the show taking liberties I really think it shouldn't.  The little ones I saw I really didn't like and its refreshing to get something that is true to the source material.  The Red Wedding is pretty much the most important moment in the series and changing that to keep Rob and the others alive would ruin what makes the books great.

I agree with THoG, the Rob and Cat story was going absolutely nowhere anyway, as you can't actually have them win and then lose all the terribly interesting things that are going on in King's Landing. Killing them off has made more time for characters that are actually getting really interesting - Brienne, Tyrion, Arya, etc. Hell even Cersei is getting really interesting. Rob was just so cliche and now at least we get somewhat different Lady Stoneheart.

Pretty sure/hoping Red Wedding will be episode 9 and then the season will end on the Purple Wedding

I'm betting against this since they have the events of book 3 leading up to the Red Wedding to cover, as well as some of the material from book 2 that was left out of season 2. They have finally cast Catelyn's Brother/Uncle and it's also been confirmed that Theon will be in season 3(I'm calling it now that the actor they cast as "Boy" is going to be revealed to be Ramsay Snow). In otherwords they have enough material to worry about from the first half of book 3 as well as including some of the stuff that's been left out until now to get to the PW. Plus, do we really want all of the biggest events of each season to happen in episode 9?

The scene where Joffrey makes the two prostitutes mutilate each other at the point of a crossbow. (I think one of those was the made-up character Ros?) Totally unnecessary when the book already had a perfectly good scene involving Joffrey being sadistic as fuck with a crossbow â?? in which he snipes beggars from the Red Keep walls. Which would've also given a lot more context to the King's Landing riots later on (and did in the book).

Lack of Strong Belwas makes me a sad panda. However after a little bit of thinking, it did make sense to reveal Barristan Selmy immediately in the show, rather than go through the whole "Arstan Whitebeard" thing.

On the other hand, Tyrion's and Tywin's dialogue was fucking perfect, and I also love the added scenes with Joffrey, Cersei and Margaery setting up the tension that had been behind the scenes. Can't wait for the Queen of Thorns and "The Bear and the Maiden Fair."