Previously: Ned gave Robert back his BFF pin and failed to listen to us and got nosey with murdery types so Jaime Lannister killed his men and hurt his leg. Tyrion went from being Cat’s prisoner to being prisoner of Cat’s mega crazy sister who is still breast-feeding a kid fast approaching puberty.
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A Golden Crown
Sweeney: Our good friend Ned who was big on the not listening to us in the last episode wakes up sweating to the sight of Cersei and Robert standing over him. It’s clear that he has seen better days. Robert and Cersei are asking him if he knows what his wife did (nothing he did not command, he insists) and while Robert is moderately impressed that she had the ladyballs, Cersei wants to know who the fuck the Starks think they are, capturing Lannisters and whatnot.
Lorraine: DIREBOSSES, THAT’S WHO.
Sweeney: That’s one of the best additions to our lexicon, Lor, so thank you for that.
Ned and Cersei bicker for a bit but Robert’s having none of it from either of them. He orders Ned to have Cat release Tyrion and make his peace with Jaime. Apparently Jaime has fled. Cersei flips a shit that Robert isn’t immediately ordering punishment for Ned so Robert backhands her hard. She gets a nasty welt that she vows to wear as a badge of honor. Robert tells her to wear it in silence and she storms out.
Lor: My reaction when he straight decked her IN THE FACE:
Sweeney: YUP. Cersei deserves a solid punch in the face, but while Joffrey’s bitchslap from Tyrion made me giggle, Cersei is such a powerhouse that it was really jarring to see it happen. I could totes go on a whole tangent about having a vagina in Westoros, but I won’t because so much shit happens in each episode that I JUST DON’T HAVE TIME.
With Cersei gone, Robert and Ned have Lord/King bro talk. Wife beating, admits Robert, was not kingly. (L: LOL.) Then he reiterates his orders to Ned, but he’s not having it. Robert reminds Ned that half his kingdom is indebted to Lannisters and he can’t rule his kingdom without the Lannisters and Starks making peace. Ned offers to go home to make all this happen, but Robert plays the king card and won’t let him, because kings get what they want. Robert says he never loved his actual brothers, but he chose Ned as a brother. He gives Ned back his BFF badge and leaves for his hunt. Ned tries to get in another word about how our HBIC across the narrow sea shouldn’t be killed but Robert is also not having that because, you know, KING.
Robert also threatens to give his BFF pin to Jaime Lannister if Ned takes it off again. Ugh. Can you imagine having your best friend threaten to give your friendship bracelet to your biggest frenemy? WORST.
Lor: Being BFFs with the King must be super hard.
Sweeney: Absolutely.
We jump the aforementioned HBIC across the narrow sea as she places one of her dragon eggs on hot coals and watches them. She’s clearly trying to do some magic brooding. One of her handmaidens comes in just as she moves from magic brooding to picking up the probably-scorching egg. She grabs it out of her hands but can’t hold it because it burns her. We then see that the scalding dragon egg burned the girl’s hands, but not Daenerys’s hands.
Lor: I was going to make a comment about those eggs hatching or else I’ll be pissed, but Daenerys’s magical hands are cool enough. For now.
Sweeney: This dazed looking around thing is still within Emilia Clark’s acting abilities. I just thought I should point out, for those of you who didn’t follow this conversation on Facebook, that at some point I am going to start complaining about it. Preemptive complaining.
Back in Winterfell, Bran has another crazy bird dream down in the crypts. He is awoken by the big grunting servant (L: HODOR!) bringing in his fancy new harness-for-broken-things. As Bran rides around on a horse and shouts all excited and whatnot, Robb Stark and Theon Greyjoy are sitting on a nearby tree trunk chatting about the whole Lannister situation. Theon’s hitting heavy with the vengeance thing, but Robb isn’t really a fan of the fact that it guarantees war. More importantly, he feels that he doesn’t have the authority to call the bannermen to battle. He also gets an “it’s not your house” dig at Theon to shut him up.
Unfortunately, while they were having this little argument, Bran goes missing and Theon throws that line back at him. A little farther off in the forest, Bran is attacked by a gnarly looking gang. They tell him to get off the horse because he’s being mugged. Bran obviously can’t, because he’s strapped onto the horse with his harness. The thieves realize that the kid’s got mega money and they decide that it’s worth the risk to steal his shit and run south, far away from the White Walkers, from whom they are evidently fleeing.
Robb shows up and threatens to kill them and a battle ensues, which Robb basically wins except that in that time, one of the guys manages to cut Bran down from the horse and put a knife to his throat. Robb pauses to think of a way out of it, but he can’t and so he drops his weapon, as the guy orders. BUT THEN, Theon Occasionally Not Annoying Greyjoy shows up and shoots an arrow in his back! Death for everyone!
Or, like, almost everyone. There was a woman in the gang of thieves and she lives. Robb sees that Bran is all right and then starts yelling at Theon, “What if you missed?” and tells him he didn’t have the right to make that executive call. Theon rightly points out how ungrateful Robb is being because he just saved both Stark boys. Also, also, we learn how big on killing enemies they are in the iron islands, which is where Theon is from.
Anyway, the Lady Thief begs for her life and Robb decides to let her live.
Lor: I was with Theon on this one. I thought we should kill her, but you know, it isn’t my house either.
Sweeney: Back in the land of the Cat’s crazy sister, Lysa Arryn, Tyrion almost rolls off the edge of his sky high dungeon in his sleep. This episode is just filled with unpleasant sights to wake up to. Tyrion gets up and starts begging to get out. A guard comes in and yells at him, and Tyrion tries to bribe him, but it’s hard to bribe people with your family’s money when you don’t have any of it on you.
Back in King’s Landing, my favsiesforever, Arya is having more sword lessons. Her “dance instructor” tosses her a wooden sword, and she’s not having it. She’s not in the mood for playing around, with Lannisters are attacking her family left and right. She’s angry and she’s not going to take it. It’s a nice contrast to the energetic rage we saw from her when she was mad at her sister. This is a much deeper, festering anger.
Her awesome sword coach gets her to channel that anger and they have their lesson. He also has a great line in which he tells her that there is only one thing to say to the god of death: “Not today.” (People talking to death makes me think of His Dark Materials. Or The Book Thief, but mostly HDM.)
Back across the narrow sea (I like that we are reminded of its narrow-ness; I’d feel more secure in King’s Landing if it were, like, The Really Fucking Wide Sea) (L: A+) Daenerys is getting her gross on and eating a heart on a platform as the tribe stands around chanting. Viserys is a little icked out, but Drogo is looking on approvingly. She has to eat the whole thing and Viserys doesn’t believe she’ll be able to keep it down. I ate recently and I know that I’m not entirely sure I’ll keep that down. Glad HBO is making full use of that blood budget.
This is supposed to be a fertility-related thing, so says speaker-of-English, Ser Jorah. Viserys says that any kid of hers wouldn’t be a true dragon and couldn’t rule the kingdoms, so who the fuck cares. Daenerys finishes the heart and heaves a little, causing everyone to lean forward expectantly, but she’s a champion, so she sits back up with a proud look on her blood-covered face and gives one last loud swallow. Drogo is proud of her too. It’s cute if you can set aside how fucking gross it is:
Ser Jorah translates more stuff about Drogo’s penis, The Great Stallion. There is more chanting and Daenerys gets up and says, in Dotharki, that a prince rides inside her (BOW CHICKA) and everybody starts chanting. Viserys realizes that everyone fucking loves her and he runs off to sulk because nobody likes his douchey face.
Lor: We also know that Daenerys has chosen to name her son Rhaego. We know this mostly because there is about a solid minute of people just going, “Rhaego! Rhaego! Rhaego! Rhaego! Rhaego!”
Sweeney: The chanting is super helpful.
Viserys opens the chest of dragons and puts one in his bag. Ser Jorah rolls up and tries to stop him, but he loads up the other two anyway because he thinks he’s a dragon and gives no fucks. Viserys says he plans to sell the eggs to buy his army. Not very dragon-like IMHO. He mopes about how needs to rule shit but nobody has ever loved him like they love his sister and boo hoo woe is me. NOT A DRAGON. He also smarms about how Ser Jorah wants to bang his sister, but we already know he doesn’t give two shits about that.
Ser Jorah doesn’t rise to the comments and refuses to budge until Viserys ditches the eggs, which he eventually does. He throws the bag on the ground which seems a poor way to take care of your precious dragon eggs. I mean, we know they’re hardened to stone by the ages and all, but still. STILL.
Lor: Word. Some of us are still expecting those bitches to hatch.
Sweeney: Tyrion screams and bangs on his door some more. The stupid guard comes back in and they chat about the gold that Tyrion doesn’t have on him but keeps promising. Tyrion reminds the incredibly stupid guard of some Westoros phrases he’s surely heard, specifically, “Rich as a Lannister,” and “A Lannister always pays his debts.” The guard finally agrees to deliver a message to Cat for Tyrion, which is that he promises to confess his crimes.
A whole bunch of people gather around while he gives a speech, which starts off very apologetic for being a vile man, but when he gets into specifics, they begin with petty things from childhood, which he lists in great detail, one at a time. Each story is more outlandish than the one before, but it takes a ridiculously long time for Lysa to shut him up and cut him off.
Lor: Maybe because she was intrigued by all his euphemisms for masturbation: “milking the eel,” “flogging the one-eyed snake,” “skinning the sausage,” and “making the bald man cry.”
Sweeney: This is a logical explanation.
When she does get tired of the euphemisms, Cat reiterates the two major crimes they blame on him — Bran’s attempted murder and Lord Arryn’s actual murder — but Tyrion reiterates that he knows nothing about those crimes.
Lysa tells a guard to send him back to a cell, but Tyrion uses this opportunity to demand a trial. Lysa points out that if he loses, he’ll be sentenced to death. She makes a big show of opening the giant death door in the floor that they use in lieu of an executioner because they’re super high up and adds that her Should Not Still Be Breastfeeding son will be the one to issue the verdict.
Tyrion doesn’t want that, though. He’s looking for a trial by combat. A whole bunch of random dudes offer to step forward to fight Tyrion. Lysa calls out one dude for being a tad quiet, and this dude says that while he’d love to avenge her husband’s death, there would be no honor in him fighting a dwarf. Tyrion then demands that a champion stand in for him and tries to ask that his brother be that champion, but Lysa says that’s not an option because his trial has to happen that day. Tyrion asks if anyone else will stand in for him and the room is awkwardly silent / filled with laughter until a guy named Bronn who wasn’t on my chart and that I went to all the trouble of looking up because he shows up in the future and OMG THERE ARE SO MANY NAMES, YOU GUYS.
Out in the woods, the hunt party is happening and having lots of hunting bro talk that I don’t really care enough to pay attention to. Mostly it’s to drive home the shitty relationship that Robert has with his younger brother Renly. They talk about what places has the best women to fuck and Renly’s awkwardly all, “Aaah, yeeeahhh that place! Lady fucking!” Finally, Renly calls Robert out for speaking with reverence for “the old days” which would be days when the kingdom was at war, which is kind of a shitty thing to remember fondly. Renly also calls Robert a drunk womanizer and storms off.
Back at court, Ned sits on the throne filling in for Robert and listening to the woes of the people of the kingdom. Maester Pycelle sasses the commoners for addressing Ned like he’s the king. Pycelle is no great fan of Ned’s, it seems. I should rewind now to figure out what exactly happened with this guy but I don’t care. I think it was something to the effect of some knight associated with the Lannisters did something shitty to someone in the Tully house (Catelyn’s house). Littlefinger makes a big show of being all, “TULLY. THAT’S CAT’S HOUSE, RIGHT NED?” and basically egging Ned on.
Lor: Half credit: Bad Men rode into their town and burned their houses down and raped their women and burned their children alive. They only left one thing behind and it was a bunch of fish. Fish is the sigil of the Tully house. The Bad Man who actually did all the pillaging and raping turns out the be The Mountain. They wonder why a knight would stoop to raping and pillaging, but he’s Tywin Lannister’s man, and the Lannister’s currently have something against the Starks, and the Tullys, hence all the dead fish.
Sweeney: Welp. Noted. End game is that Ned can’t really do anything to help this guy per se, but he uses his whole speaking-on-behalf-of-the-king thing to strip this knight (L: The Mountain) of his title and send a bunch of dudes after him. Pycelle is all, “That’s pretty srsbsns and you should probs wait until Robert gets back,” what with this not being the peace-making Robert was looking for. More importantly, he orders that Papa Lannister be summoned and called to answer for the crimes of his bannermen or else be branded a traitor of the realm. Yeah, this is definitely not what Robert was asking you to do Ned. I’m going to go ahead and say, “Bad idea.” Littlefinger points this out to Ned, but he’s all, “Meh, Robert’s king. Fuck Tywin Lannister.” BUT DON’T DO IT, NED. Your refusal to listen to us is really upsetting.
Baby Arryn screams FIGHT and two dudes who really don’t have shit to do with any of this begin their fight to determine Tyrion’s fate. Being not-a-lord really sucks. I’m not sure if it sucks as much as having a vagina, but it’s pretty rough. Anyway, it’s a big fight scene and it’s all dramatic and basically none of the blood budget is used. Then Tyrion’s man wins by sticking his sword in the other guy’s neck and dropping him down the death hole.
Lady Arryn is angry because Bronn apparently didn’t fight with honor. He responds, “No. He did.” LOL. Touche. Tyrion storms over to Ser Rodrik Cassel to get his monies back, which Cat lets him do. He tosses the bag to the stupid guard and storms off, with his new buddy behind him.
In King’s Landing Sansa is sewing again and her elderly maidlady is commenting on how she wears her hair like a southern lady, and tells her that she needs to remember where she came from. Sansa is having a bratty moment here, because she sasses that her mother isn’t even from the north herself. She asks the old woman where she is from, and cuts her off as soon as she starts because, like I said, bratty moment. I’m over it, though, because it means I now have “sansadontcare.gif” on my computer.
As the old lady calls her out for being rude. The Douche Prince Joffrey appears and he’s actually being sweet and charming to Sansa. He tells her that he’s behaved monstrously for the last few weeks and offers her a necklace because she’ll be queen someday and it’s only fitting that she look the part. He asks her to forgive him for his rudeness and she says that there is nothing to forgive. He seems very sincere as he pledges to take care of her and love her forever in a big long speech. Then he kisses her and Sansa’s got little cartoon hearts around her face and my own heart breaks for her.
Lor: Me too. Mostly, though, because she now has Douche Prince cooties and I don’t think there’s a way of getting rid of that.
Sweeney: Theon’s riding about when he encounters Julia Roberts (Ros) on her way out of town, moving to King’s Landing. Theon isn’t happy because he totes adores her but he’s rude to her because I guess he’s also 8. She says she can afford it because other people are more generous lovers (hey-o!) and she needs to GTFO anyway. As she rides off Theon tosses her a coin so she’ll show him her vag one last time because we’ve redirected this episode’s Boobie Budget to a Vag Budget — I suspect those are more costly.
Ned tells his little princesses that he’s sending them back to Winterfell and they are pissed. Arya isn’t ready to give up her dancing lessons and Sansa’s got her budding romance and future as a queen. She gives a speech about marrying Joffrey and having his babies and Arya’s all, “Seven hells!” and it’s great, so here, let’s all watch it again:
Ned promises to make Sansa a match with someone who is brave and gentle and strong and worthy of her. In her protestations she hilariously responds, “I don’t want someone who’s brave and gentle and strong, I want him!” Oh, Sansa. Dear, sweet Sansa. You best be careful with those wishes.
Sansa says something about how she wants beautiful babies with beautiful blonde hair and a little light goes of in Ned’s head as he connects the magical dots.
Lor: SANSA STARK YOU SHUT UP AND STOP MAKING YOUR FATHER THINK ABOUT THINGS THAT WILL GET HIS FACE MURDERED OFF.
Sweeney: He goes back to his Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses book and flips to the Baratheon house and resumes his research. Every name on that page is described as being “black of hair” up until Joffrey. HEY-O, SOMETHING IS AMISS HERE!
Lor: I appreciate the families all color coding themselves. It makes detecting the shit out of things so much easier.
Sweeney: THE SEED IS STRONG!
Elsewhere, Drogo is throwing his pregnant lady a sweet party that looks like it involves lots of drugs, and required the remnants of that boobie budget. (I also suspect boobs are cheaper when the characters aren’t named. Can you imagine that acting credit? “Boobie Extra”) Viserys stumbles in drunkenly and crashes the party. He comes in demanding a place for a king and being all whiny. Daenerys sends Jorah to calm him, but instead Viserys pulls out his sword and starts threatening people. Jorah says that the Dothraki will kill them all but Viserys isn’t worried because they can’t shed blood in their sacred city.
He stumbles around some more and points his sword at Daenerys’s stomach and demands the crown that he sold Daenerys off for. He says that Drogo bought her but never paid for it. His douche speech is conveyed to Drogo who is all, “OH! Is that all? Sure. I’ll give you a golden crown that men shall tremble to behold.”
Viserys gleefully backs off. Drogo pats Daenerys’s belly and orders his men to seize Viserys and it sounds like they maybe break his arm in the process. Drogo tosses a gold necklace into a pot over the fire and boils it. Then he brings the pot over to Viserys who is shouting to Dany to save him. Drogo says, in English, “A crown for a king,” as he tosses the pot over Viserys’ head. AND LEGIT MELT-MURDERS HIS FACE OFF.
Lor: When I warned Ned about people murdering his face off, I HAD NO IDEA SOMEONE’S FACE WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE MURDERED.
It is a credit to the story telling, though, that all said and done, I felt a tinge bad for him. All he wanted was a crown! A non-face melty one, though. He should’ve made that distinction.
Sweeney: When I first watched this scene I stood up and shouted, “BOOM!” because I was so excited. I then tweeted a bunch about how this is when I really fell in love with the show. This is also about the time I actually started paying proper attention, which probably helped a whole lot.
ANYWAY, we’re not quite done yet because it gets even better. Ser Jorah says something about the dragon being dead but Daenerys isn’t having any of that: “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.” Roll credits. I LOVE HER.
Next time on Game of Thrones: Shit is about to get real for the Stark family, what with Ned detecting the shit out of things. Find out what happens in S01 E07 – You Win or You Die.
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.
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.
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