Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

King’s Landing: Tyrion wakes up after the battle, heavily bandaged (I knew he wouldn’t die). But rather than being given a hero’s reception for saving King’s Landing, he is in a cell. Tywin has taken over as Hand of the King, and nobody seems to want to give Tyrion any credit at all for his plan to decimate Stannis’s fleet. In fact, Varys tells Tyrion that Cersei plotted to have him killed on the battlefield. I’m not sure what Cersei has against her brother – he’s the only one who was keeping Joffrey in line. Maybe she reckons Tywin can do a better job. Good luck. Shae arrives and Tyrion figures she’ll be repulsed by his facial scars, but she is loyal and urges him to run away with her to back to Pentos, which I think is her homeland. But Tyrion is stubborn and wants to hang out where nobody likes him.

Meanwhile, Joffrey rewards Tywin and some other men who helped save the city from Stannis. One guy asks that Joffrey marry his sister, Margaery (Renly Baratheon’s widow), to cement an alliance between Houses Lannister and Tyrell. Joffrey actually seems to show some interest in a female and it looks like he wants her, but he makes a show of holding his path to marry Sansa. Cersei argues that Sansa is from a traitorous house and so the oath is null, which Joffrey immediately seizes on to express his wish to marry Margaery. Sansa turns away, seemingly upset, but does a little “Yes!” dance as she walks away. But Petyr Baelish warns her that she is now in danger in King’s Landing, and he will work to get her home to Cat and her family. I was a bit confused here, because I thought “The Hound” Clegane offered the same thing to Sansa last episode, and it wasn’t clear if they actually left the city or not. I guess not. Well, Sansa better get out of here quickly now… I can’t see Joffrey keeping her around much longer. I can’t honestly see him treating Margaery much better, either.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

There’s a lot less to say about this episode than usual, since the entire episode is taken up with Stannis Baratheon’s attack on King’s Landing. And much of it is action scenes of battle, with relatively little character interaction.

It begins on the sea at night, with Stannis discussing the imminent assault with his captain, who he plans to make Hand of the King once he has the throne. Inside King’s Landing, they know the attack is coming, and the mood is fearful. It seems nobody trusts Tyrion to be capable of organising an effective defence. Pycelle gives Cersei a small vial containing nightshade and tries to advise her euphemistically of what it will do – Cersei snaps and says she knows what it does. Bronn is having a pre-battle drink and singsong with some of his soldiers, when “The Hound” Clegane walks in and starts making threatening remarks to Bronn. This seemed a bit out of nowhere, because I hadn’t registered any animosity between them before. Maybe I missed it. Anyway, it looks certain to escalate into a brawl, but then bells ring out, signalling that Stannis’s fleet has been spotted approaching under cover of darkness. Everyone runs to defend the city.

Okay, so now it’s clear that Hound and Bronn hate each other, presumably they both survive this attack and will in the future engage in more mutual hostilities. I’d wager they have a fight at some point later in the story.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

The North: Well, Jon is captured by a band of wildlings. It turns out they captured another member of the Night’s Watch somehow, and put him with Jon. Talking, this other guy suggests that Jon pretend to turn to their side, so as to infiltrate them and get information about their plans to attack south of The Wall. Then he unilaterally stages a scuffle with Jon, in an apparent effort to make it look like this other guy is angry with Jon. This seems like a pretty poor deception, and I’ll be surprised if the wildlings fall for it. How stupid do they need to be to trust Jon? Yeah, okay, exactly as stupid as he was to trust the wildling woman who led him straight into this trap in the first place…

Meanwhile, the rest of the group are looking fruitlessly for Jon, and stumble across a carved rock buried in the snow. Samwell reckons it was placed by the gods or something. Underneath it is a cache of spearpoints made of obsidian, or as they call it “dragonglass”. Hmm. It seems this has been left here by another Watchman. Presumably these weapons will come in handy at some point, though it’s hard to imagine how a situation might arise where they are more useful than the men’s own swords. Maybe they can be used to slay dragons?? Well that would be handy against Daenerys’s eventual forces.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

The North: Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon… I knew you’d get into trouble letting that wildling woman live, and here we see exactly how. The two of them wake up in the morning and she immediately starts teasing him about his ways with women, or rather lack of them. He forces her to walk, and… she leads him straight into an ambush of her fellow wildlings. Of course. An idiot could have seen that coming – good thing Jon’s not an idiot, then.

Jon’s a good fighter, but I don’t see him getting out of this encounter without being captured. He’ll either have to engineer an escape later, or wait for his fellow Night’s Watchmen to rescue him. I don’t really have a feel for which is more likely. Probably the rescue, because that will give the commander another chance to chew Jon out for stupidity. The other option is he escapes, then finds the remainder of his patrol… dead! That would be quite dramatic, so maybe that’s a possibility.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

Winterfell: In the previous episode, Bran had also asked Osha about another dream image he’d seen: the ocean coming to Winterfell (which is inland) and lapping at its borders. Now we see what that meant: Theon’s forces have used their coastal attack to launch a raid inland as far as Winterfell, and succeed in overunning the town. This is rather surprising – it seems like a very long stretch for the meagre force he commands.

Anyway, Theon confronts Bran and reasons with him that Bran should declare that his people should bow to Theon’s rule, lest he be forced to slaughter them. Bran consents, but is not happy about it. He clearly feels the responsibility for his people. Bran also accuses Theon (rightly) of betraying the Starks, after they brought him up. Theon seems a bit unhinged over his divided loyalty, and in a courtyard when a loyal Stark follower spits at him, he orders the spitter’s death and hacks his head off himself.

Osha approaches Theon at night and seduces him. But it’s a ploy to get access to Bran, his younger brother, and Hodor, whom she releases and leads on an escape into the night. It looks like she’s grown fond of Bran and the Starks, and is going to be helpful to them.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

The Stormlands: Cat and Brienne are talking to Renly Baratheon in his tent, when suddenly a ghostly black shape enters and stabs Renly through the heart. This looks like the demonic thing that Stannis’s red witch woman (whose name I learn is Melisandre) gave birth to at the end of last episode. I thought Renly would last longer than this, but he keels over dead within the first minute of this episode! Alas, the guards rush in and assume Brienne killed Renly, so a fight breaks out. Brienne kills the two guards defending herself.

Brienne is distraught over the death of her liege, but Cat convinces her to flee and avenge him later, rather than die now. Later, as they travel away from Renly’s camp, Cat says she’s heading back to Winterfell. Brienne, impressed with Cat’s bearing, decides to swear allegiance to her. This gives Cat a formidable guard and ally. Perhaps she might need Brienne before much longer.

Meanwhile, Stannis is less than sad at his brother’s death, and Renly’s bannermen look to be switching to his side now. Stannis’s lieutenant (named Davos, the one who took Melisandre to give birth), questions what is going on, and obviously mistrusts Melisandre and her demonic connections. Davos insists that the campaign on King’s Landing not be accompanied by Melisandre, and Stannis agrees. I think he’s lying though… Stannis seems to think Melisandre is well worth having around. What happens next with the demon thing is going to be interesting to see… Was it a one-off thing just to kill Renly, or is it lurking around waiting to strike somewhere else??

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

It looks like Joffrey’s guards weren’t taking Arya, Gendry and the others to King’s Landing… they end up in a new location called Harrenhal: The place looks like a half-melted castle. As they’re marched in, Arya’s fat friend asks what can melt stone, and Arya replies, “dragonfire”.

It turns out this is where Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane is, and each day he chooses a prisoner, apparently at random, to torture to death for information. Over the episode we see a couple get taken away. During the night, Arya recites a list of the people she wants to kill: Cersei, Joffrey, one or two others, and now she adds The Mountain. Finally, Gendry is chosen and strapped to the torture chair. But then Tywin Lannister arrives and tells everyone off for killing valuable prisoners. He asks Gendry if he has a trade and Gendry says he’s a smith. Tywin instantly recognises Arya is a girl, and says she can be his new cup maiden. So they are saved from a terrible fate, at least temporarily.

It seems everything I try to predict about what will happen to Arya next is wrong. So I’ll say she won’t cut Tywin’s throat in his sleep, find her sword, rescue Gendry, and escape from the Lannister camp – because that’s what I want her to do.

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Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

Let’s pick up from last episode’s cliffhanger, North of The Wall: The recap highlights before the opening credits reveal enough that I can now see that it’s the wildling farmer guy carrying a baby into the woods. We don’t see exactly what happens to the baby, but when Jon comes around with a bloodied face he tells his commander that the wildling – whose name is Craster – appeared to be giving a newborn son to some creature/thing. One guess what it was… [cough]white walkers[cough]. Commander Mormont tells Jon to mind his own business, they need allies like Craster north of The Wall. Jon accuses Mormont of knowing all along and Mormont gives him a guilty silence.

Craster has had enough of Jon’s snooping and orders the Watch to leave at first light. Samwell tempts fate by talking to the pregnant daughter again, and then forces her to accept a small thing – I think it’s a thimble, because he tells a story about how his mother used to do sewing with it. She conceals it and goes about her farmwork. Prediction: No doubt this will come back to bite Samwell and the Watch in some way in the future. I imagine Craster will find it and banish his daughter to the forest or something. Or maybe he’ll use it as an excuse to betray the Watch.

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