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Theon Greyjoy wakes up to discover that Osha wasn't sleeping with him just because she was overwhelmed by his manly charm. In fact, she snuck out with Bran, Rickon, and Hodor. This prompts a manhunt which ends with Theon hoisting two child-sized, tar-covered corpses outside the door to Winterfell.
Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister would also like to escape from the Starks. He takes his opportunity when he gets to kill a fellow prisoner (a Lannister cousin) and a guard. Unfortunately for him, he gets captured again right away, and Catelyn Stark has to try to prevent an uprising when the Karstarks want to kill Jaime immediately.
North of the Wall, Ygritte spends most of the episode daring Jon Snow to have sex with her. Then, when she gets bored with that, she escapes and her friends capture Snow instead.
And in Harrenhal, Arya continues to believe that she's doing a great job of convincing Tywin Lannister that she's just the daughter of a stonemason. She's not, but he seems to find her entertaining.
Daenerys still wants to find her dragons, and she's helped out in this when the main warlock of Qarth says he took them to the Tower of the Undying. It's part of this deal he cut where Daxos gets to be King of Qarth and the rest of the Thirteen get murdered.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: I think it's weird that Robb named himself king of "The Free and Independent Kingdom of the North." How independent can you really be if you're called "The North"? I mean, you're defining your entire existence by your geographical relationship to something else. Shouldn't they be calling the rest of Westeros "The South"?
The opening credits hold no surprises this time out, so I'll take a moment to identify who's at what place. King's Landing is where Tyrion and Cersei Lannister, Sansa Stark, and the Hound (Gregor Clegane) are living. The Hound's brother Sandor, usually called "The Mountain, is at Harrenhal with Tywin Lannister and the incognito Arya Stark. There won't be any scenes actually at Pyke, but I guess it's there to represent Theon Greyjoy. He's actually at Winterfell, having driven Bran and Rickon Stark out of their home in the company of Osha the Wildling and Hodor the Guy Who Says Hodor. The Wall is another place that doesn't have any actual scenes, but somewhere north of it, Jon Snow is currently lying down with Ygritte, another wildling. Finally, Qarth is the city where Daenerys has just found her handmaiden killed and her dragons stolen.
Theon wakes up in a fur-covered bed in Winterfell, which you'd know if you hadn't skipped that paragraph about the opening credits. He notices that Osha is gone. That Theon's pretty quick -- if you sneak out of his bed, he'll find out within six or seven hours. Eight, tops. Outside, he finds the guard who Osha killed. He harasses a bald guy about letting a crippled boy escape, and he doesn't think it's much of an excuse that Hodor also escaped: "Oh that's all right, then. You let a halfwit escape with a cripple." The guy tries to defend himself by pointing out that they escaped with Osha, "the one you were fucking." Theon beats him up. Then he tells Dagmer to get the horses and the hounds. Is he going to beat them up, too?
So the hunt is on! It does, in fact, include both horses and hounds. But not much actual finding of escaped Stark boys. Maester Luwin has been brought along so Theon can smirk at him. Luwin is not impressed: "So far, hunting seems very much like riding, my lord." Theon doesn't seem happy with the reception he's getting. I guess he thought that when he took Winterfell, everybody would applaud his initiative. He somewhat defensively points out that when he was a hostage of the Starks, he never ran away. He promises that if he finds Bran and Rickon soon, he won't kill them. He'll just, you know, rough 'em up a little. And he's not worried about the long-term prospects of his taking Winterfell. He thinks his sister will get there from Deepwood Motte before Robb can respond with his army. And like Robb always said, "Five hundred men can hold Winterfell against ten thousand." I think that might have been more figurative than Theon is imagining. Also, his men are near-mutinous sailors, which might not be ideally suited for defending the walls of a castle they just saw for the first time today. In the distance there's barking, which Theon interprets to mean that the hounds have the scent. He assures Luwin that, "It's all just a game." In the hands of someone less smarmy, that could come off as cheeky and fun.
The wolves (Summer, who is Bran's wolf; and Shaggydog, who is Rickon's) look at a river to a road. Up on the road, Hodor, Bran, Rickon and Osha trudge along. Well, Bran isn't actually trudging himself, but he's riding on the shoulders of Hodor, who's trudging enough for both of them. They're not going very fast, so you'd think that Theon would catch up pretty soon. Osha is the brains of the outfit, and she thinks they need to get some food. Rickon is happy to eat walnuts all day. Remember that time he was sitting to Bran and crushing walnuts a lot? He's doing that again. Bran spots a farm, which he recognizes as the place where they sent those two orphans. You remember those two orphans, right? Bran was holding court a few weeks ago and this farmer wanted help rebuilding his walls because his sons were off fighting for Robb? Right. Rickon and Osha briefly bicker about who can climb trees better. Osha says they can't outrun hounds forever.
Snow wakes up with his arm around Ygritte. She asks if he pulled a knife on her in the night, and then gets less metaphorical: "What's the matter? Can't be the first time you've pressed your bone against a woman's ass." As he unties her legs for the day's trudging, she figures out that he's never been with a girl. He asks her not to use the term "stones" or "bone" in reference to his junk. And now it's time for walking! I bet they're stiff. I mean, they were lying on ice-cold stone, and then they just stand up and start walking?
As they trudge through the scenic, snowy mountains, Ygritte asks if there are no girl crows, and Snow admits that there are no women of the Night's Watch. But he denies that the men do it with each other. She also asks about sheep, or doing it with their hands. Snow is getting very uncomfortable with this line of discussion. She tells him, "I might be your prisoner, but I'm a free woman." He objects that he's also free. She tells him that he's not free because he swore a stupid oath not to touch ladies. Her position is that the free people own all the land around here and he's invading. He points out that Mance Rayder has been sending raiding parties south of the Wall. She tells him that putting up a big wall doesn't make the land south of it his. The whole North is Free People Territory in her opinion. He says that his father was Ned Stark, so if they're going by ancestry, the North is just as much his land as hers. She asks, "So why are you fighting us?"
Ah! Some dead people in a courtyard! How exciting. As we pan up, it appears that we're looking at Harrenhal. Harrenhal has a lot of picturesquely melted stone towers. Then camera eventually makes its way up into Tywin's chamber. Tywin looks at the dart that killed Amory Lorch and says that it's wolfsbane. From that he deduces that it was no ordinary assassin. Or maybe Amory Lorch was a werewolf! The Mountain says they hanged twenty men the night in an attempt to scare away assassins (or something; he doesn't really explain what his goal was), but Tywin doesn't care: "The man tried to kill me. I want his name, and I want his head." Seems reasonable. Although it seems like Tywin wasn't actually the target of the assassination. I think it was Amory Lorch, because he's the one who's dead now.
The Mountain says they think it was an infiltrator from the Brotherhood without Banners, whoever they are. Tywin is vexed, and wants them all dead. The Mountain says it will be hard to find them. Tywin says to just burn all the villages and farms in the area. See, that seems like an easier plan than all this person-by-person interrogation. Arya lays out some mutton and appears to consider stealing a knife. Tywin says he doesn't like mutton, but has her leave it. He tells her to eat, and she wants to eat in the kitchen later. He tells her, "It's bad manners to refuse a lord's offer. Sit. Eat." She does. He tells her she's small for her age, but she assures him she eats a lot. Now he's in a contemplative mood and turns toward the window. He says this will be his last war, win or lose. And of course, he's never lost. He says it's already being called the War of Five Kings (Joffrey, Robb, Renly, Stannis, and... Balon? I guess he's known publicly now that Theon has Winterfell), and his legacy will be determined in the coming months. Arya considers stabbing him in the back.
Tywin defines "legacy" as "It's what remains of you when you're gone." Then he tells her about Harrenhal, which had the tallest towers and strongest walls. Now it's a blasted ruin. What happened? "Dragons happened." The problem was that Harrenhal was built to withstand an attack from the land. Tywin says, "A million men could have marched on these walls and a million men would have been repelled." Instead, Aegon Targaryen changed the rules (attacked with dragons), so everyone knows his name 300 years later. Arya points out that Argon's sisters Rhaenys and Visenya were also riding dragons. I like that she's more interested in the women. She provides biographical information: Rhaenys rode Meraxes. Visenya rode Vhagar. Tywin: "I'm sure I knew that when I was a boy." I also like that she can't remember noble houses and sigils, but she's good at who rode what dragon. Arya talks about how great Visenya was. Tywin asks if girls aren't supposed to be interested in pretty maidens from songs. Arya utters what might as well be her motto: "Most girls are idiots." He asks where she learned about Visenya and her Valyrian steel sword. She again claims it was her father. Tywin observes that he's never met a literate stonemason. She shoots back, "Have you met many stonemasons, my lord?" He glares at her and says, "I enjoy you, but be careful." He has her take the food back to the kitchen and eat it there. And he tells her that lowborn girls say "M'Lord," not "My lord." Arya claims that her mother served Lady Dustin for many years. And as a result: "She taught me how to speak proper -- properly." Tywin tells her she's too smart for her own good. She admits that she's been told that before.
It seems to me that Tywin knows she's lying about where she's from. He doesn't know she's Arya Stark, though. And he's enjoying the fact that he's got someone smart to talk to, but he also doesn't like it when someone gets off a good one at his expense.
Sansa passes the Hound in the halls of King's Landing. She thanks him for saving her from those would-be rapists and calls him brave. He says it's not brave for a dog to scare off rats. He says he enjoys killing, and that it's the sweetest thing there is. Even Ned Stark liked killing people, he says. Sansa doesn't like the sound of that. The Hound says she'll be thankful for him someday, when she's queen and he's all that stands between her and Joffrey.
Now, let's go check in on Daxos and Daenerys in Qarth. He's called a meeting of the Thirteen to look into the important dragon-stealing issue, but he assures her that her dragons mean nothing to him personally. She says they're more valuable than anything in the world. He points out that he's super-rich already. He keeps talking about all the riches stashed in his vault, but we've never seen any of it. She asks why he would help her find her dragons, and he says he's the one that invited her into the town. He needs to back up his words because if people call him a liar, he's nothing. She doesn't care about any of this. She just wants to stomp around and shout about her missing dragons.
Back to Snow and Ygritte. Trudge trudge trudge. Oh, how they trudge. She says the Free People may not live in castles, but they're free. And they don't serve a king who is only king because of his father. Snow objects that they all serve Mance Rayder, but she says that the difference is that they chose Mance. She encourages him to leave the Night's Watch and feel the glory of sleeping in and having casual sex with people like her. But even the enticement of girls clawing each other's eyes out to get at him won't do it. He says he knows how to have sex, and she tells him he knows nothing. Actually, that line seems to be a big touch point for fans of the books, so I guess I should recap it in full. So here you go: "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she says.
Hey! It's Robb Stark! He's holding court in his tent (which could be called "holding tent," I guess), finding out what Cersei thought of his offer of peace. He's talking to a Lannister by the name of Ser Alton, who doesn't want to say, but eventually admits that Cersei tore the paper in half. Robb magnanimously announces that Ser Alton's pen should be cleaned, so he can be comfortable in his hostagehood. Unfortunately, it's full. And so are all the other pens. In fact, they have so many prisoners that they no longer have room to lie down. A boy named Torrhen is told to take Alton to Jaime's pen. Well, it's called "The Kingslayer's Pen," which sounds a little classier. It's like the Presidential Suite!
After Alton is hustled out, one man wants to talk to Robb, but Talisa (the local medic-lady) wants him first. And she gets him. The man mopes away, sad that Robb would rather talk to an attractive lady with medical training. She says she's been treating his wounded men, and Robb objects that she also treats his enemies. Her point is that she needs more supplies. Specifically, silk for stitching up wounds, fennel root, willow bark and "milk of the poppy." I am increasingly annoyed that they call it "milk of the poppy." That's just the sort of extra-wordy phrase that gets thrown in to make things feel like "Fantasy." And she knows where to find them, so what's her problem? Well, she wants Robb to take a shopping list along with him when he goes to the Crag to negotiate a surrender. He wants her to come with him instead. Do you think he feels emasculated by having to do her shopping? Or does he just want to be in the company of a pretty lady?
A farm. No! Not just "a" farm. "That" farm. The one that Bran, Rickon, Osha and Hodor were looking at the last time we saw them. Now it's the farm where Theon and his crew are looking for them. It's night, and Theon is very frustrated. He should be because those fugitives did not look that hard to catch up to. There's some barking in the background, but it's not the kind of barking that means the dogs know what they're doing. Theon has the dogs circle the farmhouse a third time. Maester Luwin thinks he should wait until morning, but Theon is concerned about being treated like a fool and a eunuch for the rest of his life. He's a dope, but he's not wrong about what will happen if everybody watches him lose his hostages like that. So he announces that he'll whip every man there until he has the boys, and then when he finds them, well... "It's better to be cruel than weak," he says. Sure, Theon, but you appear to have decided to be both.
Actually, Theon's luck is turning around! A man has been found! Not a man who necessarily knows anything, but at least it's a man he can bully. He punches the guy in the stomach with his iron gauntlet. That does not elicit any information about where Bran and Rickon are, but I note that he does at least call Theon "M'Lord" rather than "My Lord." So Tywin was right! First Mate Dagmer calls Theon over to the corner of the courtyard, where he's found some walnut shells. They consider this very significant, although neither of them were at either of the scenes that made a big deal out of Rickon eating walnuts. But Theon nods anyway. They send Luwin back to Winterfell, which I think is a good idea. I don't think someone that old is going to be that useful in a manhunt anyway. Luwin begs Theon not to do this. Whatever "this" currently means.
Back to Qarth! Daenerys looks at her empty cages. Ser Jorah comes in to see how things are going. She says that Irri (her main handmaiden) is dead. Dany is sad that she couldn't protect her khalasar. And they can't find Doreah (the other handmaiden), so she's probably dead too. Jorah says he shouldn't have left her alone. Daenerys complains that "her people" could be the Targaryens (her brother) or the Dothraki (all deserted her), so either way she's been left all alone by everyone. Jorah says the people of Westeros are her people, which I think is strictly theoretical. I feel like if she were teleported into Westeros, people's reaction would be less "Hooray! Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen is here to be our rightful ruler!" and more "Oh, look. Another king. Please don't burn down our village." She asks Jorah if she should trust him. He thinks so, but she's done with trusting people. He sidles up to her, hoping that the plot about him clearly being in love with her could advance a little. She snaps at him for being too familiar, and he backs off: "Forgive me, Khaleesi. No one can survive in this world without help." She stays on message and snaps, "Find my dragons." He leaves.
Snow. Ygritte. Trudge. Trudge trudge trudge. Ygritte wants to know how much longer they'll be walking. He says they're close, but he doesn't have details. It's pretty clear to all concerned that he's just wandering aimlessly. She threatens to say that he fucked her when they get back to the Night's Watch. She even practices what she'll say: "Now I can never marry a perfumed lord. Oh, what will my poor savage lord say?" He tells her to turn around, and she works the idea of "He made me turn around" into her story. By this point, she's standing about half an inch away from him. She says it'll be her word against his, so why not have some fun? He eventually goes for his sword, and she backs off and says, "Gods, you're dull." Then she runs, with the rope trailing behind her. If there's one thing people on this show love more than taking hostages, it's letting them escape.
She runs! He runs after her! At least they're not trudging anymore. She gets over a hill, and vanishes. He runs up to the hill and the rope is lying on the ground. She whistles, and heads pop up all around the canyon. Looks like the hostage is on the other foot. She says, "Shoulda took me when you had the chance."
Ah. Sansa's near-rape scene again. Luckily for her, it's just a dream. I mean, it's not a pleasant dream, but at least she's not being near-raped again. She wakes up. Then she looks down at her legs, where there's blood. And there's blood in her bed! She would appear to have experiences the miracle of womanhood. She panics and starts cutting the blood out of the mattress with a knife. Shae comes in and wonders what's going on, which is a fair question. Sansa tells Shae that it's very important that the Queen not learn that she's old enough to have Joffrey's children. I'm not sure Cersei is going to pair her off right away, because if the war starts going really well, they won't need the Starks at all. Shae decides they should just flip the mattress over, which does seem like a better short-term plan. I'm not sure what they're going to do when they run out of mattress-sides. Shae starts to flip the mattress over with Sansa, but another (real) servant comes in and sees them. The regular servant runs off to tell Cersei the big news. Shae runs after her and puts her knife to her throat. But when Shae gets back to the bedroom, the Hound is there. And the jig, as they say, is up.
Cersei and Sansa are having a talk about the miracle of womanhood. Remember, this show is set at a time when they don't have excruciating filmstrips to sit through in school. Sansa says she'd been told about getting her period (although obviously she doesn't call it that), but thought it would be less messy. Cersei says that's nothing compared to childbirth and asks what Sansa thinks this means. Sansa says glumly that she's old enough to give birth, and Cersei mocks her for once being so excited about bringing in little princes and princesses.
See, this is where Sansa is an important character. At the beginning of the series, she believed in all the standard fantasy tropes about being a princess and wearing lovely gowns and having a dashing prince ride up and marry her. Her journey of discovery shows the audience what kind of world we're actually going to be watching.
Cersei talks about the day and a half she spent giving birth to Joffrey. It was unpleasant. The whole time, Robert was off hunting. Sansa is surprised that he wasn't there at the birth, because of course the Starks are all about modern birthing techniques. Robert's habit when Cersei gave birth was to go hunting and then present her with pelts, and she'd present him with a baby. Anyway, she had Grand Maester Pycelle, an army of midwives, and Jaime on hand, so it's not like she needed Robert anyway. Cersei reminisces that when Jaime was told he wasn't allowed in there, he smiled "and asked which one of them proposed to keep him out." Then Cersei moves on to more immediate concerns and tells Sansa, "You may never love the king, but you will love his children." Sansa does her line about loving His Grace with all her heart because she is always on the lookout for someone trying to trap her into admitting she doesn't love Joffrey. Cersei tells Sansa that the more people she loves, the weaker she'll be: "Love no one but your children. On that front, a mother has no choice." Sansa asks if she's supposed to love Joffrey. Cersei sighs, "You can try, little dove." I feel bad for Cersei because she's clearly competent and ruthless, but she's pretty much stuck being on Team Joffrey.
Jaime's pen. Actually, it's kind of an outdoor cage made out of wood, but they call it a pen on this show. Jaime is wearing a metal collar that attaches him to a pole in the middle of the pen. And Jaime has a new roommate: Ser Alton, from before! He's a Lannister cousin, although Jaime has trouble placing him in the family tree. Alton explains that his mother is Cinda, who Jaime establishes as "not the fat Lannister." In an attempt to make a connection, Alton says he squired for Jaime on the tournament the day of Willem Frey's wedding. Jaime doesn't even remember going to that wedding. But on reflection, he remembers his regular squire getting drunk the night before, which he blames on Tyrion. He now remembers that Alton had never squired for anyone. Alton's father didn't want him to do it, because he thought he'd embarrass their family in front of the family. Because let's not kid ourselves; there might be hundreds of Lannisters, but there are only a handful of important ones.
Jaime says Alton was a good squire. He knew when he was needed and when to go away. Most squires overdo things and are always bothering the knight. Someone outside the cage hisses at them, which freaks out Alton. But Jaime appears unruffled (which I guess he always does) and continues the conversation. Alton says he remembers everything about that day, including when Jaime knocked Balon Swann from his horse: "I'll remember it all until I die. It was the best day of my life." He couldn't bring himself to leave the field and go sit with his family off at the edges of society. I mean that literally; apparently Alton's family's table was way off at the edge, while Jaime, of course, was at the important table. Jaime claims to understand how Alton feels, which Alton finds unlikely. Jaime says that when he was 16, he had to replace Barristan Selmy's squire in a fight against some outlaws. And he was very impressed: "He was... a painter. A painter who only used red." Jaime couldn't imagine being able to fight like that, and being able to be part of it was "like stepping into a dream." And just like Alton, he didn't want to leave: "Leaving that battlefield was like being dragged off to prison." Jaime never replicated the experience, because he was an awful squire. He smiles at the memory and says, "It's a good thing I am who I am. I'd have been useless at anything else." Also, he doesn't like being imprisoned. His theory is that some people are better suited to imprisonment than others. For example, Ned Stark made an excellent prisoner. He just sat there nobly and ruminated on how unfair the world was. But Jaime thinks of himself as more of a man of action: "My life has left me uniquely unfit for constraint."
Alton gently suggests the idea of escape. And obviously that's occurred to Jaime. But Starks make good jailers. They're very dutiful. But, says Jaime, there's a way out that wasn't possible until now. Jaime shuffles over to Alton and they look at the door. Jaime says, "You'll only have to do one thing." Alton is ready to serve. But Jaime's specific instruction is, "You'll have to die." Whoops! Bad news for Ser Alton! Jaime beats Alton to death with his chains. A guard comes in and looks at the twitching body, but when he rolls it over for a better look, Jaime loops his chain around the guard's neck and breaks it. He pulls a key out of the guard's bag.
We now see a sheep skull. Someone dips a paintbrush into its eye and paints on a naked guy's back. I don't know if the skull has been adapted to hold paint or if they're painting with sheep-brains. The painted is the lady with the elaborate mask from the Qarth garden party, and Ser Jorah is here to talk to her. She knows he's looking for the dragons. He talks kind of tough, so she tells him to draw his sword and see what his steel is worth. He doesn't. She tells him he loves the Mother of Dragons. Oh, is that supposed to be an impressive piece of insight? Because everyone knows that. She asks, "Will you betray her again, Jorah the Andal? Will you betray her again?" He says he will not. And he's kind of impressed that she knows he's an Andal. She tells him, "The thief you seek is with her now."
Well, Daenerys is in a room with all of the Thirteen, which includes Daxos and Spice Kingpin. So that didn't narrow it down all that much. She claims to be begging, but she isn't, really -- you can't just say, "I beg for my dragons back." There's a tone of voice you have to adopt. And some groveling wouldn't hurt. Anyway, the answer is, "It wasn't very long ago that you were threatening us." She says the dragons will die without her. Is that true? We haven't really seen her doing things that anyone else couldn't do. Spice Kingpin says the dragons will bring the world death and misery. I guess that's possible, but this world seems to have plenty of both of those things already. The head Warlock says he'll help her by taking her to the House of the Undying, where he put the dragons. Oh! Well, mystery solved, then. The creepy Warlock took them.
He made an arrangement with the king of Qarth. Oh, and apparently there's a king now. And it's Daxos! He's going to open Qarth to the world. The rest of the Thirteen are not pleased about this. Spice Kingpin tells him he overreaches, because, "Three dragons the size of cats and an alliance with a charlatan do not make you a king." That's probably true. But Daxos is confident. The Warlock steps forward and announces, "The mother of dragons will be with her babies. She will give them her love and they will thrive by her side. Forever." Duplicates of the Warlock appear all over the room and cut the throats of all the Thirteen. Huh. So there are at least fourteen of this guy? My theory that he just had a twin appears to have been flawed. Dany runs for the door, but a Warlock stands in her way. Ser Jorah shows up and stabs the Warlock. The Warlock's robe falls to the ground with no body in it, Obi-Wan-style. The Warlock tells her to go to the House of the Undying to see her dragons.
Catelyn's tent. Brienne is doing her job, which is keeping people out. But the man trying to get Catelyn's attention has important news: they caught Jaime Lannister! Already? Man, that escape did not go well at all. We didn't even see him running for his life. He's already back in chains so a crowd can yell things like "Justice for the Karstark!" at him. There's a lot of shoving and yelling. Jaime doesn't look so good. He's all covered in mud. Well, I hope it's mud. Now the crowd has escalated to shouting, "Gut him!" And they have sticks, so the crowd has probably escalated to a mob. Jaime falls. Catelyn wants them to leave Jaime alone and return him to the pen. Lord Karstark announces, "Any man who stands between a father and his vengeance asks for death." Catelyn stands between him and Jaime. She dares him to strike her down. Boy, Karstark has really taken a disliking to Jaime. Apparently that guard who Jaime killed was his son. I think that makes him Torrhen. Catelyn reminds him that he's sworn loyalty to Robb, who's supposed to be king. And where is Robb, he asks? Off with that "foreign bitch." Brienne calls this treason. Catelyn tells him, "In the name of my son, the King in the North, stand down." He does, but only for the moment: "When your son returns, I will demand this murderer's head."
She sends Jaime off to the stockades. Even in this situation, he's still mostly unruffled. He tells her, "You've become a real she-wolf in your later years. There's not much fish left in you." The animal-themed metaphors are thick in this show. She says to use all the chains and gags available.
Cersei lights some candles. Tyrion asks why she's doing it herself, since she normally has throngs of servants to light candles for her. He's reading a letter about Stannis coming with 200 ships. She says King's Landing has strong walls, and also they will rain fire on their enemies from above. Tyrion corrects her on the difference between strategy and tactics, because it's important to him to let people know he's smarter than them. Tyrion wants Joffrey to start acting like a king, because the people of the city hate him. He starts in about how awful Joffrey is, and Cersei points out, "I'm not the one giving the boy whores to abuse." Tyrion admits that was a mistake. She says Joffrey doesn't listen to her. Tyrion: "It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on its head." Cersei admits that she'd hoped Joffrey would be like Jaime. But the best she can do is, "He looks like him. In a certain light." Creepy. Cersei, please do not talk about your son looking like your twin who you have sex with. We know you have a type, but that does not mean we want to hear about it. Tyrion thinks Joffrey's more like Robert, although Cersei says Robert wasn't that sadistic.
Cersei, being surprisingly open about how awful Joffrey is, wonders if this is punishment for their sins. The sins she's talking about are the ones where she had sex with Jaime. Tyrion points out that the Targaryens married brother to sister for generations. Cersei agrees, and points out that it's the same line of argument she used on Ned. But half the Targaryens were crazy. Tyrion tells Cersei that Tommen and Myrcella are both good, decent children. She cries. He walks up to her and stands there awkwardly.
Robb's camp is degenerating quickly. There are drunken brawls all over the place. Brienne says Jaime won't last the night, because nobody wants to actually defend a Lannister.
Catelyn and Brienne enter Jaime's cell. I mean, um, his "pen." He's very chained up. Cat tells the guard to shove off. He doesn't want, to, but Catelyn is very clear that she's the one giving out the orders. Jaime says he thinks he's probably about to die. Cat points out that everyone out there wants him dead. Seems logical. Jaime seems a little surprised that Lord Karstark is so mad about him killing his son, but he's willing to go along with it. Catelyn is mad that Jaime keeps breaking vows. Jaime defends himself on the grounds that the King, his father and the innocents are not always on the same side. And there are a lot of conflicting requirements for knights in this world, so as far as he's concerned, he might as well give up on the whole deal. He also asks if Brienne is a woman, and wonders where Catelyn found "this beast." He sure knows how to talk to the ladies. Cat calls him "Kingslayer" in an attempt to insult him so Jaime reminisces about Aerys Targaryen, who everybody agrees was crazy and needed to die. Catelyn says, "You are a man without honor," which is the title of this week's episode. So my theory from last episode about how they name these things appears to be wrong. Phooey. He says he's never been with any woman other than Cersei, so he has more honor than Ned Stark. Cat calls Brienne forward. Jaime continues to dig: "When good old Ned came home with some whore's baby, did you pretend to love it?" She didn't, really. He digs at her about the idea that honorable Lord Eddard Stark fucked another woman. Brienne gives Cat her sword. And that's the end of the scene!
Oh, hey. Now we've got Theon Greyjoy, lecturing townsfolk. His theme is how he told them what would happen if he served him loyally, and what would happen if he did not. He didn't, really. I remember some vague threats and promises, but he didn't go into any specifics. Anyway, his goons pull some ropes and there are two burned, child-sized bodies hanging by the archway. Dagmer forces Luwin to watch, so that Luwin can do one of these: "NOOOOOOO!"
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.