By Montykins
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.First things first: Ned is definitely dead. We see his head up on a pike, and there's no body attached to it. So if you were trying to hold on to a tiny bit of hope there, forget it.
So first we have to deal with the fallout. Sansa is still engaged to King Joffrey, who shows how caring and thoughtful he is by promising never to hit her. He has large, burly knights to do that for him. Yoren manages to get Arya out of the city, but now she's disguised as a boy and is in the company of the kind of seedy jerk who's been plucked out of the dungeons to go serve at The Wall. Oh, and that one bastard of Robert's who was an armorer's apprentice.
Up north, Bran and Rickon have a prophetic dream about Ned's death. Although they might have had it after he died, which is kind of cheating. It's less prophetic that way. And at The Wall, Jon Snow deserts his new brothers. Then he comes back to his new brothers. It was dramatic at the time, I promise.
In the central war, Robb Stark's advisors decide to name him "The King in the North" on the theory that maybe they can just cut themselves off from the Seven Kingdoms entirely. Robb likes this plan fine, except that he also wants to kill Joffrey and Cersei and everyone else even a little responsible for killing Ned. And Tywin Lannister knows that, so he sends Tyrion down to King's Landing to be his stand-in as Hand of the King. He's supposed to make Joffrey be a little more sensible and less bloodthirsty, I think.
Meanwhile, Daenerys's baby was born a monster. A dead monster, because apparently its life was taken to keep Khal Drogo alive. But he's in some sort of magic-induced coma, so Dany smothers him with a pillow. Then she has a large pyre built, Drogo and her dragon eggs placed on top of it, and the witch tied to it. Then she walks into the flames. And the day, among the ashes, all her clothes have been burned off, but she's okay. And she's got three bouncing baby dragons to keep her company!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The season finale? Already? That seemed like it just flew by, didn't it? Well, let's get to it. The opening credits don't have The Twins or The Eyrie or any of those other, less important places. Just the basics: King's Landing, Winterfell, The Wall, and Vaes Dothrak. Even though a lot of the action is taking place outside of the actual cities. I guess that field the Lannisters are camped in doesn't have a name. Although I guess if something sufficiently horrific happens there, it might get a name later. I've just noticed that the official "Game of Thrones" logo has a stag (House Baratheon), a wolf (House Stark), a dragon (House Targaryen), and a lion (House Lannister) sticking out of it. Even though there are more Baratheons than Targaryens around, the stag still feels odd to me. I guess it's because Renly and Stannis are both offstage and Joffrey doesn't really feel like a Baratheon, even to the people in the show who don't know he's 100% Lannister. Anyway, there you go. The opening credits, won't you?
The tip of a sword drips with blood. Ned Stark's blood. Because they cut his head off in the last episode, remember? Just to make sure, his head is picked up off the ground and shown to the crowd. Down in the crowd, Yoren makes Arya look at him and not the head. And he calls Arya "boy" over and over. Like this: "You'll be coming with me, boy. And you'll be keeping your mouth shut." Meanwhile, up on the royal dais, Sansa faints. I want to make fun of her for fainting, because it's the sort of thing that frail, royal ladies are always doing. But her father did just get decapitated a few feet from her, so I'm going to allow it.
Yoren drags Arya into a back corridor. It's convenient that it's empty, but I guess everyone's still out in the main square in case there's more to the show. Maybe the executioner is going to do a ventriloquist act with Ned's head. Or something else; I don't know. My point is that although the primary entertainment is over, everyone's still watching, enthralled. Joffrey's probably making a speech about traitors or something. Yoren keeps calling Arya "boy" and she keeps protesting that she's not a boy. I guess this is why they had those scenes where people didn't realize she was a girl, although I personally never thought she looked particularly boy-like. Yoren tells her she's clearly not a smart boy and pulls out a knife. He doesn't cut her throat with it; he just cuts her hair off. Then he tells her, "North, boy. We're going north." Remember, Yoren was down in King's Landing looking for people to take back to The Wall.