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Up at the Wall, Jon Snow has earned the respect of his fellow recruits. And then a fat coward named Samwell shows up and Snow has to make everybody be nice to him. This involves using his direwolf, which we haven't seen since he first received it. I guess it's been hiding somewhere.
At King's Landing, Lord Stark starts to dive into the court intrigues as he investigates Jon Arryn's death. This leads him to a blacksmith's apprentice who's secretly one of Robert's bastards. Well, not so secretly, I guess, because it looks like Ned's about the last to learn anything.
Also at King's Landing, the Hand's Tournament (or "King's Tournament" if you listen to Ned) starts, and someone gets killed almost immediately.
Meanwhile, out in the Dothraki lands, Viserys gets a little mouthy at his sister. So Daenerys smacks him down and tells him to get in line. She's starting to realize that this guy would not make a very good king. He'd also get assassinated in about five minutes, if you ask me.
And up at Winterfell, Tyrion stops by to give Bran his diagrams for a saddle that would let him ride horses again. Robb is snippy, but that's nothing compared to the reception Tyrion gets when he accidentally stops by the roadside tavern that Catelyn and Sideburns are in. Because she gets various goons and tough guys to encircle Tyrion with drawn swords. Cliffhanger!
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!It has been brought to my attention that I made a mistake in last episode's recap. It was Sansa that got the dolly, not Arya. Sorry about that. Also, the guy who King Robert was being nostalgic at was not really the Hound. It was someone else. Congratulations to the people who found these errors! I say that in hopes of convincing you that it was all a secret contest. This week's contest is to identify which line was supposed to sound like a joke that I didn't finish writing!
You know, the credits include more than just the map. There's some kind of armillary sphere that might be on fire. And there are symbols that might mean something, but I've decided I don't care enough to pay attention to them. They include a stag and a dragon, if that's the sort of thing you're interested in. Anyway, the cities on the map are King's Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, and Vaes Dothrak. Again. Boy, I really hope my obsessive attention to these details eventually pays off.
Oh, a crow. That's a nice change. It leads us to Bran, who is practicing archery courtyard. On his two, perfectly functioning legs. Having performed its job of showing us humans, the crow flits off around a corner. Bran follows, and the camera zooms in on his feet. They look fine! He catches up with the crow, and it has three eyes. Fine, fine. It's obviously a dream sequence. But Bran doesn't sit bolt upright in bed, the way things usually happen in movies and television shows. He just kind of lies there, what with the busted legs. The weird old lady is in there, so I think it's safe to assume that she was telling a story about three-eyed crows and bored Bran into a deep, deep sleep. That guy who's always hanging out with Robb comes in and tells Bran he has to go see some visitors. Bran doesn't want to go, because, again, he's got a huge bed covered with comfy furs. And a nice warm wolf to keep him company. But apparently Robb says that Bran doesn't have a choice, so a tall person comes in to carry Bran downstairs. This is Hodor. He's called that because all he says is "Hodor hodor hodor." You will come to love him.
The visitors, as you might have expected, are Tyrion and a few of the people from the Night's Watch. Robb is not putting on a very friendly front, since he's got a panel of goons that's looking down at the visitors. Okay, that might be overstating things a little, since he's going to add Bran to the panel, and he wasn't all that intimidating even when he was able to walk. And the only visitor that's actually getting the stink-eye is Tyrion. Robb makes a point of saying that any man of the Night's Watch is welcome at Winterfell, and Tyrion is too snarky to let it pass. And when Robb insists that he's the Lord of Winterfell and can be rude to anyone he wants, Tyrion sneers, "Then you might learn a Lord's courtesy." Tyrion just wants to talk to Bran, who is carried over by Hodor. (Seriously, get on board the Hodor train right now, you guys. Just try saying "Hodor" a few times and you'll see what I mean.) Tyrion asks Bran if he remembers anything, and Bran says he doesn't. Tyrion claims to find that interesting, but I think he just says that when he can't think of a more specific thing to be clever about. Then he gets to the point, asking Bran if he likes to ride horses. Well, sure. Bran admits that he used to. Tyrion says, with the air of someone who's looking around for someone to write down what he's saying for future use in a book of epigrams, "Even a cripple can ride." Bran protests that he's not a cripple, to which Tyrion responds, "Then I'm not a dwarf! My father will rejoice to hear it." Having fulfilled his need for airy persiflage, Tyrion hands over the plans for a complicated saddle which should let Bran ride a horse without use of his legs. Robb is suspicious that someone like Tyrion would do something nice for someone, but Tyrion clains that he has a tender spot in his heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things. Robb reluctantly offers the hospitality of Winterfell, but Tyrion is in a bit of a snit. So he goes off to a whorehouse instead, which is what he probably planned on doing all along, even if Robb had thrown the doors of Winterfell open and embraced Tyrion like a brother.
Good news! That guy that hangs around Robb (and used to hang around Jon Snow before he left for the Wall) finally gets a name! It's Theon Greyjoy. And Theon Greyjoy seems kind of friendly with Tyrion, even recommending a redhead named "Rose" at the whorehouse. Tyrion refers to Lord Stark as Theon's master, which Theon takes offense at. He also claims that the reason Lady Stark didn't come down to meet Tyrion is that she's not feeling well, but Tyrion accurately calls that out as an obvious lie. It turns out that Theon is being kept here as a hostage after his family had a failed rebellion. And that's where his brothers died! Ah, the charming backstory nuggets this show throws at you. Tyrion continues to needle Theon about how he's turned into a lackey for the Starks. Apparently, Theon is neither crippled enough, bastard enough, or broken enough for Tyrion to like him. Having needled Theon right up to the point of violence, Tyrion tosses a coin at Theon's feet. "Your tumble with Roz is on me. I'll try not to wear her out." Man, Theon finally gets a name and he spends his first real scene absorbing jabs from Tyrion. It's a rough life.
The Wall! Snow is training with the other recruits, and he's still taking a leadership position. If you're trying to learn swordsmanship by following instructions given on this show, I think the most useful thing he says is "Pivot on your back foot." It sounds kind of vague, but I think it's probably more applicable than Syrio's instructions to Arya, which were pretty metaphor-heavy. I'm going to start pivoting on my back foot in all of my swordfights. I'll let you know week how it went. Before the training can go on too long, everyone is distracted by a fat guy named Samwell. That's "Samwell," not "Samwise." Totally different concept. He announces that he's "come to take the Black," and one of the throng immediately corrects that to "...come to take the black pudding." See, because he's fat. The instructor throws Samwell into a practice duel to see what he's made of, and as soon as Samwell's hit, he crumples to the ground and begs for mercy. Do you think that everybody has a good brotherly laugh about this? Because they do not. That's largely the instructor's fault, who orders Samwell's sparring partner to continue hitting him until he gets up. You know how easy it is to stand up when some scraggly psycho is beating on you with a stick, right? It's a great way to get out of bed in the morning. It doesn't seem to be working on Samwell, though. He's just kind of rolling around and bleating. The instructor, whose only two traits so far have been "cruel" and "sarcastic," doubles up by complaining that he keeps being sent "squealing bloody pigs." To be fair, Samwell was kind of squealing there. I mean, the instructor's not completely wrong. Snow's finally had enough and steps in, saying that Samwell yielded and shouldn't still be getting hit. The instructor hypothesizes that "the bastard's in love" and proposes a new fight: Snow can defend "Lady Piggy" while three of the others try to get past him. They fail, because Snow is a highly motivated fighter. Samwell doesn't help out, although he does a good job of cowering. Once all three have yielded, the instructor is disgusted at all this: "We're done for today. Go clean the armory. That's all you're good for." Then he stalks off.
Now that the instructor's gone, most of the anti-Samwell sentiment has dissipated. He tries to make friends by telling everyone that his mother calls him Sam, but that's not as much fun to type. However, it is four letters shorter, which counts for a lot. You'll notice I call Lord Stark "Ned" more often than "Eddard." However, having a three-letter name is not enough to endear him to hardened rapers and pickpockets like this, who would like to know why he didn't get up and fight. He can't really explain himself, except to say, "I'm a coward." That shuts 'em up! Except that now one of them is worried that people saw him talking to a coward, so they'll think that he, too, is a coward. I don't think that's how it works.
Dothraki ride horses, as usual. Their path takes them under an arch that looks like two horses. The message here is that Dothraki really like horses. Other ways the show has tried to convey this message include "always starting Dothraki scenes by showing them on horses" and "having one character straight-up tell another that Dothraki really like horses." The arch is also there because that's the entry to Vaes Dothraki, the mighty Dothraki city that the credit map's been showing us for three episodes. Viserys, naturally, is a whiny little baby about the city, which he considers a big pile of mud populated by stupid savages. Daenerys does not agree with him, which isn't that surprising. What is surprising is that she tells him so, calling the Dothraki "my people," meaning that she's one of them. Viserys also calls them "my people," but he means that they're people that he bought. It's a pretty good line, even if it does come out of Viserys. Viserys snits off, and Daenerys asks Jorah how likely a Dothraki invasion of Westeros actually is. One of the main problems is that the Dothraki fear water, of which there's a large expanse between them and the place they'd be invading. They'd do well in an open battle, which King Robert is probably dumb enough to allow. But unfortunately for the plan, King Robert has advisors who aren't that dumb. Jorah seems sad that Ned Stark wants his head, although he admits that he did sell those slaves. Oh, and his expensive wife is in another place with another man. Generally, Jorah's not enjoying his life, which is understandable.
Viserys, however, seems to be enjoying things a bit more. This is because he's having a bath in his tent, and he gets to have a naked lady in there with him to sponge him off. I guess there are worse ways to live in exile. She makes some bathtime conversation with him, asking if he, "The Last Dragon," has actual dragon blood in his veins. He allows as how he might. He has some stories about dragons, and how brave men rode them instead of killing them. And the breath of one of them forged the iron throne, which doesn't sound entirely feasible. I mean, would you just lean the swords against each other and then ask the dragon to breathe on it? I think welding a chair together requires more than just a giant, fire-breathing lizard. The bath lady says she's always wanted to see a dragon, because they can fly. And "kill anyone or anything that tries to hurt them get burned away." While she says this, she rummages around below the waterline to get a good grip on Viserys. Viserys, even when he's relatively pleased, can't help but be a jerk, so his idea of empathizing is "After fifteen years in a pleasure house, I imagine just seeing the sky makes you happy." That leads her to reminisce about the non-dragon things she's seen, which includes a pirate that wore his weight in gold. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me, what with the inevitable sinking. Maybe only wear your weight in gold when you're not on water. Viserys has seen dragon skulls, which used to decorate the Red Keep. He had to memorize all their names, which actually kind of sounds like fun. The dragon skulls started out small and stunted, but they got bigger and bigger as you got closer to the throne. That sounds like quite a thing to see. It's a shame King Robert didn't keep them around so we could see them. But according to Viserys, he probably smashed them up. The bath-lady comments that that's sad, and Viserys suddenly realizes that it is sad. And he doesn't like being sad, so he shouts at the bath-lady about it: "What did I buy you for? To make me sad?" "No, your Grace. To teach your sister." "You think I bought you to make Khal Drogo happy?" No, to make Viserys happy. So he sits back with a scowl and tells her to get on with making him happy. She does what she can.
Speaking of the Iron Throne (which we were, somewhere in the middle of that last scene), Sansa is brought to look at it. Yup, there it is. Someday, she'll have Prince Joffrey's babies, and those babies will sit on that throne. She asks what would happen if she only has girls. Well, she shouldn't worry about that. Although if it did happen, then the throne would pass to Joffrey's little brother, and everyone would hate her. That last part is Sansa's assumption, but she's assured (by the nanny, whose name I don't think we've heard yet) that no one could hate her. Well, except Joffrey, according to Sansa. Sansa would like to know who built the Iron Throne, and the story this time is that it was built by Aeryn the Conqueror. I guess it's hard to be all poetically metaphorical about where the throne came from when it's a giant lump of metal right in front of you. Although I bet it was really Aeryn's blacksmith that did the actual throne-building. Sansa asks, "My grandpa and uncles were murdered here, weren't they?" Yup! "Why were they killed?" "You should speak to your father about these matters." She doesn't want to talk to her father about anything.
Council meeting! There are a lot of problems in the city around King's Landing. Unless the city itself is called "King's Landing" and the castle is that Red Keep Viserys was talking about. Anyway, the city is having troubles, largely caused by all the people that are in town for the Hand's Tournament. There's a lot of drunkenness and fighting. Before dealing with that, Lord Stark would like to make it clear that he, as the Hand of the King, wants no part of the tournament and would prefer to call it "The King's Tournament." He says that Littlefinger will round up more money for hiring extra men to keep peace in the city. Littlefinger is a little skeptical about that, but he didn't put up a fuss when the tournament itself required a lot more money. Varys opines that that tournaments are good because they give the rich a chance for glory and the poor a respite from their woes. End of meeting!
After the meeting, Pycelle oils up to Lord Stark and says that he envies the northerners their summer snows. Their what? I don't understand the weather on this show. First they have winters and summers that last for years, and now they have snow during the summer. All I know is that winter is probably coming. I'm pretty sure somebody mentioned that. Pycelle says that he could not save Jon Arryn, whose sickness struck him both very hard and very fast. Pycelle gets Ned's attention when he says that Lord Jon came to him often for counsel, which he clarifies to mean that he came looking for a particular book shortly before his mysterious death. He describes it as a ponderous tome. Oh, he read a particular book and then died? I've read Name of the Rose, so I have a theory about what's going to be revealed.
Later, we see the book in question. It is, indeed, a ponderous tome. It contains the lineages and history of the great houses of the seven kingdoms, complete with descriptions of many high lords and noble ladies. And their children. See, I don't know why, but that sounds awful to me but I was really into Viserys's list of dragon names earlier. I guess I like fictional monsters, but not fictional genealogy. This book is full of when people were born and died. Jon Arryn didn't say what he wanted the book for, but he did say "The seed is strong" as he died. It was his "Winter is coming," if you will. Pycelle doesn't think it meant anything, because dying words are usually about as significant as first words. He doesn't think it's likely that Jon Arryn was poisoned, because he was loved by all. Also, poison is a woman's weapon. Women, cravens... and eunuchs. Oh, and Varys is a eunuch. So there's that. Ned takes the tome and walks out.
As he walks through the halls of the castle, he sees Arya balancing on one foot at the top of some stairs. She explains, "Syrio says that every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better." That doesn't really explain the balancing. Nor does it explain her plan for tomorrow, which will involve chasing cats. She has some questions about how the plot's going, specifically, "Now that Bran's awake, will he come live with us?" Well, maybe. He needs to get his strength back first. And he can't be a knight of the king's guard. But he could be on the council or something. Oh, that sounds awesome. Maybe this show can have generations upon generations of council meetings. Or Bran could be Lord of a holdfast. Arya, however, cannot. Ned says that she'll marry a high lord and rule his castle and have highborn children. Arya disagrees: "No. That's not me." Back to balancing.
Jon Snow is up on top of the actual Wall. It looks pretty cold and windy up there. Samwell comes up to announce that Ser Allister says he's his new watch partner. But he adds, "I should warn you, I don't see all that well." Great! He also doesn't want to approach the fire, which is between him and the edge of the wall. Why? "I don't like high places." Show is trying to be friendly, but he can't help but point out, "You can't fight. You can't see. You're afraid of heights and almost everything else, probably." So what's his deal? Why did he join up with the Night's Watch? Well, Samwell has a story: on the morning of his eighteenth name day (presumably the vaguely medieval way to say "eighteenth birthday"), his father told him he was going to take the black and forsake all his claims to the family castle and lands. And if he didn't, they'd have a hunt and Samwell's horse would stumble and he'd die. Or, says Samwell quoting his father, "so I''ll tell your mother. Nothing would please me more." So there you go. Sam came to the Wall because his father was going to kill him if he didn't. He sighs and tells Snow, "I'm not going to get any better, you know." Snow answers, "Well, you can't get any worse." They laugh, and if this were a sitcom from the 1970s, we'd probably end the show on a freezeframe right here.
Littlefinger and Lord Stark stroll through a courtyard so that Littlefinger can be clever at Ned. He knows that Ned's reading a boring book. Man, this castle has terrible gossip. Especially because even Ned knows that this particular piece of information had to have come from Pycelle. Littlefinger asks if Ned knows Ser Hugh of the Vale. He does not, although he's a little interested in the fact that that's Jon Arryn's old squire, who got knighted suddenly. Littlefinger apparently still feels the need to show off and points out various people, who are spies for Varys, the Queen, and Littlefinger himself. Littlefinger claims that they're all spying specifically on Ned, but it looks like they were just sitting still while Ned walked past them. That seems like an easy job, since most days your Spy Report is just going to say, "Did needlepoint in the East Garden as instructed. Lord Stark did not walk past me talking in a loud voice about secret conspiracies." Littlefinger asks if Ned has someone in his service that he trusts completely. He says yes, which is, of course, the wrong answer. He should send this mythical trustworthy person to talk to Hugh and then send him to visit a certain armorer. Ned is touched: "Perhaps I was wrong to distrust you." Even that isn't enough to keep Littlefinger from being smug: "Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done since you climbed off your horse."
Ser Hugh is found pacing off the jousting area. Well, he's walking strangely, so I assume he's pacing something off. I don't know why he'd need to do that, though, since it looks like all the distances have already been marked off. If there are even any distances required. Don't horses just start at either end and ride toward the center? I guess he might be trying to verify where the center is. Whatever he's doing, he doesn't want to be interrupted by the person Lord Stark sent, because he's now Ser Hugh, a full-fledged knight and he doesn't talk to people who are beneath him. Fine, then.
Ned has gone to the armorer himself, and he doesn't care who sees him. It's a good thing for him there isn't any way this kind of behavior could possibly come back to haunt him in some way! The armorer is perfectly willing to tell him that Arryn was here to "see the boy." Ned would also like to see the boy. The boy, it turns out, is Gendry, a sullen, dark-haired boy. He's made a helmet with cool bull horns, but it's not for sale because he made it himself. The armorer promises that Lord Stark can buy it if he wants. He just wants to know what Arryn talked to him about, and the answer is that he asked questions about life with the armorer and if Gendry liked it there. Then he asked about Gendry's mother: "Who she was, what she looked like." Ned would like the same information that Arryn got, and he learns that she died when Gendry was little and had yellow hair. Ned has Gendry look him in the eye for a bit. Then he returns the helm and lets him get back to work. It's got to be hard to do your job when the Hand of the King is always coming by and asking nosy questions about your mother. Stark leaves and tells his man that he was talking to King Robert's bastard son. So there's that.
Jaime Lannister is guarding the door outside the king's bedchamber. I don't know that they call it a "bedchamber" on this show; I'm just assuming they want to use a word with more syllables than "bedroom." Lord Stark's man asks for entry, but Jaime points out all the laughter and squealing coming from inside. Would Stark's man like to guess how many ladies are in there? Jaime explains that the king likes to make Jaime listen while he insults his sister. He's pretty stiff and snooty, but he loosens up a bit when the guy reminds him that they fought side-by-side at the Siege of Pyke. One of the Greyjoys nearly took his eye! They reminisce about this one guy running around with a burning sword. Jaime says that he saw the youngest Greyjoy (Theon, remember?) at Winterfell, and it was "like seeing a shark on a mountaintop." He does not think Theon's a good lad. More ladies come out of the bedroom and we hear the king claiming that someone smells like blackberry jam. That's a weird thing for a person to smell like, in my opinion. Stark's man asks if he can leave a scroll with Jaime to give to the king, but Jaime will not be taking messages from Lord Stark. Indeed, he snaps, "I don't serve Lord Stark!" So either he really hates Lord Stark or he's just in a bad mood because of all the ladies King Robert is sexing up. Or he's just kind of a jerk. That's also a possibility.
Jon Snow has finished his watch duty and enters the Wall's mess hall. Samwell isn't there, which is convenient for the plot, because Jon needs to take advantage of the leadership position his fighting skills have given him among the recruits. That's quite a sentence! I will admit that I believe that as long as a sentence can be properly diagrammed, it will automatically be both grammatical and understandable. That's a weird thing to rely on, since nobody diagrams sentences anymore. Not like they used to, anyway. Anyway, I hope I've distracted you from the complexity of that one sentence. You've probably forgotten that it even happened, which is good for me. But that means you've also forgotten the content, so I may have to start all over. Here's my point: Snow tells the other recruits that Sam's no worse than them, because he has nowhere else to go. "He's our brother now and we're going to protect him." Most of them seem okay with that, but one jerk at another table turns around and says, "You girls can do as you please. But if Thorne puts me up against Lady Piggy, I'm gonna slice me off a side of bacon." I like how they're calling Sam "Lady Piggy" because it simultaneously insults his manhood and his weight. It saves time to double up on insults like that. I also promise to try to remember that the instructor is called "Thorne." I hope to learn the jerk's name at some point.
The jerk is sleeping. Snow and the boys encircle his cot and hold his head down by gagging him with a piece of rope. He wakes up and sees a white dire wolf on his chest. Snow tells him, "No one. Touches Sam." They leave. Hey, remember when Snow got that dire puppy a few episodes ago? I think this is the first time we've seen it since then. I guess it's nice that the Wall lets you bring pets. You have to renounce your family and take a vow of chastity, but at least they have a doggie daycare on site.
The day, Thorne is angry, which is nothing new. But this time, he's got a fairly valid reason, namely that no one's even trying to attack Samwell. They're just parrying Sam's thrusts and gently tapping him, as opposed to trying to kill him. Thorne sends the jerk in, and the jerk whispers for Sam to hit him. When he can eventually find the courage to do even that much, the jerk falls theatrically and yields immediately. Thorne knows what's up and grabs Snow to demand whether he thinks this is funny. "Do you want a man at your back? Or a sniveling boy?" It's a good point, really. I can't imagine that Sam's going to come out of this training somehow being an expert fencer.
Back to Vaes Dothrak and Daenerys's tent. Viserys drags his handmaiden in by the hair. Judging by her scene, I guess "hand"-maiden is inaccurate, but I'm trying not to be cruder than I have to be. Not when Viserys is willing to take on the crudeness all by himself: "You send this whore to give me commands?! I should send back her head!" Daenerys tries to apologize and explain, but Viserys is in high dudgeon. Or what he thinks high dudgeon looks like. Daenerys just wanted to invite him over to her tent for a nice dinner and offer him some nice clothes. Those nice clothes, of course, are described by Viserys as "Dothraki rags" that stink of manure "you'll want to braid my hair!" he shouts. Of course not, she explains, because he isn't actually entitled to a Dothraki braid. Strangely, this does not calm him down, and he knocks her to the floor before telling her, "You are a horselord's slut and now you've woken the dragon!" He's on top of her, but she's got her hand on one of those belts that's made of a bunch of metal disks. Whap! Belt to the face! He goes down and she stands. "I am a khaleesi of the Dothraki. I am the wife of the great Khal and I carry his son inside me. The time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands." Nice work! It would be nice to think this would teach Viserys to mind his manners, but I don't think so.
Snow and Samwell clean the tables. Sam mopes about how the lords are going down to the whorehouse while they have to be celibate. Snow seems to find it surprising that a nerd like Sam would care about the ladies, but Sam answers, "Why not? Because I'm fat? I like girls just as much as you do! They might not like me as much." Snow, like Sam, has not had a woman. He came close once. Red hair. I wonder if it was Rose from the whorehouse. Sam asks why he's never had a woman. Jon explains that his surname is "Snow" because he's a Bastard from the north. Sam already understood that, but some of this is for the audience. His father never told him his mother's name, whether she's a noblewoman or a fisherman's wife or a whore. "So I sat there in the brothel while Rose took off her clothes." But he was worried about Rose becoming pregnant. Sam's interpretation of that is, "So...you didn't know where to put it!" They tussle and Thorne comes in to keep them from having any fun, ever. He's got a story about the winter, which was ten years ago or so. And it's even colder north of the wall, where wildlings hide in caves and you get frostbite if you take your gloves off for a second. It's a lot like that old lady's story to Bran, actually, although he leaves out the giant spiders. He segues into a specific story in which his party had to eat their horses, then each other. "We should have had a couple of boys like you along, shouldn't we? Soft, fat boys like you. We'd have lasted a fortnight on you and still had bones left over for soup." The training period is almost over, and everyone's going to get their assignments for the rest of their lives. "And he will call you Men of the Night's Watch. But you'd be fools to believe it. You're boys still. And come the winter, you will die. Like flies." This guy's a real ray of sunshine, isn't he?
Daenerys freaks out at Jorah about having finally stood up to Viserys: "I hit him. I hit the dragon." Jorah is unimpressed with that and says, "Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon." One thing this show requires is the ability to believe people when they describe the generation. Like, Rhaegar Targaryen is constantly being described as a mighty warrior, but the only Targaryens we know are these two skinny pale weirdoes. I don't think Viserys could even pick up that giant sword that Lord Stark used in the first episode. Jorah appears to agree with me, asking Daenerys, "Do you want to see your brother sitting on the Iron Throne?" Daenerys points out that she's been told the common people have been praying for his return, but Jorah thinks that's silly: "The common people pray for rain, health, and summer that never ends." Daenerys admits, "My brother will never take back the seven kingdoms. He couldn't lead an army even if my husband gave him one. He'll never take us home." I agree. That's too bad, because I think it would be fun to see Viserys actually try to command a tribe of mighty warriors.
The king and his family are in the royal box at the tournament. Technically, wherever they sit is going to be the "royal box," but I think this is actually their official box. The female Starks are nearby, which lets Sansa look around and smile at Joffrey. He looks away in what might be disgust. He always looks kind of disgusted. Littlefinger appears suddenly and sits with the Starks. Arya asks why he's called Littlefinger, which is apparently a rude question. He's willing to answer it, though: he used to be small, and he came from a place called the Fingers. The king is bored and shouts, "Start the damn joust before I piss myself!" Cersei looks appalled. This is presumably not what she imagined when she decided she was going to be Queen Cersei.
Littlefinger narrates the introduction of the first jousters. I think he's supposed to be talking to both Sansa and Arya, but he might just be talking because he likes talking. Anyway, he provides valuable exposition, so I appreciate it. The first jouster is Ser Gregor Clegane, who's also called the Mountain. He's the Hound's older brother. His opponent is Ser Hugh of the Vale, who we met earlier in the episode. He only recently became a knight, so this is one of those early matches between the #1 and #16 seeds. Robert gets impatient almost immediately and makes them start. Jousting, as I'm sure you know, involves two guys with lances riding horses at each other. The first pass goes by without incident. The second, however, sees the tip of Gregor's lance splinted off and embed itself in Hugh's throat. Hugh is down on the ground, and there's a very impressive blood spray. I like that it changes as he coughs. He (or rather, his body) is dragged off by the medieval equivalent of rodeo clowns. Littlefinger leans over to Sansa (although Arya is also listening) and says, "Not what you were expecting. Has anyone ever told you the story of the Mountain and the Hound?" The Hound was six years old. One evening, Gregor found his brother playing with Gregor's wooden knight by the fire. And then, without a word, he grabbed the Hound by the hair and held his head in the fire until his face melted a bit. We see the Hound's face, and it is, in fact, all grossed up on the side. Sansa is shaken and promises not to tell anyone. Lilttlefinger promises that if the story should get out, "I'm afraid all the knights in King's Landing would not be able to save you."
Cersei is let in to talk to Lord Stark (who's studying the Ponderous Tome), because both of them are avoiding the tournament. She wants to put "the ugliness with the wolves" behind them. She explains, "Sometimes we go to extremes where our children are concerned." She can tell that Sansa's the only Stark that likes it here. Ned isn't all that interested in talking with her and says that he's here to advise the king. She says Robert does whatever he wants all the time, but she's not surprised that Eddard is doing what he's told, because, "Your older brother was trained to lead and you were trained to follow." He decides to take part in the verbal sparring that everyone in King's Landing seems to enjoy so much: "I was also trained to kill my enemies. Your grace." "As was I." So was that a declaration of truce or of war?
Catelyn and Sideburns are in a roadside tavern while a musician tries to get tips. He actually just hops into their booth and starts begging for money in return for a song. Tyrion walks in the front door and is told by the innkeeper that there are no rooms. He's fine with his men staying in the stables, but would very much like a room of his own. He says all this while ostentatiously waving a coin around, and it's not long before someone volunteers to give up his room. The musician jumps up from Lady Stark's booth and starts up his pitch about how he'd like to sing a song about Tyrion's father, which isn't actually something Tyrion wants to hear. But his attention is drawn to the booth where the musician had been sitting, and he is obliged to make some pleasantries: "My lady Stark. What an unexpected pleasure. I was sorry to miss you at Winterfell." Everyone gasps, because she was here incognito. She stands and asks various thuggish types if they're still loyal to her father. They agree that they are. Tyrion is looking on quizzically and claims to envy her father all his "loyal friends." Once she's got a handful, she announces, "This man came into my house as a guest and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of ten. In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell and await the King's Justice." Everyone pulls out swords and points them at Tyrion. Drama!
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