Vair.

Season 1, Episode 02: The Kingsroad

Okay, before I get into this episode, here’s a map. It helps if you’ve got an idea where some of these places are. The major locations in the last episode were Winterfell (up north, above the wolf), the Wall (even further north, the border between the gray and the white), and Pentos, which is on this map because no one cares about anything east of the Narrow Sea.

So we open up this episode with Jorah telling a whiny Danaerys about her husband’s culture, mostly to pacify her because her ass hurts from riding on horseback all the time. Oh, and we find out through a gross conversation with Viserys that Jorah was exiled from Westeros by Ned Stark because he sold some poachers into slavery. Honestly, Danaerys’ whole storyline is boring af until the latest seasons, with a few highlights for dragons.

Back in Winterfell! Tyrion slaps his insensitive nephew, and it is GLORIOUS! Here, have a gif.

Oh, and that guy behind the prince is THE HOUND. His real name is Sandor Clegane, but everyone calls him the Hound because he’s ugly and brutal.

Then we get an interesting breakfast with the Lannisters where Cersei and Jaime learn that Bran might survive his injuries, and Tyrion makes it super awkwardly obvious that he knows exactly what happened. (Oh, and we’re also introduced to MYRCELLA BARATHEON and TOMMEN BARATHEON, the younger princess and prince, but they’re not important until way later.)

Cersei visits Catelyn and coma-induced Bran to offer sympathies and somehow manages to make it about herself!

The Starks are getting ready to part ways! The girls, Sansa and Arya, are going down to KING’S LANDING (the capital) with Ned and Jon’s headed to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch. Jon gives Arya a little sword she calls Needle as a farewell present. There’s some tension when Jon goes to say bye to Bran while Catelyn is by his bedside. Robb and Jon hug at the gate before Jon leaves!

Ned bids good-bye to Jon, and tells him that he’s a Stark by blood, even if not by name, and IT’S BEAUTIFUL OK. Jon asks his father about his mother, and Ned promises he’ll finally tell him about her the next time they see each other.

On the Kingsroad, Ned and Robert talk about the good ol’ days, but then they get into a fight when Robert proposes sending an assassin after Danaerys. He’s got some wicked hate for all Targaryens because they killed the woman he loved (Ned’s sister Lyanna), and he insists Ned should hate them, too, for what they did to her and to his father and brother, but Ned won’t condone killing a child. This is gonna be an ongoing issue.

Tyrion’s going up to the Wall with Jon and Benjen because he just wants to see it, and he starts to pull the wool off Jon’s eyes about the Night’s Watch. It’s a form of punishment in the Kingdoms, so there’s a lot of criminals up there that Jon now has to consider “brothers.”

Back in Winterfell, Maester Luwin (he’s like their doctor and scribe combined) comes in to Bran’s room to talk to Catelyn about running Winterfell while Ned’s gone, but she gets pissed, and Robb steps in to take over those responsibilities himself. As Robb starts scolding his mother for not taking care of the youngest Rickon, he sees a fire in one of the towers and goes off to help put it out. It turns out to be a distraction, though, because an assassin tries to kill Bran! Catelyn tries to stop him, but it’s Bran’s pet direwolf that actually breaks down the door and rips out the guy’s throat. GOOD BOY!

Catelyn goes back to the “scene of the crime” to try to figure out how Bran fell and why tf someone would wanna assassinate a 10-year-old, and she finds a blonde hair in the tower he was pushed from. She conveys her suspicions to the maester and head guard and Robb and Theon, and they decide they have to tell Ned. She doesn’t trust a raven with the news, so she and the head guard (Ser Rodrik) decide to go to King’s Landing themselves.

Danaerys’ scenes in this episode really just have to do with her learning how to fuck her husband so that she actually enjoys it.

Joffrey and Arya get into a fight. Arya’s wolf, Nymeria, takes a bite out of Joffrey’s arm to protect her, and he’s nasty with Sansa when she tries to help. Arya tells Nymeria to run away because they’ll kill her for that.

When they find Arya, she’s held before the king and queen to decide what to do for her “offense.” After some he-said-she-said bull crap, the king decides that children should be disciplined by their parents, but the queen demands that a direwolf die for the crime. Since Nymeria is gone, Sansa’s wolf, Lady, is executed. Ned does it himself and sends her body back north where she belongs. Sansa is devastated, and combined with her lying in Joffrey’s favor, this will drive a deeper wedge between Sansa and Arya.

Season 1, Episode 01: Winter is Coming

Alright, the episode opens up with an introduction to WHITE WALKERS (fuckin’ ice zombies) and the NIGHT’S WATCH (poor bastards sworn to protect the Seven Kingdoms from ice zombies). Three Night’s Watchmen go up north of THE WALL (700 ft of ICE that’s supposed to keep zombies out (yeah, Trump totally stole this idea)) and get attacked by zombies, but only one of them lives.

Then he gets caught by some guards of WINTERFELL, and we’re introduced to a fuck ton of characters at once.

EDDARD “NED” STARK -- Lord of Winterfell and the guy in charge of most of the people in the northern region of Westeros (that’s the name of the continent). He’s kind of our main character in season one.

CATELYN STARK -- Ned’s wife and the mother of his five legitimate children. She’s a good mom and wife, sweet but firm and very level-headed.

ROBB STARK -- The eldest Stark child, and the heir.

JON SNOW -- Ned’s bastard. He’s well kept and fed like nobility, but he can’t hold titles or anything like that. Catelyn hates him.

THEON GREYJOY -- Ned’s ward.

SANSA STARK -- The eldest daughter, second eldest child. Good at needlework, very ladylike.

ARYA STARK -- The second daughter, who’s better at archery than her little brother and hates needlework.

BRAN STARK -- The second son, who is ten and bad at archery. Good at climbing castle walls, though.

RICKON STARK -- The youngest child, who is like seven and bad at everything.

So yeah, Ned goes to kill the deserter because that’s his job and, “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” He’s very dramatically honorable. Oh, and the guy tells Ned he saw White Walkers, but Ned says they’ve been dead for ages.

So then they’re on their way back, and then find a dead stag and a dead direwolf, with puppies. Super weird because direwolves haven’t been south of The Wall in centuries, but the Stark kids are gonna raise the puppies. Ned’s worried because the stag is the sigil of the royal family, and the direwolf is his house sigil, so if you believe in omens, this is a bad one.

We get like this brief scene of CERSEI LANNISTER (she’s the queen, and she’s married to ROBERT BARATHEON, but no one calls her Cersei Baratheon for some reason) and her twin brother JAIME LANNISTER talking about their deadly secret at the funeral of a guy who apparently found out about it. The dead guy is JON ARRYN, and he was sort of like a father to both the king and to Ned. He was the Hand of the King (the guy who basically does all the king’s chores while the king just gets fat), so Robert needs a new one.

So the king and his entire fuckin’ family go up to Winterfell so Robert can ask Ned to be his Hand. This is also when we find out that not only were Robert and Ned raised together, but they should have been brothers-in-law because Robert was engaged to Ned’s sister Lyanna before she died. Robert decides they’ll join their houses by marrying his son JOFFREY BARATHEON to Ned’s daughter, Sansa, and Ned is quiet because king but he’s like *INTERNALLY SCREAMING* because this is a lot to take in, dude, slow down!

Oh, yeah, and we meet TYRION LANNISTER in a brothel. He’s the queen’s other brother, a dwarf. He’s a lush, but he’s brilliant.

So then we get a scene in Pentos, which is across the Narrow Sea and not in King Robert’s lands. Here, we’re introduced to DANAERYS TARGARYEN, whose brother VISERYS TARGARYEN is preparing her to be wed to a savage Dothraki ruler, KHAL DROGO, like a brood mare basically so that Drogo will lend him an army to invade Westeros with. Viserys is a douchebag, and Danaerys is a quiet girl who doesn’t want to marry a savage who doesn’t even speak the same language. They’re the only survivors of House Targaryen, and their father, the Mad King Aerys, was the king before Robert usurped him and sent the Targaryens into exile.

There’s a feast in Winterfell for the king when Ned’s brother Benjen rides in. Benjen’s a Night Watchman, and he came to recruit, and Jon Snow wants to go. “Taking the black” (which is the slang term for joining the Night’s Watch) is basically the most honorable thing a bastard can do. Benjen tries to discourage him because Night’s Watchmen can’t have families, but Jon doesn’t care about that. Then Jon has an odd conversation with Tyrion about sons who aren’t wanted (since they have that in common, as Tyrion’s a dwarf). Tyrion advises Jon to “own” his status, to wear it like armor so it can’t be used to hurt him.

Sansa gets a crush on Joffrey. It’s gross because Joffrey’s an sadistic fuck, but we don’t know that yet.

Catelyn gets a secret message from her sister, Jon Arryn’s wife, claiming that he was murdered by the Lannisters. Ned was indecisive about accepting the title before, but he feels compelled to investigate the claim and protect the king from his crazy in-laws.

So then we get Danaerys’ marriage to Drogo. The newlyweds just sit on a dais and watch, but it’s a pretty savage event. “A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair.” They get some weird ass gifts (like fuckin’ SNAKES?), but one guy who brings Danaerys books is JORAH MORMONT, and he’ll become a translator and friend for her. Finally, she’s presented with three dragon eggs. They’re assumed to be petrified after hundreds of years. Oh, and it’s important to note that the wife of a Khal (Dothraki ruler) is called KHALEESI, because that’s how she’ll be known now. Drogo’s wedding present to her is a horse. Then they ride off into the sunset to consummate their marriage, and it’s sort of... well, you can definitely tell she’s doing it because she has to. Drogo’s not brutal like she expected, though.

So then the king, Ned, and a bunch of the men go on a hunting trip back in Winterfell, and Bran goes climbing on the walls of the damn castle again like a total lunatic. Buuuut he accidentally catches the queen and her twin brother having sex... And yeah, to protect their secret, Jaime throws Bran out the window.