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Game of Thrones S04 E01 – Kill a man, earn a horse.

Previously: DEATH.
—

Two Swords

Lorraine: I both cannot believe it’s been a year and feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever. Welcome back, dear friends and comrades in misery! It’s time for Game of Thrones, season four.

We open with an extended previously sequence that is much better than what I was able to come up with at the start of this post, but does boil down to a lot of death and bad luck. I mean, I counted: they showed us 8 outright deaths plus the Unsullied attacking a whole bunch of people. The last thing we see is the bloodied sword used to chop Ned Stark’s head off. It is because of these previouslies that I realize that Ned was beheaded by his own sword. It’s like retroactive trauma. NO SERIOUSLY. WELCOME BACK!

Sweeney: I don’t think I could handle watching this show without you guys. I need this weekly therapy session to process all my emotions.

Lor: Absolutely.

We start the episode proper with Tywin Lannister taking Ned’s gigantic sword, Ice, and having it melted it down. We watch as blacksmiths use the steel to fashion two more swords, one significantly longer than the other. Tywin smiles as he also throws what appears to be a dead wolf of some sort into a fire. WE GET IT, TYWIN. You don’t have to be so obnoxious with your Dead Starks Symbolism.

Credits time! Sweeney and the credits ended season 3 on a bad note. I think we should just stop expecting the truth from the credits. They promise us nothing more than, “hey, these are cities.” CITIES INDEED, DEAR CREDITS. HOW RIGHT YOU ARE.

Sweeney: BUT THEY PROMISED SO MUCH. REMEMBER WHEN THEY PROMISED SO MUCH? Sadness and failed hopes everywhere. Even in the damned credits.

Lor: Today, they take us through King’s Landing, Dragonstone, Dreadfort, Winterfell on Forever Fire, The Wall and like waaaaaaaaay over there at Meereen.

After the Credits of Failed Hopes, Tywin is gifting one of the Dead Stark Swords to his son, Jaime, who is sporting a shorter haircut. Impressed with the sword, Jaime asks where Tywin came across so much Valyrian steel. “From someone who no longer needs.” Jaime smiles and nods a bit, seemingly understanding his meaning. Jaimie’s always wanted a pony a Valyrian steel sword of his own, and Tywin boasts that now they have two, though no word on who gets the second.

Jaime sincerely thanks his father, which is about as much happy family times as we’ll get from them, as Tywin starts making quips about how Jaime will never be as good a swordsman as he used to be. Tywin wants Jaime to quit the Kingsguard and go home to Casterly Rock to rule in his stead. Jaime is not having this plan. He pledged his life to the Kingsguard, and despite Tywin’s claims to the contrary, he believes the Little Shit King still needs to be protected. Anyone who has ever seen the Little Shit King knows he needs to be protected.

Sweeney: Not clear on why anyone would want to, but yes, so much truth.

Lor: Tywin never posed Jaime’s return home as a request, but his answer is still no. He doesn’t want a wife or children or a shiny castle. He knows his honor is not salvageable. Still, no. Tywin dismisses Jaime, telling him to enjoy all that protecting the product of his incest. Before he leaves, Jaime asks if he has to give the sword back. Resigned, Tywin tells him to keep it: “A one handed man with no family needs all the help he can get.”

Tyrion waits with Podrick and Bronn on a road outside of King’s Landing. As they wait, they helpfully exposit that they are waiting for a prince of Dorne. Bronn asks why, if this prince is so important, they’d send Tyrion to meet him. There is bad blood between the Lannisters and the Martells. Bronn fills in the, “so if these men want to spill Lannister blood, it might as well be Tyrion’s” gap. Things are still looking down for Tyrion.

The party finally approaches. Tyrion asks if they can read the sigils, and of course Podrick is the one with the 20/20 vision. He spies a few banners, among them the family who gets to claim “wild lemons” as their sigil.

Tyrion asks if the red sun of house Martell is among the banners. It is not. He greets the Lemon Men in a rehearsed and rather stiff manner, quickly noting that he doesn’t see Prince Doran among them. The Lemon Man with the SAG Card says that Doran’s health prevented him from traveling and the Martells instead sent Prince Oberyn. Tyrion cannot hide his, “WELL SHIT.” face. He tells Lemon Man that they are “honored” to have such a renowned warrior amongst the wedding guests. SAG Lemon Man is all, “LOL. Right.” Prince Oberyn arrived at King’s Landing before dawn. Tyrion tries to finish his official welcome spiel, but the Lemon Men don’t wait and just ride on toward the city.

Sweeney: It’s the Westeros version of hanging up without saying goodbye.

Lor: A+. Totally rude, Lemon Men.

Bronn pokes fun at Tyrion for this awkward encounter and wonders where they are off to next. They need to find Oberyn before he kills anyone. Bronn asks where they’ll look, and Tyrion asks where he’d go if he was “famous for fucking half of Westeros” and just arrived after a two week trip. Bronn says he’d go to sleep, but he’s getting old.

As if you need to hear the Snark Lady response to that. #teamsleep

Sweeney: Snark Ladies/Sleep. OTP.

always

Lor: Littlefinger’s Brothel. Boobs in 3… 2….

Prince Oberyn checks out a line of girls and there are boobs. It’s about 10 minutes into the episode. There is a woman lounging on a bed in front of him. Her name is Ellaria. He points out two girls, and asks for her approval. She goes with the girl who can lift her leg behind her head. A fair choice. Prince Oberyn also decides he wants the man shuffling the girls around to stay as well. We’ve seen him before; he posed as Loras Tyrell’s squire, and later got a sex-confession out of him about being due to wed Sansa. His name is apparently Olyver, though we only ever referred to him as Sexy Squire.

Anyway, the group sexy times don’t get very far, because Oberyn hears some mean singing The Rains of Castemere. Ellaria tries to stop him, but off he goes. He finds two men and immediately starts exchanging jabs with them. Ellaria and Sexy Squire follow, but Oberyn will not be led away. He tells one of the Lannister men that they think they are better than everyone with all their gold, and lions and golden lions (lol) but all he sees before him is a little man too slow on the draw. Slow Draw Lannister stares him down for a moment and then makes a move for his sword. But, alas, he’s too slow on the draw and Oberyn jabs a knife through his wrist.

Tyrion and Bronn come in and Oberyn removes his knife from Slow Draw’s wrist, and there’s a spurt of blood, naturally. Slow Draw and Other Lannister Man run off and Oberyn starts kissing Ellaria, as one does after murdering a wrist. Tyrion says he’s there to welcome them, and Oberyn handles the introductions, calling Ellaria his paramour and calling Tyrion the imp. He asks if Bronn is his hired killer and Bronn, being ever awesome, says it started that way but now he’s a knight, probably because he killed the right people. Oberyn laughs a bit, and then asks Sexy Squire to fetch more girls since their party has grown. Tyrion declines, saying he’s a married man now. He requests, instead, a private word with Prince Oberyn.

Sweeney: Turning down orgy diplomacy? An egregious slight.

Lor: Outside the brothel, Tyrion says they are honored to have Oberyn in town, but he calls bullshit on that, as he’s only the second son. Tyrion knows all about being the disappointing second son. He asks why Oberyn is actually in King’s Landing. The last time Oberyn was in the capital was many years ago for another wedding, that of his sister Elia and Rhaegar Targaryen. Elia bore Rhaegar’s children, and then he left her for another woman (Lyanna Stark). That started a war, and the war ended in King’s Landing, when Tywin Lannister’s army sacked the city. They killed Oberyn’s niece and nephew, and he asks Tyrion if he knows what they did to Elia.

He’s heard that The Mountain raped and murdered his sister, and if this is so, that means that Tywin gave The Mountain his orders. With another tilt of his head, Oberyn asks Tyrion to pass the message to his father that he’s in town, and the Lannisters aren’t the only ones who pay their debts. I almost hate to use this word, but it really, really applies to Oberyn: he’s got swagger.

Waaaaaay Over There. Daenerys is sitting on a rock, petting Drogon who is HUGE. The other two dragons are murdering a lamb. The dragons start to feed, fighting over the meat. Dany reaches out to Drogon and tries to calm him, and he snaps at her. NUH UH DROGON. YOU ARE SO GROUNDED.

Ser Jorah gets a little closer to tell her that dragons can never be tamed, even by their mother. Dany looks after them, probably thinking, “well shit. That’s my entire schtick.”I know girl. I know.

Back with her army, Dany asks where Daario and Greyworm are. Ser Barristan tattles that they are gambling. Dany is not pleased. Looks like some more groundings are on their way. She stomps through the ranks of the Unsullied, into a town where she finds them each holding their swords, arms extended. Daario has been recast. He’s gone from Fabio-looking to almost Stark-looking. So basically a brunette, bearded white man. New!Daario explains that they are playing for the honor of riding at her side. Dany says that honor goes to Ser Barristan and Ser Jorah, who didn’t keep her waiting. They’ll ride in the back. In my grade school, we had a system for taking turns doing classroom jobs like line leader, door holder, etc. There was also a job of “caboose” which meant you got stuck at the end of the line, sulking. New!Daario and Greyworm just got caboosed.

Sweeney: This is amazing and I hope Dany goes schoolmaster on them again so that we can continue to work that into future recaps.

Lor: King’s Landing. Shae tries to get Sansa to eat something, but she won’t even touch lemon cakes which are her favorite. Tyrion comes to see his wife and asks for a moment alone with her. Shae stays until Tyrion gives her a pointed look. She repeats that Sansa needs to eat, and leaves in a snit. Tyrion grabs Sansa’s hand telling her that he can’t let her starve. He swore to protect her. Sansa pulls away. He wants to help her, and asks how he can. She tells him she lies awake every night, thinking about her family died, Robb’s body on a direwolf’s head, her mother’s throat slit. Tyrion admits that he didn’t know Robb, though he seemed like a great man. He knew Lady Catelyn, though, and while they were at odds, he admired her. She was strong and fierce when it came to protecting her children. Sansa stands suddenly.

Sweeney: Another season, another few months of touching the TV screen, wishing I could give Sansa all the awkward hugs in the whole wide world.

Lor: Tyrion returns to his room to find Shae lounging on his bed. He isn’t particularly happy to see her, because he’s told her multiple times that she shouldn’t come see him. She starts making moves on him, but he rebuffs her. She thinks this is all because of Sansa, and wants to know if Tyrion loves his “child bride.” Shae brings up the fact that he wanted to ship her away. Tyrion doesn’t know what she’s talking about, though. She asks if he wants her to stay, then, but he won’t answer. She stomps out of his room and of course, someone sees her.

Elsewhere in the castle, Jaime is being fitted for a new hand. A gold, gaudy, ridiculous hand. Jaime is less than thrilled by it. Cersei thanks Non-Maester Qyburn for his help with this and another matter. Jaime waves goodbye.

 

Jaime wants to know what Non-Maester helped her with, and what symptoms she was referring to, but she doesn’t spill. He notes, as she pours herself another Goblet of Win, that she’s drinking more these days. In a “welcome to a new season!” bit of dialogue, Cersei actually runs through a list of all the bad shit that’s happened to her, from Jaime starting a war by confronting Ned Stark in the streets, to Robert’s death, to sending her daughter to Dorne (where they hate Lannisters…) to the siege on King’s Landing. Jaime counters with his own news, that Tywin has disowned him. Cersei doesn’t buy it. She asks if he really plans on staying in the Kingsguard. Jaime pulls closer to her as he explains that staying in the Kingsguard means being close to her. Cersei pulls away. Jaime notices that something’s changed. “Everything’s changed,” Cersei says. I KNOW GIRL. NEW SEASON!

It seems Cersei can’t overlook the fact that Jaime left her. He points out that he was, you know, a prisoner of war, but she doesn’t care. He left and he took too long to get back home. They are interrupted when the girl who saw Shae leaving Tyrion’s room tells Cersei that she has some important news.

Sweeney: Shae should have known better. Obvs somebody was creeping.

Lor: Somewhere Around Wall Parts. Ygritte is working on her arrows and Ginger NotMance (Tormund) comes over for a chat. They are waiting for Mance’s orders, though Ygritte is unhappy with all the waiting. Ginger NotMance points out the stupidity of moving on the wall with their small numbers. Their intel came from Jon Snow, though, and Ygritte calls him a liar. Ginger notes the present tense she uses and wonders if Jon Snow is still alive. If he is, despite the three arrows Ygritte put in him, it’s because she let him go.

Another Wildling alerts Ginger and Ygritte to some approaching danger. The Drums of We Are Horrible People start up as Tormund gets a good look at who’s coming towards them. “Thenns. I fucking hate Thenns,” he says, all while he sheaths his sword. Leader Thenn, whose face is marked with some decorative scars, stops to chat with Tormund, mostly about how they stopped to pick up some dinner. A little bit about what failures they are. Then back again to how fat and juicy Crows are. Juicy because they are cannibals and because those were actually the Drums of Cannibalism.

Sweeney: Yeah, we can get rid of those musicians, thanks.

Lor: They can at least join the String of Inces in the shame corner.

Castle Black. Jon Snow is remembering his brother Robb, telling Samwell all about how jealous he was of Robb all his life. Robb was always better at everything. Aw, Jon. He was never better than you at hair! At least not to me.

Sweeney: Never forget your gorgeous, gorgeous hair, Jon Snow. You’ll always have that. You know, unless you get beheaded, in the family tradition.

Lor: 

Jon stands before a tribunal of sorts, ready to judge him for his wrongdoings. He killed the Halfhand and he slept with a woman, which he confesses to himself. He tries to defend all of his actions, but Alliser Thorne and Jonos Slynt seemed determined to hang him. Jon says that while they are busy talking about all of this, Mance Rayder is preparing to storm their castle. Alliser doesn’t believe the Wildlings can work together, but Jon shares all he knows about how Mance has united them and their plans to attack Castle Black form both the north and south. Jon asks if they’ll be killing him now and Maester Aemon says they won’t be killing him, but he isn’t exactly free either. Jon leaves.

Alliser tells Aemon that he doesn’t trust Jon, but the Maester is sure Jon is telling the truth. Alliser asks where he learned to tell when people are lying and Aemon says simply, “I grew up in King’s Landing.”

GRANDMA FLOWERBOSS! She’s looking over necklaces with Margaery, but hates all of them. Margaery snarks that maybe she should let Joffrey pick out her necklace. She’d end up with a string of dead sparrow heads. Grandma Flowerboss tells her to watch her snarks, even when they are alone. Someone approaches and Grandma Flowerboss is startled. We switch POVs to see that it is Brienne, all dressed up in a skirt. She starts to introduce herself, but Grandma Flowerboss says they know exactly who she is. Plus, she heard all about how she defeated Loras once. Brienne smiles just a wee little bit before asking for a word with Margaery.

Brienne and Margaery talk a walk. Brienne’s apparently told her the story of how a shadow of Stannis killed Renly. She swears to one day avenge their king and Margaery says Joffrey is their king now. A little shocked, Brienne clarifies that she meant no offense. Margaery takes her by the arm with a big smile. They walk past a fountain that features a statue of Joffrey standing on a wolf.

-_-

Sweeney: Things I did not need to know the show created: that.

Lor: We cut to the Little Shit himself. He’s half listening as Jaime talks about strategies for protecting him. A second Kingsguard man takes issue with being assigned away from Joffrey, since he’s been protecting the king in Jaime’s absence. The people love their king and there is totally, absolutely no danger at all! Everything is fine! The people know who keeps them fed! Jaime is all, “yeah. Margaery Tyrell” and Joffrey has a hissy fit about how he won the war, all while Jaime was missing. Joffrey starts to flip through a book in which the great deeds of the Kingsguard are listed. He gets to Jaime’s name and notes that they “forgot” to list his great deeds. Jaime says there is still time for him yet. “Is there,” Joffrey asks. “For a 40 year old knight with one hand?” Joffrey doesn’t think his daddy can protect him. Jaime is sad.

Sweeney: This is what happens when you make monstrous little incest babies, Jaime.

Lor: Lesson learned, I hope

Daenerys is chatting with Missandei about the city they are riding to. They are interrupted by New!Daario, who along with a new face seems to have acquired a bit of a personality change. If I recall correctly, Old!Daario was melting the panties right off of Dany. She seems much more chilly toward New!Daario. It’s probably the lack of shiny hair, though I prefer New!Daario’s face.

He wants to speak to his queen about strategy. Missandei leaves and Daario pulls out a blue rose and a couple of other local plants. He explains that in order to rule a land, she must know the land. He tells her about the uses for each plant and hands them to her. She tells him that he is a gambler after all, and happy his sweet ass flower move worked, he takes his leave. Dany smiles in spite of herself.

The Unsullied stop marching. Dany goes to the front to see what’s going on. She finds a dead slave girl, attached to a wooden poster, pointing down the road. It’s a mile marker on the road to Meereen. Ser Barristan suggests sending men ahead to take them down and bury them, so Dany doesn’t have to see them. She rejects that idea, saying she will see each and every face. She tells her men to remove the girl’s slave collar before burying her.

Sweeney: Repulsive child slavery + child murder displays? Dany Game Face Activated.

Lor: Sansa appears to be actually praying. Maybe she’s just repeating, “no one come talk to me. No one come talk to me. No one come talk to me,” over and over. Maybe that’s sort of like a prayer. Above the Godswood on a balcony, Brienne and Jaime watch her. Brienne reminds Jaime of his promise to Lady Cat to keep the Stark girls safe. Jaime assumes Aria is dead, and points out that things are now more complicated since Sansa is his sister-in-law. He wonders where she’d be safer than in King’s Landing. Brienne calls him on that faulty logic, and he gets frustrated.

 

Sansa hears something. She looks around for a bit before deciding to head back. She hears more noises and starts to rush off. We see a man is following behind her, but it turns out to just be the knight who was made Joffrey’s fool on his name day. Sansa remembers. Ser Dontos. He thanks Sansa for giving him his life and gifts her with the only thing of value he has: his mother’s necklace. He insists that Sansa take it and wear it. She accepts and smiles. OH, SANSA SMILES.

Sweeney: FEELINGS.

Lor: THE HOUND AND ARYA! Sorry. The episode is almost done. I’ll stop shouting at you soon. Arya is riding in front of The Hound on his horse and asks when she’ll get a horse of her own. “The little lady wants a pony,” The Hound says, but Arya just really wants to get away from his body odor. The Hound says even if they found a horse, he wouldn’t put her on one. She’s the last thing of value he has. Arya finds it curious that he didn’t steal anything from Joffrey before leaving King’s Landing. The Hound doesn’t steal, though. Arya points out that he has no problem murdering children. Every man has their own code.

Arya says she wouldn’t escape from The Hound. She’d die. She has no family left. The Hound plans on taking her to her rich aunt Lysa in the Vale. He says maybe she’ll buy her that pony.

Sweeney: If she can remove her much-too-old-to-breastfeed son from her tit long enough.

Lor: The Hound and Arya stop and check out an Inn, possibly the same one where Lady Cat took Tyrion prisoner. Two men exit the inn and Arya immediate recognizes Polliver, the man who captured her and brought her to Harrenhal.

Priceless.

Because The Hound is a great travel buddy but not such a great babysitter, he doesn’t even notice that Arya takes off toward the inn. He follows and reaches her just before she gets to the door. Unfortunately, they are spotted, and The Hound is left with little choice. They head inside. They encounter a group of men and a woman about to be raped. The Hound takes his seat and the inn keeper pleads for his daughter to no avail.

Polliver recognizes The Hound and sits down at his table. He starts rambling about how all through the defeat of Stannis and death of Robb, he was with The Mountain, torturing lots of people. Polliver suggests The Hound join his men as they rape and pillage their way back to King’s Landing, since they represent the king, and no one stands in their way.

Sweeney: I love that mischievous little face.

Lor: The Hound demands some chicken and Polliver tells him to pay for it. The Hound says he doesn’t even have a penny, but he’s still going to have that chicken. Polliver says that The Hound can have a chicken if he gives them Arya. The Hound calls Polliver a talker. Talkers make him thirsty, so he grabs Polliver’s ale and drinks it all. It also makes him hungry. He wants two chickens now. Maybe a mashed potato side or some mac and cheese. What? Never mind.

Polliver looks back at his men and tells The Hound he doesn’t seem to understand the situation. “I understand that if any more words come pouring out your cunt mouth, I’m going to have to eat every fucking chicken in this room.” That’s a lot of chicken, Polliver. It would be cruel to keep talking.

The Hound attacks. He takes on all the men, at one point, beating some people up while flat on his back and finally forcing a man to stab his own face. Arya watches all of this. She sees a man struggling to get up and hits him over the head with a vase. She kills that man with his own sword and then uses the sword to slice Polliver’s leg as he’s trying to get away. Arya drops the sword and takes back Needle, which Polliver was wearing.

 

It isn’t until the last line, Arya’s recreating the murder of her friend, that realization dawns on Polliver. Arya stabs Polliver through the throat and then watches as he chokes on his own blood and dies.

We cut to The Hound riding away on his horse, Arya behind him on her own horse now. A white horse, needle at her side, the road ahead of them bleak and burning.

Sweeney: OH THE METAPHORS!

Lor: After I watched the episode, I thought it was solid, though nothing too remarkable. After recapping, though, I’ve found a new appreciation for this episode that covered so much ground and really reset us into the story. I think Cersei got the key line here when she yelled that everything has changed. Indeed, it has. Part of the reason that the death of Ned Stark was so impacting was that the show framed him as the hero, in many ways. In those early days, I’d early placed my bet on Ned Stark to win it all, and he was dead before we were out of the first season.

From there, though, we shifted our hopes to Robb Stark. That also quickly crumbled. Here, we start the season with no adult Starks left. The Starks that are left have different priorities. Namely, surviving.

I wouldn’t ever say that King’s Landing is safe, but it does feel like the war is over. At least, the war as we knew it. Whatever trouble is brewing now comes on the heels of how much things have changed. We see that a bit in Prince Oberyn swaggering into King’s Landing, posing what felt like might be the most immediate threat to the Lannsiter’s at the moment.

Sweeney: I definitely think it’s too soon to say that the war is over. It’s definitely a state of calm, but this world has been in a pretty constant state of upheaval and is unlikely to settle any time soon. King’s Landing is always filled with all this suspense when the reality is that these are the players who (a) have the least imminent threat of death -and- (b) call the shots putting the lives of damn near everyone else in Westeros in jeopardy. It’s a poignant reflection on the basic reality that the ones doing all the political scheming get to be a degree removed from the consequences of their actions. I think that’s part of what’s so jarring about Jaime’s return, both for him – readjusting to that environment – and for everyone else, to be forced to face those consequences right in front of their faces.

Lor: Agreed. What I meant was a credit to this episode for creating this false sense of almost calm, with all of these things still brewing in our peripherals. It’s like the whole episode was asking, “well, what now?” Wherever the war goes from here, the war as we knew it is over, or changed, mostly because Robb is gone.

I think this episode did a wonderful job of showing us all the ways that things have changed for our characters, from Tyrion suddenly refusing whores, refusing Shae and playing the dutiful husband, to Jaime wanting to stay in King’s Landing, only to find his sisterlover is over him.

Perhaps the weakest parts of the episode, for me, where Dany’s portions. There she is, still in the desert, still on her way to rescue brown people. At least we got to see the dragons.

Sweeney: Word. I dearly hope her arc this season isn’t a lather/rinse/repeat on the white savior shit.

Lor: And on that note, enjoy some amazing Tweets from this week’s #gameofsnark:

 

 

Next time: Joffrey’s wedding and many wishes he’ll get slapped, I’m sure, on Game of Thrones S04 E02 – The Lion and the Rose.

 

Marines (all posts)

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 Sweeney (all posts)

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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Marines

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.