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Welcome back to Game of Thrones! I don't know if you remember, but this show has a lot going on. Let's get to it in the short form, and I'll be back later in the week with all the details. All of them.
Up in the north, Samwell Tarly (you might remember him as "the fat one") got scared by spooky zombies, so he forgot to loose the ravens. And that was literally his only job, so Lord Commander Mormont is not at all happy with his performance. And even farther north, Jon Snow finally meets Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall. Just in case you were worried that we didn't have enough kings on this show. Jon joins up with the wildlings, possibly so that he can make friends with Ygritte the Sexy Wildling Lady.
In King's Landing, Tyrion is recovering very well from being almost killed in the Battle of Blackwater. He's already up on his feet and being sarcastic at everyone he can find. He starts with Cersei, who parries his sarcasm with some gloating about how Tyrion isn't the Hand anymore. Then he works on Bronn, who has become Ser Bronn of the Black Water, not that any of the real knights will give him the time of day. Finally, he tries out his gift for verbal irony on Tywin, father of the Lannisters. This doesn't go so well as Tywin flat-out tells Tyrion he doesn't think he's a real Lannister, and no matter what the tradition is, Tyrion is never going to inherit Casterly Rock.
Meanwhile, Margaery Tyrell is making herself beloved by the people of King's Landing. It turns out all you have to do is give a few toys to orphans and the people will love you! This is a message that's completely lost on Joffrey, but Cersei seems like she's pretty tired of Margaery's faux-ingenuous style already. I bet she misses Sansa's genuine naïveté now.
Oh! And remember Blackwater? That big battle with the green fire? Ser Davos somehow survived it, and he's lucky enough to be picked up by his old pirate buddy Salladhor Saan. So he gets taken all the way back to Dragonstone, where he tells Stannis Baratheon that Melisandre is obviously evil. Just because she's been burning people alive! And he does this while Melisandre is in the room, so obviously he gets thrown in the dungeon. Good work, Davos.
And out west, Daenerys's dragons are getting pretty big. She's also got a ship, although it's crewed by Dothraki, who turn out to be comically bad at operating watercraft. The cutaway shot makes them look like basically the Keystone Kops of the sea. But they get Daenerys to a city where she has the exciting opportunity to purchase an army of brainwashed murdering castrati from some people that despise her. Before she has to decide, Barristan Selmy appears out of nowhere and foils an assassination attempt on her. He's here because Joffrey fired him from his kingsguard, so he wants to guard Daenerys instead. Maybe he should start by teaching her to keep a low profile, because it can't be a good sign that he found her so easily.
Get the scoop on Season 3 from author George R.R. Martin and the actresses who play Daenerys, Catelyn and Sansa Stark from our friends at Wetpaint.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Oh boy! Season Three of Game of Thrones! As I understand the plan, this season will be roughly the first half of A Storm of Swords. Season Four will finish out the book, and then it gets complicated because A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons take place at basically the same time. [Note: The producers have also said that they're not going to worry about strictly staying in order of the books, so there's the likelihood that this season will have book two, three, four and five stuff in it as well. Beware of book spoilers, I guess? -- Rachel.] And by the time we work through those books, the child characters will all be played by twenty-year-olds and there's a chance that a sixth book will have been written. My advice is not to worry about the future. Just enjoy the ride and live in today, man. Oh! And I'd like to point out that the dedication for A Storm of Swords is "For Phyllis, who made me put the dragons in." So if you enjoy the dragons, thank Phyllis.
Previously on Game of Thrones: so very many things. Daenerys lost her dragons and Robb Stark agreed to marry someone and Melisandre gave birth to a shadow-demon-baby, and Jon Snow killed Qhorin. And "Blackwater" was an awesome episode and got nominated for a Hugo award this week. More immediately, Ser Mandon Moore tried to kill Tyrion, but he was protected by the power of being a character that everyone loves. Oh, and there were a bunch of what are probably either White Walkers or wights but could have been garden variety snow zombies or something. The show hasn't really gone out of its way to explain the taxonomy of whatever things exist beyond The Wall, but everyone seems to feel that these weren't the official White Walkers, even though they were pretty pale. And most of them were walking.
The actual episode starts with exciting battle noises and bird screeches. But the screen stays black. Is this an audio drama now? That's pretty edgy! It could also save on special effects. When we fade in, we're in a blizzard. Sam Tarly (the fat member of the Night's Watch) runs in a panic, surrounded by sound effects. He comes on three kneeling figures. When he stops, he says, "Brotha." But are these shadowy figures his brothers? They might have been once, but now they look dead. It's the way they're holding their own heads in their hands that does it. Sam looks around to see a figure walking out of the snow with an axe. But before it can kill Sam, a white wolf jumps out and attacks it. And then the figure catches fire! Not because this was some kind of incendiary wolf but because all the other Night Watch men are there. We didn't see them come up because they're cool and taciturn instead of running around screaming like Sam. Lord Commander Mormony asks Sam, "Did you send the ravens?" He did not. And it was his only job! I was going to say that as a joke, but Mormont explicitly clarifies that is was, in fact, Sam's only job. Mormont tells his men they have to get back to the Wall. Or everyone they've ever known will be dead! Also, they'll probably be killed and turned into snow zombies themselves, if that's the sort of thing you find motivating.
And now we get to the opening credits! This time out, the map includes King's Landing, Dragonstone, Harrenhal, Winterfell, The Wall, that meteor up in the sky, and a new place called Astapor out in the east. It's probably worth mentioning that Winterfell has a lot of black smoke coming out of it because Theon Greyjoy burned it down last season. And on our way to Astapor, we went over The Shoreline Sea, the Gulf of Grief and Slaver's Bay. It is my opinion that the people in charge of naming seas in this world are not very good at their jobs. I mean, don't all seas have shorelines? That name doesn't narrow it down at all! And who's going to want to go to Slaver's Bay for a vacation? Aside from slavers, I mean.
We're staying in the snow for the scene, but we've moved north from wherever Sam and the rest of the Night's Watch are. It's time to check in on Jon Snow and Ygritte. They and a bunch of wildling extras have walked to a big camp with little tents. They might be yurts. A very tall person (about ten or fifteen feet) strolls by. Ygritte explains that he's a giant. She's pretty casual about this fantasy creature hanging out with all the regular people. She warns that when giants stop being shy, they get angry. This guy seems pretty relaxed. He's helping build some kind of structure, which is the sort of thing that an extremely tall person can help with. As Ygritte and Jon walk through the camp, they get some guff for Jon being a Crow. That's what people in the Night's Watch are called because they wear black. Although really it's more of a dark grey. And everyone around here is wearing a slightly lighter grey. I would have thought the wildlings would have a wider variety of clothes, but it turns out they all go with exactly the same shade of fur wrapping. Ygritte assures Jon that he's free not to join up, although she, of course, will remain free to kill him. She brings him up to a largish tent, where Jon will meet the legendary Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall. We don't know much about the geography north of the Wall, so there might be other kings up there.
Inside the tent, there's a bearded fellow eating chicken. Ygritte and Jon have been joined by the Lord of Bones, a character from last season that is not as interesting as his cool name would suggest. Boney says that they brought Jon along because they thought Mance might want to question him. Ygritte clarifies that Jon killed Qhorin Halfhand, which has given him a certain amount of credibility. The chicken-eating beardo seems doubtful, since he's seen Qhorin kill bigger people than Jon. Jon parries with a story his father used to tell him about how big people fall the same speed as small people. I like how that story about never giving up in the face of overwhelming odds can also double as an explanation of how items of different mass still fall at the same rate. Jon kneels to this man and calls him "Your Grace." Everyone has a big laugh at him for making the faux pas of assuming this guy was important just because everyone was treating him like someone important.
It turns out the guy skulking in the shadows is actually Mance Rayder. Once he's finished laughing, he stands in front of Jon and says that there's no kneeling out here because everyone's just so darn free. He knows that Jon is Ned Stark's bastard somehow. The Lord of Bones is dismissed, and Ygritte also leaves. Beardo promises Jon they won't make him swear an oath like he had to with the Night's Watch. Although apparently the rules for what colors he's allowed to wear are just as strict. Mance introduces Beardo as Tormund Giantsbane. I wonder how the giant outside feels about working with this guy. I know I'd be uneasy if I were told my new partner was named "Todd Monty-Slayer." Mance says he's glad Qhorin's dead because he was his brother once. Jon says he was with Qhorin for seasoning as a ranger. Mance suggests that by kneeling to someone Jon was committing treason. That's a weird suggestion from someone who not only left the Night's Watch but declared himself King Beyond the Wall. Jon brings this up, which seems to settle the matter.
So Mance gets down to business: why does Jon want to join up? Jon gives the stock answer: "I want to be free." Lame. And Mance isn't buying it: "I think what you want most of all is to be a hero." Try again, Jon. And to make it a little more intimidating, Tormund has an axe that's awfully prominent in the foreground of this show. Jon explains that he saw Craster (old guy, had a huge harem, marries his daughters) leave his baby in the woods, and he saw what took it. Mance clarifies, "You're telling me you saw one of them." So? Well, says Jon, the Lord Commander already knew. And now he wants to fight for the side that fights for the living because I guess he considers Craster to be on the side of the Night's Watch. He asks, "Did I come to the right place?" The answer: "We'll need to find you a new cloak." Look, he already has a perfectly serviceable warm fur cloak. Just because it's a few shades darker than the rest of you like is no reason to throw it away. It'll get grimy soon enough.
And now we're...somewhere else! Someplace idyllic, where children play in the water. It's King's Landing -- I recognize the whorehouse we cut to. It's a room full of pillows, and Bronn is being attended to by a topless lady. He asks her to take off her loincloth as well on the grounds that he doesn't have much of an imagination. She tells him to do it with his mouth. So everybody's settling in for a nice long exposition scene. But then! Podrick Payne rushes in to say that Lord Tyrion sent him, saying it was a matter of life and death. Bronn is not delighted by this, presumably because he was really looking forward to some exposition. Just to make him feel better, I'll provide some: Bronn is the sell-sword who Tyrion picked up at the Eyrie, and he's been tagging along as Tyrion's bodyguard ever since. Podrick Payne is the dopey squire Tyrion got when he was the Hand, but he saved Tyrion's life at Blackwater. Now read those two sentences while thinking about gratuitous nudity and it'll be just like it would have happened on the show!
Tyrion is in his tiny bedchamber, which is much smaller and less ostentatious than the suite he had as the Hand of the King. He's going to complain about that a lot, so just pretend I mention it after about every other sentence. He looks at his reflection at his new facial scar. It's not all that big, frankly. And then! Cersei knocks on the door. She explains that it's "your sister. The queen?" I'm not sure she should still be queen, since her husband died. Certainly once Joffrey gets married, she should stop calling herself that. Tyrion is reluctant to let her in because she has two knights with her and he's pretty sure she tried to kill him. She convinces him to unlock the door by suggesting that if she were really consumed with the bloodlust, a locked door would keep her out. Tyrion grabs a convenient axe and lets her in, although he keeps the knights locked outside. At this point I'd like to call back a joke I made in Season One, where I mentioned that axes are the traditional weapons for dwarves. I stand by that joke!
Cersei claims that the reason she's here is that she wanted to see Tyrion's face. Contrary to popular rumor, he has not lost his nose. This is a reference to the book, where Tyrion does, in fact, get his nose cut off. Tyrion is also constantly being referred to as an ugly, twisted dwarf, which doesn't really work for the TV show, what with Peter Dinklage being a very handsome man. So instead of having his whole face chopped up, our Tyrion is just going to end up with a rather dashing facial scar. Cersei needles Tyrion about how the key to victory was their father Tywin riding in with an army, rather than Tyrion's diabolical plans. Even though Tyrion led an attack after Joffrey ran away, he doesn't get any of the glory. Tyrion brings up the fact that his face was split by someone who was actually supposed to be on their own side. Cersei cheerfully ignores this, which is something she'd do regardless of whether she'd been trying to assassinate him.
Finally, she gets to the point: she wants to know why Tyrion is going to meet with their father. Tyrion plays dumb: "He's my father. Do I need to want something?" On one hand, he's right. Why shouldn't he go say hello to Tyrion? But in reality, Tyrion obviously has something going on because that's who he is and that's the show we're watching. There's much sarcasm as Tyrion talks about how Tywin surely loves him very much but hasn't come to visit him even once. Why, he asks, does Cersei care? Well, she says, he's slandered her to father before. Like when she had a nine-year-old girl beaten until she lost an eye. Cersei thinks it's not as bad as it sounds because she was a nine-year-old girl herself at the time. Tyrion goes with the standard defense of "It's not slander if it's true." Cersei still probably doesn't want someone tattling to Tywin about just how bad Joffrey has been as king. Cersei says, "You're a clever man. But you're not half as clever as you think you are." Tyrion takes a moment to savor a good setup line, and then crushes her: "Mmm. Still makes me more clever than you." Zing! It turns out the actual weapon of choice for dwarves is witty repartee.
Bronn shows up outside Tyrion's chamber. Those two knights are standing in a way that clearly indicates that no one's allowed near the door. Bronn is not impressed by authority, so he strolls up to chat with them. They have an attitude that suggests the question "Who do you think you are?" So he answers it: he's Ser Bronn of the Black Water. And Podrick pipes up to remind them that Bronn was knighted by the king himself. This, of course, completely fails to impress them, as one of them informs him, "You're an up-jumped cutthroat. Nothing more." Well, that's who you want as a knight, isn't it? It's all very well to have knights with an overdeveloped sense of chivalry, but the most important thing is to identify the people who are the best at killing people and then build an army out of them. You can worry about who's best at composing quatrains once you've won all the wars. Anyway, Bronn is hard to insult: "That's exactly who I am. And you're a grub in fancy armor who's better at beating little girls than fighting men." Well, who isn't? I mean, little girls are little. It's right there in their name. The two knights tell Bronn if he puts his hand on the door he'll lose it. He steps forward, reaches for his knife... and Cersei comes out. Crisis averted! Although I imagine Bronn will have plenty of time to get into disagreements with knights as the season progresses.
With that out of the way, Tyrion strolls through the parapets and crenellations of King's Landing, accompanied by Bronn and Pod. Bronn complains that he's been Tyrion's man ever since the Eyrie, but he's broke. Apparently being an official knight doesn't mean he's automatically rich. And as we saw in the scene, the other knights have not clasped him to their collective armored bosom, nor are they letting him play in their reindeer games. So Tyrion needs to double whatever it is he's paying Bronn to keep him alive. Tyrion makes a half-hearted attempt to appeal to Bronn's sense of friendship, but Bronn clarifies that he's a "sell-sword," which means even his friends have to pay. At least he didn't say Tyrion wasn't his friend! Anyway, Tyrion doesn't even know how much he's paying Bronn, so he can double it with no problem. I feel like Tyrion's number one priority should be keeping Bronn happy. Then he can move on to priority number two: being sarcastic at people he thinks are dumber than him. Which is everyone.
On a rock somewhere, Davos looks at his stubby fingers. He survived that big explosion in Blackwater! Well good for him. But now he's covered in gross facial sores and looks nearly dead. But there's a ship on the horizon! Davos stands up and we see that his rock is out in the water, not connected to a larger piece of land where he could maybe get a ham sandwich or something. He gets up and waves his shirt. A horn sounds! The ship sends a canoe or something. But all is not fixed yet, because the people on the canoe want to know who he is. Davos answers, "I was in the battle. At Blackwater. I was a captain. And a knight." That's still not enough information: "Aye, ser. And serving which king?" That's a tricky question these days. I think the right answer is "whichever one you guys serve. Can I get some food or something?" But Davos is more righteous than I am, and here's his answer: "The one true king of Westeros. Stannis Baratheon." The guy in the canoe smiles and throws Davos a rope.
Once he's on board the main ship, Davos is getting some food from Salladhor Saan. He's the cool pirate who Davos convinced to join Stannis's navy. I'm pleased to see him again because he is an entertaining character. And now that Davos has some food in him, he has time to catch us up on what's been going on with him. Remember his son? The one who was really into Melisandre and weird fire religion? Yeah, he's dead. It was that giant explosion that did it. There's probably a GIF somewhere on the Internet that shows it happening. Salladhor says he also lost a son, but he's not an important enough character for his children to get lines.
Getting back to the plot, Salladhor says that Stannis also lived, and he's back at Dragonstone. Davos is eager to go there, but Salladhor doesn't see why he should be involved in going there. Sure, he participated in the attack, but that was a business transaction: thirty ships in return for riches and glory. And he received neither the riches nor the glory that Davos promised. And besides, they say Stannis sees no one but the red-haired lady, who has been burning men alive. It's good to have a hobby, I guess. She says that everyone who speaks against her is a "servant of darkness." Salladhor points out that since he's a pirate and Davos is a smuggler, maybe they should avoid places that have it out for servants of darkness. Davos wants to go to Dragonstone to cut out her heart, but Salladhor figures he'll get burned alive whether or not he'll succeed. Finally, he shrugs and says, "When you're dead, I'll gather your bones in a little sack, and let your widow wear them round her neck." That's weird. And also impractical because the sack would be pretty big. He might just mean Davos's finger bones, I guess, since Davos currently carries his finger bones around in a sack around his neck. But then why would Salladhor need to gather them? They're already in a sack! Just wait for Davos to die, then pick the bag up and give it to his widow.
Horses. Banners. Robb Stark's army! I think of this as the main plotline, since we started with the Starks. A bunch of other things are going on, but basically this is Robb Stark trying to get revenge on Joffrey for killing his father. Simple. Robb is planning to set a siege on Harrenhal, but he'd rather have a fight.
Actually, it looks like he gets neither because the very shot is the inside of Harrenhal, where Robb and his men are looking at the dead bodies strewn everywhere. I like the sounds of buzzing flies in the background. It's understated and it helps set the scene nicely. There are apparently "two hundred Northmen slaughtered like sheep." They vow that the Kingslayer allegedly won't remain free for long, although I don't think he had anything to do with this. Catelyn looks at the body of Ser Jaremy Mallister, her father's bannerman. Robb looks up at all his men watching him and tells them to find his mother a chamber that will serve as a cell. He explains the backstory to Talisa that Catelyn freed Jaime even though he'd killed a bunch of her son's men, including Torrhen Karstark. Talisa is that battlefield medic whom he fell in love with and married. Got all that? Good! Because something's happening in the show: one of the corpses has started coughing. She gives him some water. He's named Qyburn (which is a weird way to spell that) and does not feel lucky to be alive.
Back at King's Landing, Tywin is writing something and also ignoring Tyrion. He's multitasking! Tyrion breaks the silence by passive-aggressively complimenting him on being Hand of the King instead of Tyrion. Tywin complains, "You brought a whore into my bed." He also has an objection about the way that Tyrion got authority and power, and then spent his time bedding harlots and drinking with thieves. Tyrion complains about Tywin not visiting him during his convalescence. Tywin doesn't care that much: "Maester Pycelle assured me your wounds were not fatal." Tyrion lists his many accomplishments of the last season, which include destroying an entire invading fleet and covering up for King Joffrey's cowardice. He ends with, "What do I want? A bit of bloody gratitude would be a start." Tywin is not impressed: "Jugglers and singers require applause. You are a Lannister." Tywin's not impressed with much, really. He's trying to run seven kingdoms (because it's not like Joffrey is capable of doing it), and three of them are currently at war with him.
Tyrion finally gets to the point: Jaime technically gave up his claim to Casterly Rock when he joined the Kingsguard, so Tyrion says that makes him the rightful heir. Tywin says they'll find him a better chamber than that tiny one he's in now, reward him somehow for Blackwater, and get him a better position. And he could get a suitable wife at some point. However, Tywin would like to make something clear: "I would let myself be consumed by maggots before mocking the family name and making you heir to Casterly Rock." Tyrion asks why because he's now in the position of giving other characters setup lines. So I'm just going to devote an entire paragraph to Tywin's response:
"Why? You ask that? You who killed your mother to come into the world? You are an ill-made spiteful little creature full of envy, lust and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine. And to teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men will ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse. Go. Now. And speak no more of your 'rights' to Casterly Rock. Go."
I like that it's not just Tyrion's height that Tywin objects to here. It's mostly the whores. He emphasizes this by telling him, "The whore I catch in your bed, I'll hang." So I guess he doesn't yet know about Shae, the latest whore that Tyrion has been shacking up with. Well, I say "latest" but she's been around for a while now. And they probably haven't done much shacking since Shae was installed as Sansa's handmaiden.
In fact, here's Shae now! She's with Sansa out at the end of a pier, and Sansa is making her play a game where they watch ships and make up stories about them. Sansa demonstrates by claiming that this one ship is leaving for Dorne with silk with the intent to bring back wine, but the captain is going to stay there. Shae isn't all that interested, so she suggests that this other ship is going to Volantis because it looks like a ship she saw in Volantis one time. Sansa is now cranky that no one will help her make up stories. She's become disenchanted with the real world, because, "The truth is always either terrible or boring." Her experience as a fairy-tale princess is not all she was hoping for.
Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish comes up and asks Shae to let them talk alone. He tells Sansa that he saw her mother (because Littlefinger has a magical ability to travel between storylines), and she's is eager to see her and her sister. Sansa asks, "Arya's alive?" I don't think anybody knows at this point. Littlefinger says he can't help Sansa escape King's Landing because she's property of the throne. She calls him "Lord Baelish," which is more respect than he usually gets, and seems to be sincere in trusting him. He says he's waiting on another cross-storyline assignment, and he might be able to take her with him. Maybe he'll be sent north of The Wall! Or over to Daenerys! You never know with Littlefinger!
At the other end of the pier, Shae is having a chat with Ros, who you might remember as the character who shows up whenever they need a prostitute to have a few lines. She's had a pretty good career so far. She was introduced as the best whore in Winterfell, and now she's doing pretty well for herself in King's Landing. Ros tells Ros, "It's not easy for girls like us. To dig our ways out." They agree that they need to watch out for Sansa and Littlefinger. I like this scene because both Shae and Ros are supplementary characters and it's fun to see what they think of the plot. Not surprisingly, they both seem a little worried that they'll get killed off to provide someone else some motivation.
SKREE! It's a dragon! I should clarify that "SKREE!" is the noise that dragons make. It's not me going "SQUEE!" in a weird voice. The dragons are getting pretty big by now. The three of them are flying around Daenerys's ship. They look good! And expensive! She complains that her dragons haven't grown faster, but they've gone from kitten-sized to hippo-sized already. She feels that she needs an army, as though having the only three dragons in the world isn't good enough. She's going to Astapor to buy an army. Apparently the Unsullied are good soldiers, but they're all slaves. That would explain why Astapor is right on Slaver's Bay, I guess. Her crew is all Dothraki, and they're terrible sailors. One of them is vomiting on the deck, and he should at least aim that stuff over the edge. Jorah tells Daenerys she'll only have a true khalasar when she proves how strong she is. Will that magically keep her men from getting seasick?
Speaking of the sea (nice segue, right?), Salladhor leaves Davos on the rocks of Dragonstone. Then Davos goes up in the castle where the action is. That's also where Stannis and Melisandre are. Stannis takes a long time to decide how to react to the revelation that Davos is alive and finally goes with "Heard you were dead." Davos would like to speak to Stannis alone, but Stannis claims they're already alone. Even though Melisandre is right there. He's gotten weird.
Davos says there's still a war to fight. Stannis says, "I am fighting." He's not. He's just standing around and delivering short declarative sentences. Davos straight-up tells Melisandre she's the enemy although she points out all that wildfire wasn't from her. In fact, she says that if she'd been there, she could have protected them. But she wasn't there, which was Davos's fault. She twists the metaphorical knife: "Do you hear them screaming? All those burning men in the water? Crying for their mothers?" And so on like that. Davos pulls his dagger and gets sent to the dungeons... I guess there were also a couple of guards in that scene, but I didn't notice them until they were dragging Davos away. To be fair, I don't think Davos noticed them either.
Joffrey is being carried in a box through the narrow alleys of King's Landing. The box gets set down, which worries him. He peeps out through the cracks in the box to see that they've stopped because of Margaery Tyrell, who's also in a box. The really glamorous way to travel is "in a box," you know. Margaery gets out of her box and walks out in the actual street before she's stopped by the ugliest man in Westeros. She walks around him and a gross mud puddle. Her handmaiden is distressed at what the puddle might do to her dress, but she cheerfully says she has other dresses. Joffrey declines to get out and talk to her. He's going to spend the scene cowering in his box because the people of King's Landing hate him. Look, writers, you don't need to go to this much effort. We all already hate Joffrey about as much as it's possible to.
Margaery goes into an orphanage so she can talk to children whose parents died in the recent battle. She teaches one that the way to think about the situation is, "Bad men wanted to come into this city and do terrible things, but your father stopped them." Then she gives the kid a toy knight to remember his father by. The kid objects, "He wasn't a knight. He was just a soldier." Margaery says that soldiers did basically what knights are supposed to do, so it's the same thing. She tells the whole crowd, "Under King Joffrey's leadership, your fathers saved the city." Her ladies start handing out toys to every child, as she tells them that now they're wards of the state. She comes back into the street, beloved of all the orphans. She tells the nearest adult to come directly to her for anything she needs. I can only assume that she has a long-term plan where she takes over Westeros with an army of orphans. Or maybe there's a prophecy we haven't heard about where an orphan with a special birthmark will appear, and she wants to make sure she gets dibs on all the candidates.
Joffrey's royal dining room. Margaery and Loras Tyrell are joining Joffrey and Cersei. Joffrey whines about the Small Council wasting his time. I'm sure that's how they feel about him. It can't be fun to come up with a tax plan and then have to ask Joffrey if it's okay. Cersei snipes about how Margaery must be cold (subtext: "because you're barely clothed"), but she and Loras both say their blood runs warm. She compliments the metalwork in Cersei's gown (subtext: "Why are you wearing armor at a family dinner?"), and Cersei points out that a bit of armor can come in handy (subtext: "Watch out or I'll stab you to death"). Cersei brings up the orphanage trip. Loras smiles, "Margaery does a great deal of work with the poor back in Highgarden." Cersei's smile doesn't change, but she's metaphorically rolling her eyes. Margaery is enthusiastically naive about why anyone wouldn't want to mingle with the good people of King's Landing, and Cersei tells her about the time they were attacked by the mob. Joffrey takes the wrong side in the dispute and contradicts Cersei: "Facts grow less and less important to her as she grows... older." He thinks his life was never in danger and Cersei says they can't all have a king's bravery. Margaery brings up the hundred wagons a day that the Tyrells are bringing to support the king (subtext: "You can't hold this town without us, so be sure and make me the official queen pretty soon"). Cersei is not amused, but I think she should be glad that Margaery isn't explicitly planning on murdering Joffrey as soon as she gets some power. She probably wants to wait until she has an heir, the way Cersei did. Besides, maybe Joffrey will pick up a political trick or two from Margaery. He certainly wasn't going to learn anything from Sansa.
Dany's ship arrives at a fancy fantasy city where they speak a weird foreign tongue. A snooty guy leads her and Jorah to see the Unsullied, and everything he says will be translated by a lady translator. The Unsullied have been standing on guard for a day and night with no food or water, and they'll stand there until they drop. That's an impressive demonstration of discipline, but I don't think it's going to keep them in peak physical condition. I'd rather hire an army that has a healthy diet and gets some sleep. The translator tells the Master that Dany is impressed but won't admit it to keep the price down. Then there's some talk about how much training they go through. Discipline and loyalty are very important around here. The translator says, "My Master says the Unsullied are not men. Death means nothing to them." The Master insults Dany a bit in his obscure language and then proceeds with a demonstration.
An Unsullied steps forward, and the Master cuts off his nipple with a knife. Dany is shocked! The Master asks his translator, "Does the dumb bitch know we've cut off their balls?" So we've established that the Master insults Dany a lot in a language she presumably doesn't speak. Moving on, we learn that to be officially "Unsullied," the Unsullied have to bring a silver coin to the market and kill a newborn before its mothers' eyes. Daenerys is not amused: "You take a babe from its mother's arms, kill it as she watches and pay for her pain with a silver coin?" The master calls her a mewling fool, and anyway the silver coin goes to the baby's owner, not the mother. Anyway, they have 8,000 Unsullied to sell, and Daenerys has until tomorrow to decide. There aren't anywhere near 8,000 soldiers here, so I guess these are just the floor models. The ones you buy probably get to eat food and still have all their nipples.
Once Jorah and Dany are alone, she's more concerned with the 8,000 dead babies. She also seems concerned about the moral implications of being the owner of a slave army. Jorah thinks the Unsullied won't have a significantly worse life if Dany owns them. A creepy hooded figure follows them as Jorah suggests that at least Dany won't mutilate them, so they'll undoubtedly be happier brainwashed soldier slaves under her.
A cute little girl rolls a wooden ball to Dany. Dany goes to open it, and the hooded figure knocks it away. And then it opens up and some kind of fantasy scorpion crawls out. It was an assassination attempt! An unnecessarily complicated one, but still! The girls dives into the water and then reappears on a roof, so they decide it must have been the warlocks. The hooded guy removes his hood to reveal himself as Barristan Selmy. That's the badass who was the head of Robert Baratheon's kingsguard and got fired by Cersei because she wanted to put Jaime in the spot. We haven't seen him since Season One! He asks Daenerys's forgiveness for failing to protect her father back when Robert took over the kingdom. But he's super-competent and Daenerys could probably use one of those guys around. He found her in a random city across the sea, so she should at least find out how he did that, right?
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.