Previously: We met a ton of people in lots of places and winter was coming.
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The Kingsroad
Lorraine: We start with a minute forty-five second cut of “previously” scenes before we add on the one minute thirty seconds of credits. Also, it looks like they’ve included a new place on the map! It’s a place far off to the east from the rest of the main locations. I wasn’t actually able to read what the place is called, but I’m pretty sure there was some “doth” in it and there are tents. Dothraki land it is!
Speaking of the Dothraki, we open the episode with a horse procession. Daenerys is pulled off to the side watching them all pass with a look than says, “Man. I really hate horses.” Though, one could argue that the moping has something to do with her being married off by her tremendodouche brother in the last episode.
Ser Jorah Mormont, speaker of English and otherwise unremarkably identified by the first episode, rides up to Daenerys and tells her she needs to drink and eat. He hands her what looks like a wood chip and Daenerys looks at it like, “damn, can a girl get some french fries?” It’s some sort of horse jerky and apparently the Dothraki are big on horse jerky.
Ser Jorah (is that what I call him?) breaks out into a story about ghosts and murder-y grass. At that moment, Khal Drogo rides by. Daenerys looks at him like she’s thinking, “I wonder if I can shove that murder-y grass in his face?” Ser Jorah reads her looks and tells her “it’ll get easier.” Her last look says, “bitch, please.”
Sweeney: With a side of, “I’m sorry, were you raped on a rocky cliff recently? And then forced to spend a lot of time riding on a horse? Right.”
Lor: Ow.
We cut to the Dothraki setting up camp. Ser Jorah helps Daenerys off of her horse, and she is soon flanked by what I’m assuming are the barbarian version of handmaidens. The tremendodouche brother, Viserys, happens by and Ser Jorah wonders why he’s traveling with the Dothraki and not staying with the guy they were staying with at the beginning of last episode. (SERIOUSLY. SO MANY PEOPLE.) Viserys (every time I type it, I want to call him viscera, which? Oddly fitting…) says he’ll stay with the Dothraki until Kahl Drogo gives him the army he needs to win back his crown.
Viserys flips the conversation on Ser Jorah and wonders why he’s wanted by Ned Stark. Answer: selling some land poachers to slavers. Viserys says when he’s king, slavery will be cool!
Dog pen. Tyrion is sleeping against a doggy. He wakes and finds that his nephew, Prince Joffrey, is looking at him. I can’t imagine that a happy first sight in the morning. Joffrey says him mom has been looking for him. Tyrion wants Joffrey to go to Lord and Lady Stark and offer his sympathies for Bran who, if you”ll remember, was pushed out of a window by a sister-fucker in the last episode. True and actual plot point. Joffrey is a prick and doesn’t want to go, so Tyrion smacks him.
ALL THE GIFS. I just want Tyrion to hit him FOREVER.
GIF STARING.
Sweeney: This scene is my favorite thing right now and I’m going to come back and rewatch it when we get to the end in order to give myself maximum season three excitement.
Lor: The guard type dude with the heavily scarred face mentions that the prince will not forget being bitch slapped and Tyrion asks him “to be a good dog” and remind him if he does forget. Tyrion declares it breakfast time, as I imagine slapping works up an appetite Must be why Christian Grey is always talking about food.
Sweeney: -_- I thought this is where we were going to hide from that trauma. DON’T YOU BRING THAT SHIT IN HERE.
Lor: LOL, but also: sorry. Mostly, though, I CAN’T HELP IF I’M RUINED.
Tyrion joins his family for breakfast and he spends the scene just nomming on some bacon. MMMMM. Also, Cersei apparently has two other children. The Female Afterthought Child asks if Bran is going to die, and Tyrion has the pleasurable task of announcing that it’s looking like he’s going to survive. Cersei gives Jaime a pinched look. Tyrion changes the subject to his upcoming trip further north to the wall. He declares the celibacy vow of The Night’s Watch not for him, but he does want to see the wall and piss off the edge.
Jaime brings the conversation back to Bran and thinks it would be better for him to be dead than cripple. Tyrion is all, “YEAH GEE THANKS,” and says that cripple or not, “death is final” and life is decidedly not. Besides, he adds, he’s super curious to hear what Bran has to say when he wakes. Oooooh, look who knows a secret! Jaime wants to know who side Tyrion is on. “My dear brother, you wound me. You know how much I love my family.” It’s kind of funny because 1.) he doesn’t sound like he means it at all and 2.) family loving is what got Jaime into this mess in the first place.
Cat (Lady Stark) is sitting by Bran’s bed and Cersei walks into to offer the worse condolences of all time. It basically goes a little something like, “I had a sick baby once. He died. I prayed so he wouldn’t die and that didn’t work. GOOD LUCK.” Also, she mentions that this baby looked like the king (Robert) and this makes me think that those blonde Afterthought Children could possibly be blonde Incest Children.
Jon Snow is over-seeing the making of a sword. Jaime comes over to be a dick to him, and I’m not really sure what the purpose of this scene was if it wasn’t to further establish that Jon is joining the Night’s Watch and Jaime is, well, a dick.
Sweeney: Yep, that’s pretty much the whole point.
Lor: 1430 for me!
Arya is packing and HER DIREWOLF IS SO BIG. Jon comes in with a gift for her. It is the sword we saw being forged in the previous scene. It’s skinny, like she is, and he says it can poke someone full of holes. She makes to hug him but he’s all, “WOAH. I SAID HOLES.” and she puts the sword down before jumping into his arms. They hug each other and, aw. Jon tells her to name her sword and Arya offers, “Sansa can keep her sew needles. I have a needle of my own.” A+, girlfriend.
Sweeney: THIS SCENE IS THE CUTEST. Never mind the previous suggestion, there will be too much to rewatch. I’ve never read the books, but I’ve heard that their relationship is sold short by the necessarily omnipotent narration of a TV show (as opposed to thoughts/feelings and all that jazz that can convey missing specific people.) That’s a big enough sale of the books for me, you know, once I give up sleep or something to make time for that shit.
Lor: Everyone says reading the books is basically a lifetime commitment. I’m not ready for that yet.
The next stop on Jon goodbye tour is Bran’s room, although Cat looks less than happy to see him. He approaches the bed anyways and talks to Bran, saying that he can come visit him at Castle Black when he’s better. After his speech, a teary Cat tells him to leave. Ned Stark has entered the room and watches the tense exchange. If you were wondering why Jon would decide to dedicate his life to celibacy and almost-certain danger, I guess now you know that the alternative is Cat’s icy glares and Ned Stark’s silence. Jon kisses Bran’s forehead and leaves.
Sweeney: I get why she has such an issue with him, but also: IT’S NOT HIS FAULT. Cat’s meanness to Jon gives my heart the sadz.
Lor: Alone now, the Stark Parents exposit: 17 years ago, Ned left with the king and when he returned home, he was all, “SURPRISE! Another woman had my baby. It’s kind of non-refundable, non-returnable…” Ned says he doesn’t have a choice, and must leave again, but Cat isn’t buying it. It’s a hard time to be Lady Stark.
Outside, Jon is preparing his horse when Robb, the eldest of the Stark offspring, approaches to also say goodbye. There’s a little hugging and stuff.
Another horse processional, except this one is smaller and less Dothraki. Ned says goodbye to Jon, saying that he might not bear his name, but he does have his blood. Jon looks a little like, “a lot of good that does me.” He asks for details on his mother, and Ned promises that they’ll talk about her the next time they see each other. This is when I decide that Ned is going to die.
I have to make a bit of a spoiler-y confession right now. If you want nothing of it, skip down to the next paragraph. I first attempted to watch this series after it originally aired and got up to the point where a direwolf dies and I was all, “NOPE. CANNOT HANDLE FEELS.” I mentioned this to someone and their reaction was basically, “lol. Everyone dies in his series. Everyone.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s not going to stop me from constantly guessing who is going to die. This happens a lot too when I cover Nancy Drew. You’ll get used to it.
Sweeney: It’s true though. Everyone dies and your odds of guessing correctly, as long as you don’t guess a time frame, are very high.
Lor: I really like the idea of ensuring my own success.
Pit stop on the king’s road. Robert and Ned enjoy a rather expansive fruit spread and talk country and tavern wenches. Robert brings up Snow’s mom and we learn that her name is Wylla and that Ned, really, really, really doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead, Robert shares news of Daenerys marrying Kahl Drogo. He’s worried, but Ned dismisses this as the Dothraki have no way to cross the narrow sea. Robert’s all, “There’s a war coming, Ned. I don’t know when. I don’t know who we’ll be fighting. But it’s coming.” Basically, Robert is also ensuring his success by saying vague things that are bound to eventually be right, but also probably means that Robert is going to die. So, I mean, not so much with the success.
Sweeney: DEATH FOR EVERYONE.
Lor: We cut to the Dothraki camp and see Kahl Drogo get up all, “time for some marital rape!” Daenerys cries and… focuses on the stone dragon eggs? as Drogo takes her from behind. HOKAY.
Sweeney: Well, you know, the ages have turned them to stone, but they’re very pretty. It’s like a sad, sick metaphor or something.
Lor: I accept your metaphor.
On a decidedly less nice pit stop, Jon Snow watches as two prisoners join their Night Watch party. Tyrion explains that they are probably rapists given the choice between castration and the wall. You can almost see Jon’s bubble bursting. He asks about Tyrion’s reading all the time, and it allows us a little more back story: Tyrion’s father served as hand of the king for 20 years, before Jaime killed that king. Robert rose up as new king and Cersei married him. And of course, repulsive Joffrey will one day be king. Also: Peter Dinklage is all sorts of amazing.
Some sort of helping man person servant who I’m not sure we have a name for (S: Maester Luwin) enters Bran’s room and tries to talk to Cat about the affairs of the house. She isn’t having it, but before she can go full on cray, Robb enters and says he’ll handle it in the morning. Robb wants to know if Cat’s left the room at all, and he opens a window as he asks, so you just know it smells rank in there. Cat grief-crazies about Bran needing her, and Robb reminds her that she has a six-year-old son, Rickon, who also needs her. Their conversation is interrupted when Robb spots a fire and runs off to deal with it.
Cat stands to look out the window. When the camera opens into a wider shot, we see that there is a shrouded man standing behind her. The Shrouded Assassin says that Cat wasn’t supposed to be in there and that killing Bran is really a mercy. Cat tries to stop him, grabbing onto his knife and getting very bloody in the process. Right when the Shrouded Assassin bests her, a DIREWOLF comes running in like a DIREBOSS. He performs the wolf version of a Throat Punch! and the Shrouded Assassin is now the Wolf Chow Assassin. The direwolf hops on the bed and lays down next to Bran.
Sweeney: THIS SCENE WAS SO EPIC. My hands hurt just thinking about how crazy bloody her hands got trying to hold that knife and I still don’t understand how she managed to hold her grip, but mostly, YES: DIREBOSS FTW.
Lor: Dothraki camp. Every time we cut to there, someone is cooking. I guess being a barbarian, much like slapping around douchey looking nephews, works up an appetite. Daenerys is having her hands and feet tended to by her handmaidens. She asks them if there are any dragons still living and they kind of LOL at her and say no. One of the handmaidens speaks English and regales her with a story about the moon being an egg full of dragons. The Dothraki hand maidens are all, “IMPOSSIBLE. Clearly the moon is the wife of the sun.” Clearly. Daenerys sends away the Dothraki women and chats with the English speaker. She was working at a pleasure house before landing this new gig, and Daenerys enlists her help with learning how to make Drogo happy.
Back at Winterfell, Lady Cat has decided to do some investigating. She realizes that Bran fell directly beneath the window of a room. In that room, she looks around for a second before she manages to locate a long, blond strand of hair. She considers it all, “hmmm. This looks incest-y.”
Sweeney: She might have some relation to Nancy Drew.
Lor: Lady Cat gathers Robb, the guy that Sweeney identified in the last post as Theon Greyjoy even though I don’t think we’ve gotten a name yet, the older man whose sideburns are so long he braids them and can tie them under his chin and the helping man person servant. (S: Since I watched this with the foldout family tree that accompanied the DVDs, I looked up names as I watched and will continue to do that now because it’s way too much to keep track of otherwise. Those old dudes are Ser Rodrik Cassel and Maester Luwin respectively.) She tells them her theory, that Bran was pushed for seeing something he shouldn’t have. She doesn’t know what he saw but she’s convinced the Lanisters are behind it. Robb offers to ride to King’s Landing to tell Lord Stark, but they can’t leave Winterfell Stark-less. Lady Cat offers to go herself, with Braided Sideburns as her companion.
The Handmaiden with the Heart of Gold is giving Daenerys sex-ed classes. It features girl on girl gyrating. Daenerys is reluctant, as she isn’t sure the Dothraki are into anything other than bending them over and taking them hard. HwtHoG says that if the kahl wanted the Dothraki way, he wouldn’t have picked her as khalisi.
Some time later, Daenerys waits for Drogo. He enters to the tent and we see his butt. I’m mostly mentioning this because his hair swings down at crack level and, I’ll just leave it at that. Drogo does the bending over thing, but she stops him. He tries to strong arm her before she manages to tell him, in his language, that she wants to look upon his face. He looks at her kind of like, “okay, but I only have this one expression.”
Another camp site for the king’s party and Sansa is walking her direwolf. She runs into strange men, including one that won’t talk to her, and the badly scarred man who was present when Joffrey got bitch slapped. Speaking of the little shit, he shows up and identifies the men. The mute one, who had his tongue ripped out by the mad king is the King’s Justice and he calls the scarred man The Hound. Joffrey invites Sansa for a walk.
Sweeney: Each time Joffrey calls him “dog” I keep waiting for him to haul off and punch Joffrey. And then he dies. Spoiler alert: this very specific brand of wishing is as fruitless as most other “and then (s)he dies” games.
Lor: We see Arya and a little boy play fighting with wooden swords. Joffrey and Sansa are on a nearby path when they hear the crack of the wood. Joffrey belittles the boy because he is a butcher’s boy. Butcher’s Boy tries to explain that Arya asked him to play fight, but Joffrey is a dick and isn’t hearing it. He pulls his sword out and presses it against the boy’s cheek, cutting into the skin. Arya watches for a few seconds, before she can’t take anymore, and she whacks Joffrey across the back with her stick. He is pissed and calls her a little cunt. Little did he know that would absolutely win him the Kristy Thomas Crown of Cunty Fictional Characters.
Sweeney: As much as we love to hate on fictional characters, this is not an honor we dole out lightly. Only the douchiest of them all can earn that crown.
Lor: But really, that’s the least of his worries, because HERE COMES ARYA’S DIRE WOLF NYMERIA! Nymeria chomps down on his wrist. Arya pulls her off, and Joffrey is begging for his life and I laugh. Arya throws his sword into the river and takes off running. Sansa offers help but Joffrey doesn’t want any of her touches.
Arya hides in the woods and tells Nymeria that she has to run or else they will kill her. The dog walks away, but looks back. Arya throws a rock and Nymeria’s all, “Damn then, fine,” and runs away.
Sweeney: Sads. All of them.
Lor: Later, a search party is out looking for Arya, led by Lord Stark. A rider comes and informs him that she’s been found by the Lannisters and taken directly before the king. Ned is pissed.
We next see him pushing through the crowd to reach his daughter. He yells about her not being brought to him. Cersei says that she and the Butcher’s Boy attacked Joffrey with clubs. Arya is shouting that she’s a liar and it really isn’t going anywhere. They bring in Sansa to explain what happened but she gives about 7 different excuses from, “I can’t remember” to “I didn’t see.” This pisses Arya off, and she jumps up and pulls her hair. I think Arya is part direwolf.
Sweeney: DIREBOSS.
Lor: Robert is all, “whatevs. Kids fight.” and decides that each parent will discipline their child accordingly. All seems well until that brother-fucking bitch Cersei is all, “what about the direwolf?” They found no traces of Nymeria so Robert’s all “oh well.” BUT THEN, Cersei says there is another wolf and Robert gives up and basically shrugs and walks away. Sansa realizes that they mean to kill her direwolf, Lady, and she starts crying. Cersei looks way too pleased with ruining a little girl’s life. Cersei commands the King’s Justice to go kill it but Ned says he’ll do it himself. The wolf, he says, is of the North and deserves better than all these stupid, stupid, people.
Sweeney: This whole scene fills me with rage and sadness and RAAAHHH LANNISTER BITCHES. My feels are something like that. Or this:
Lor: Legit rage.
Outside, The Hound has the body of a bloody boy across his horse. Ned sees this and identifies him as the Butcher’s Boy. “He ran,” The Hound says. “Not very fast.”
We cut between Bran, in his bed, direwolf still at his side, and Ned, next to a chained up Lady. He pulls out his knife and kills the pup and at that moment, Bran opens his eyes.
Welp. Little did I know when I was all “the spoilery death of direwolf kind of destroyed me” that this was the episode that that happened. So, that was cool.
Sweeney: Not spoilery-spoilers.
Next time of Game of Thrones: One character is having a hard time settling in and another is suddenly feeling right at home. Find out who’s who in S01 E03 – Lord Snow.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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