Game of Thrones: Trial by Combat

Woo! This episode continues the bloody, stabby shenanigans we’ve seen in the past while taking it to the next level. All of you who have never read the books, I hope you now realize that nobody is safe in this world. I’d advise you not to get especially attached to any character- although I don’t follow this advice myself.  It’s not just the bad guys that are gonna get stiffed in this series. Everyone always talks about ‘The King’s Justice,’ but in actuality it’s pretty spotty. I hope you guys can see how the idea of justice starts down a pretttty slippery slope towards vengeance in this episode.

So let’s break it down as usual by location.

King’s Landing/Ned Being a Political Idiot and Making More Unnecessary enemies, Robert Ditching to go Kill Stuff;

Ned wakes up pretty woozy and the worse for wear after his brief battle with Jaime Lannister last week, which ended in a spear to his thigh. He also looks uncomfortably sweaty as usual.

For God’s sake get a hanky. What did I ever see in you?

As his eyes open, the first thing he sees is a blurry Cersei face – probably not what he was hoping for. Robert is there too, and there’s another awkward spat over whether Cersei or Ned is the third wheel in the Robert threesome. Cersei wants justice against Ned for kidnapping Tyrion; Ned wants justice against Tyrion for attempting to assassinate Bran, and now things are all meta because Ned wants justice against Jaime for attacking killing his men and Cersei wants justice against Ned for (supposedly) attacking Jaime. This is causing my brain to fart. Basically, there’s a lot of confusion and deceit, and the Lannisters and the Starks really, really don’t like each other. Robert’s pretty stuck in the middle: he owes the Lannisters a bajillion dollars and is married to one, but loves Ned like a brother. Robert bitch slaps Cersei and reinstates Ned as his Hand, commanding him to serve on the throne while Robert goes hunting – so it looks like Ned won that round. (He lost the last one, what with the stab wound.)  Why, you might ask, is Robert hunting at this critically important and fragile juncture? Because he likes to kill things. That’s it. Killing stuff is fun.

Off in the forest, Robert engages in some ribbing with his little bro Renly; I assume he doesn’t know that Renly engages in sexy chest shaving with Ser Loras. “Back in our day, you weren’t a man until you fucked a girl from the Seven Kingdoms and the riverlands,” he claims. Robert calls Renly a little pansy for not effing enough chicks and not warring enough, and Renly calls Robert pretty much a psycho for enjoying the bad old days, when everyone was killing each other.

Ned, meanwhile, is busy in the throne room, hearing complaints from some burned up villagers. Apparently the Mountain (that’s the giant man who chopped off his horse’s head) has been murdering and raping villagers in a fit of Tully-hating (that’s Catelyn’s family.) I’m not so comfy with how justice is working here. The villagers’ like, ‘a big man came and killed everyone!’ and Ned’s like “Hmm that sounds like The Mountain. Sooo let’s take away his knighthood and lands, and sentence him to death. Beric Dondarrion” (some rando) “go kill him.” For some reason Ned goes a little crazy here. He also commands Tywin Lannister – papa Lannister, a giant badass, and the richest guy in the world – to come answer for the Mountain’s crimes, or be labeled a traitor. Yikesss. I’m pretty sure King Robert would not be down for his father-in-law being summarily summoned like that, especially since Robert owes him a million zillion Game of Thrones currencies. Ned’s getting pretty cocky here. Also, why Beric Donarrion, who the hell is that?

King’s Landing: Arya is for Awesome and Sansa is for Stupid

Arya has been having a grand old time at King’s Landing, chasing cats and constantly practicing ‘dancing’ with her flamboyant master Syrio. Today, however, Arya doesn’t feel like practicing, on account of her dad’s been stabbed and all her friends/guards from home have been murdered – but Syrio teaches her to separate emotions and fightin’. “There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death. Not today.” Get it Syrio, you Russian Italian lord of the dance.

jack sparrow  +    sam weiss from fringe

=  

Sansa, meanwhile, is being a bitch to her governess, Septa (I think that’s like ‘Sister’), asking where she’s from then saying “Oops, I just realized I don’t care.” She is not a happy girl – until Joffrey marches in with a little golden present. Wait, shouldn’t she hate him for, you know, trying to kill her sister and successfully murdering her direwolf and lying to everyone about it? I mean, yeah, he’s apologizing and stuff, but he also looks like an old ass woman with no teeth.

I’ve got a Werthers in my purse if you like

I would rather make out with Septa. Ewww they kiss and I throw up a little bit in my mouth. Girls are stupid.

After this ever so romantic encounter with her abuser, Sansa is not pleased when Ned marches in to announce he’s sending both of the girls back to Winterfell for their safety. Arya gives in fairly quickly – her only concern is bringing Syrio – but Sansa doesn’t want to break off her engagement.

Arya also can’t believe her sis wants to get with that scrub

She’s excited to have Joffrey’s little blonde lion babies. What’s that you say, Sansa? Don’t you mean Stag babies, since he has a Baratheon daddy? Nope..5..4..3..2..1..LIGHTBULB over Ned’s head: As Ned realizes about five seconds later while reading his geneology book, every Baratheon ever except for Joffrey has had black hair – so clearly he’s not Robert’s son. Oh medieval genetics!

Winterfell: Bran is Adorable; Robb Has a Stick up his Butt and Theon is Gross but Interesting

Seeing as Bran’s a cripple now, we get to see him in bed a lot. Yay? We see the same dream as last week, with the scary three eyed bird (crow I think?). This time, the dream goes a little further and the bird flies down a tunnel which I assume is full of secrets. Secrets which bran knows, but has forgotten. Incesty secrets. Bran is abruptly woken up when the horsemaster or swordmaster or someone bursts in with his brand new cripple saddle! (adorable joy!)

AWWWWW

Bran jollily wooooohoooo’s around the forest on his horse in his new saddle while super boring Robb and super ugly Theon look on and argue. Theon tries to convince Robb to go fight the Lannisters and defend his House’s honor. Robb’s all, I’m not gonna, and plus, you know what, it’s not your House so stop bossin’ me. If I were Robb, I wouldn’t push away a gristly little bug like Theon away. I don’t know what he’s capable of.

While the two are arguing and not paying attention to their defenseless little bro, Bran rides away into the forest and is pursued by what appear to be a clan of hunchbacks. Oh – actually those are wildlings – that is, the inbreds who live beyond the Wall. The Night’s Watch is always talking about these wildling attacks, which are led by Mance Rayder. A big part of the Night Watch’s job is to protect us.. I mean, the characters in this fictionary story… from the wildlings. You can tell that they’re wildlings by their wildly teased hair!

It’s Bowie Hair!

The wildlings are all ready to beat Bran up and take his lunch money when Robb shows up, finally doing something for the first time in the series. He kicks a few wildling butts and gruesomely slits a throat, but one of them still has ahold of Bran with a knife at his wee throat -

when SCHWICK! Arrow through the chest. Theon “The Ward” Greyjoy comes in from behind with his famed archery skills. Not my house, my butt (is what I’m sure he’s thinking.) Everyones okay, but Bran has a little thigh cut. Why is everyone always trying to stab Bran? Just when Theon thinks he’s being a jaunty hero, Robb cuts in with his sourpuss ways: Theon’s arrow did land periously close to Bran’s head, but that really was the only thing to do in the situation other than, you know, die. Robb is p.o.’ed at Theon for shooting so close to his little bro’s precious head. Robb is boring and a ginger.

Did somebody cut the cheese?

Theon is growing on me. I don’t like it. He has an interesting, almost sweet little scene where he runs into his favorite whore (Molly?) hitching a ride to King’s Landing on a turnip cart. She’s looking for bigger (that’s directed at you, Theon) and better things. Theon gives her a gold coin and she shows him her vag one last time. Classy. Although, yay, first vagina sighting! Those are some rare birds.

The Eyrie: Tyrion Outsmarts Everyone

Back at the Vale, Tyrion is still stuck in his wicked high prison cell, trapped by crazy adult breastfeeding Lady Lysa. He tries to bribe Mord, his cognitively challenged jail guard, with gold – but since he doesn’t have it on him, it’s no deal. Apparently Mord doesn’t know that a Lannister always pays his debts.

don’tcha worry, i said hey, baby i got yo money

Tyrion gives another try at explaining why he doesn’t have any gold on his actual person: “Sometimes possession is an abstract concept.” HAHAHA hilarious way to attempt to explain this to Mord. Spouting off the popular simile “Rich as a Lannister” works a little bit better. Oh, and then “a Lannister always pays his debts” makes it’s billionth appearance. Tyrion promises to pay Mord if he gives Lady Arryn a message: “I’m ready to confess.”  This should be good, since as far as I can tell he didn’t do anything other than bang a lot of whores.

Tyrion is taken to the court, where everyone looks like a descendant of Lady Gollum Lysa. Bony faces, dinghy clothes, blegh. It’s a sloppy place. Tyrion takes to the center of the room and begins his confession. He confesses his gambling, whoring, stealing maids’ robes, stuffing his uncles boots with goat poo, and jerking off into a turtle stew; he endswith ‘ I once brought a jackass and a honey comb into a brothel’ but unfortunately for everyone Lysa cuts him off. Lysa wants to hear about the murder of her late husband Jon Arryn, and the attempted murder of Bran Stark. Tyrion replies that he has committed plenty of sins, but knows nothing about these in particular.

let me just rest a comforting hand on my son’s crotch while we work this out

Lady Gollum tries to order Tyrion back to his cell, but he flips – where’s the justice in the Vale?? He demands a trial. Lysa suggests that her halfwit son judge the trial, which is ridiculous because he clearly just wants to “see the little man fly.” Tyrion gets a little more specific: he wants a trial by combat – not fighting for his own little imp butt, but using a champion. If he wins, he’s free; if he loses, he gets tossed out the ‘moon door,” which is a giant ABYSS OF DOOM! Tyrion wants his brother Jaime to serve as champion, but Lysa vetoes that. For a moment it looks like noone will step up for Tyrion and he’ll have to fight for himself – and then Bronn steps out of the shadows to volunteer. Remember Bronn? He’s that ratty, awesome fighter who killed a bunch of hill tribes and then suggested a trip to the whorehouse, and who threated to “impregnate” the Eyrie with ten good men and some climbing equipment. It’s not clear why he chooses to be Tyrion’s champion, other than that he’s just a rebel and thinks he’ll get some gold out of it. Lysa chooses as her champion the one knight who didn’t immediately volunteer to be her champion, because she’s a bitch.

Tyrion’s champion Bronn and Lysa’s champion (Ser Vares?) go at it. It looks like a pretty even fight, although Ser Vares is fully knighted up and Bronn has no armor. Bronn makes up for it by fighting dirty.  Finally, Bronn stabs Vares in the chest and dumps him out the Moon Window. Shiiiiit. Poor Ser Vares. He was cute and it seemed like he knew he was serving a crazy, and he seemed to be well-loved.  Lysa and Catelyn are pretty pissed, but there’s nothing they can do; the battle decides the outcome of the trial. Tyrion is over the moon. He gets his gold back, gets to leave, and Mord gets a big reward! Yay. Now, if I’m to understand this whole trial by combat thing correctly, it seems that whoever wins the battle has been chosen by God or something, so it’s always just… really unfair? Maybe?

Vais Dothrak: Daenerys Being Hot and Viserys Getting Burned

After being absent from last week’s episode, Daenerys is back, staring sensually into her dragons’ eggs as usual. For some mysterious reason, she places an egg on a pile of hot coals. I half-expected it to open up and start singing a mermaid (or maybe dragon) song like in Harry Potter, but no such luck. It just gets really hot – unfortunately for Daenerys’ servant. She comes in and grabs the super steamin egg out of Daenerys’ hands, burning her hands with the imprints of scales. Owy. Daenerys, however, is fine. Get it – she’s a dragon! She can’t be hurt by fire! Remember in her very first scene, where she got in her bath and her maid was like NOOO IT’S TOO HOT and she was like nuh uh. Remember? It was the first time we saw her boobs. Now you remember.

nom nom nom

Cue probably the goriest scene we’ve seen so far, besides the Sansa/Joffrey kiss: Daenerys devouring what I believe is a stallion’s bloody nasty heart. All of the Dothraki people are around her, chanting and screaming and getting generally overexcited. This ritual has something to do with baby health or something. Daenerys noms up that heart real good at first, but then starts pukin it up . And then she swallows the puke back down. You go girl? This could not have been fun to shoot.

Her hubby Khal Drogo shoots her a “You’re so hot right now” look when she raises her bloody, bloody face.

i know you see me lookin at u and u already knoow i wanna f*** you, u already know

The priestess of the ritual declares that the baby will be ‘the stallion who rides the world’: The baby will apparently unite and lead the whole world. Cool prophecy. Daenerys names her little growing boop Rhaego, after her dead big brother.

Daenerys, Drogo, and the crowd are all having a great time, but Viseys is as usual the party pooper. “They love her,” he observes. He is jellin like a felon. Daenerys is a real queen now, and Viserys.. is lame, and has no crown to show for it. He even has to pay for his poon. He sneaks off to Daenerys’ tent, planning to take off and steal her dragon eggs. He’s confronted by the two timing Jorah. (Remember? He’s reporting back about Daenerys to Varys the Spider, whose loyalties are also suspicious.) Jorah makes him give up the eggs, but not before being accused of wanting to bone Daenerys. But who doesn’t really?

Ooh, it’s another tribal sexy party! The ladies are gyrating, the wine is flowing, and there’s lotsa fire. Daenerys and Drogo are celebrating that love that they all of a sudden found after they had non rape-y sex one time. It’s all fun and games, until a drunk Viserys stumbles in calling his sister a whore and calling himself the dragon in the third person again. Uh oh spaghettio,Varys is all ‘I wanna sit in the front cause I’m the king!” and Khal Drogo growls “You are no king.” There seems to be a rule that the Dothraki can’t shed blood in their city, which Viserys feels immune to, so he whips out his sword and starts threatening Daenerys.  He tells her to make Khal Drogo give him the army immediately, and that they’re leaving to go take Westeros. He’ll cut the baby out and leave it with Drogo Khal Drogo replies, yea, you can have your crown. Hold on a sec, let me feel my baby mommas tummy, break your arm and melt some gold In a pot. It’s coming.. okay.. here’s your crown! It’s molten gold and now you’re dead.

nice hat douchebag

Daenerys seems pretty ok with it: “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.” Kkkkk… so, definitely psycho, but girl power psycho, so I support it I think.

In summary, the death count: Lysa’s champion; Viserys; a couple wildlings; second-hand tales of burned up villager babies The boob count: I don’t remember any, but there was a VAGINA! And it wasn’t even shaved! YYAAAYY HBO