Air Date: 15 May 2011
Runtime: 55 Minutes
iMDb synopsis: Catelyn has captured Tyrion and plans to bring him to her sister, Lysa Arryn, at the Vale, to be tried for his, supposed, crimes against Bran. Robert plans to have Daenerys killed, but Eddard refuses to be a part of it and quits.
The most random bit of trivia for this episode: Dedicated to Caroline Benoist, the film’s animal trainer, who died of swine flu during production.
In the opening credits we see: King’s Landing (Baratheon sigil), Inn At The Crossroads, The Eyrie, The Bite sea, Winterfell (Stark sigil), The Wall, (backtrack to Kings Landing), The Narrow Sea, Dothraki Sea, and Vaes Dothrak. The Inn almost made it past without my realizing what it said.
In the first moments of this episode, the architecture feels VERY CGI to me. This is a first so far. The tourney has had its first casualty and they are sewing up Sir Hugh’s neck where it had been penetrated by the lance. Here we get a good look at the Silent Sisters who, throughout the books, take care of the dead and return them to their families.
Ned tries to piece together how it is possible that Sir Hugh, who was only Lord Arryn’s squire a short time ago, was able to afford such fine armor? Something is afoul! Ned walk’s into King Robert’s tent where he is trying to squeeze his fat arse into a suit of armor so he could joust. Robert admits to Ned that John Arryn arranged the marriage between he and Cersei.
That moment when you realize that King Robert was one of the squires in A Knight’s Tale!
For just one fleeting moment, Sansa is happy. Sir Loras hands her a flower before his joust against The Mountain. At this moment, we do not realize the long and horrible path this sweet (yet arrogant teen) girl will follow. His armor and his horse’s blanket are beautiful.
I remember watching this the first time and thinking…. awww he is too cocky. He is going to meet his demise! Sansa has a beautiful dragonfly necklace on. The horn blows and the competitors streak across the field toward each other. Sir Loras unseats The Mountain! And in a fit of rage, The Mountain calls his squire with his sword, takes the sword and severs the head of the horse in one blow. He then turns on Sir Loras, who staggers backwards and falls. In the melee, The Hound screams at his brother and then throws himself (sword in hand) between the fallen knight and his brother The Mountain. In a beautifully fluidic moment, the King screams “stop this madness” and The Hound falls immediately to his knee and the Mountain storms off. One of my top favorite moments in the entire series, showing the character of The Hound.
The band of travelers with the prisoner Imp are on the road to the Vale. The are attacked by the Hill Tribes. Bronn puts on an amazing display of fighting. Just when Tyrion sees a clear path to escape, he turns around to save Lady Catelyn from her attacker. Bronn asks if it was Tyrion’s first kill, it is. They begin to form a friendship.
Back at Winterfell, Maester Luwin is teaching Bran geography and the history of each house. Bran is apparently bored. He is upset that his mother left Winterfell (and him). The Maester tells Bran that he should be able to shoot a bow from horseback as Theon practices target in the background.
In this scene, the 2-person pan shot shows Bran with bangs, but when it zooms to him, his hair is split in the middle.
Maester Luwin tells Bran that his mother had sat by his bed for three weeks while he was unconscious. In Game of Thrones: The Kingsroad, Catelyn tells Robb that she had prayed for Bran to the Seven for more than a month.
The official words of House Lannister, which Bran failed to remember, are “Hear Me Roar!”. Maybe the reason is that they are mentioned so rarely both in the books and the show. “A Lannister always pays his debts” is their unofficial motto, which is mentioned much more often.
We quickly shift to naked Theon and Ros, the whore who really gets around. And after she humiliates him, we quickly shift to Arya and the elusive cat.
Maester Luwin, Ros and Theon mention the Greyjoy’s Rebellion that took place nine years before the beginning of the series. The rebellion was crushed and Balon Greyjoy (Theon’s father) was forced to surrender to Robert Baratheon. As penalty for the uprising, Theon was taken from him by the Starks as a ward, which explains why multiple characters keep reminding him that he is not a Stark. Robert also mentions the rebellion indirectly by stating “We haven’t had a real fight in nine years”.
Just down the hallway from her cat-training, Varys is holding confidences with Ned where he tells him that the King is a fool. There are spies everywhere but Varys feels that Ned is trustworthy. He tells Ned that the King is in danger of being killed, poisoned… like John Arryn. The only person that was loyal to Arryn was Sir Hugh, the recently dead knight. Ned asks why was John killed? He started asking questions. We move back to the cat chasing and Arya finds herself along the dragon skulls.
This scene differs slightly from the book version. It still has Varys discussing potential deaths of the hand but not in such an absolute way as in the book. The two men on whom Arya eavesdropped are Illyrio Mopatis and Varys.
Varys then is with Little Finger in the Throne Room. Little Finger offers him a little boy and Varys balks at the idea. They bounce secrets back and forth to impress each other with who knows the most, who knows what. Petyr seems to get the upper hand. I always pronounced it “Peter” until I listened to the audio book.
Arya finds herself outside of the city trying to get back in and i turned away at the door. I like the book Arya at this point much better. Her inner thoughts and her studies with the water dancer give greater definition to her character. She makes her way to find her father and tells Ned that someone in the dungeon said they were out to hill him. He does not pay her close enough attention and then the Night’s Watch come to speak to him (Yuron to be exact). And Arya is excused. Yuron tells Ned that Lady Catelyn has taken the imp into custody.
Lady Catelyn and her fellow travelers meet the Knights of the Vale along the road, she explains that Tyrion is her prisoner. They escort her on to see her sister. They pan to a horribly CGI’ed image of the Eryie.
Ned has been summoned to a small council meeting and surprisingly, the King has not heard of the news regarding Catelyn and Tyrion. Robert is furious about Daenerys being pregnant and he wants to have her assassinated. Varys tells them that Jorah Mormont is their spy in the Dothraki camp. Varys is very vocal in promoting the king’s idea of assassination. All of the council agree, except for Ned. Ned refuses to take part in the plot, removes his Hand pin and leaves the room as the King curses him to his back.
Ned returns to his chambers and tries his best to quickly put together his house so he can leave as quickly as possible. Little Finger holds him up by telling him he will take Ned to the last person Lord Arryn asked to go see before his death. Ned falls for it and puts extr guards on his daughters.
We flip to a woman breastfeeding her son who looks to be TEN! EWWWW
According to the novel, the name of Lysa Arryn’s son is Robert, named after the king Robert Baratheon. In the TV series it was changed to Robin, in order to prevent confusion with Robert the king.
Catelyn realizes that her sister, Lysa is seriously batshit. Seriously… batshit. “Mommy. I want to see the bad man fly.” And then Tyrion is taken to the sky dungeon.
We flip to Robert’s brother Renly and his lover Sir Loras. This was not a part of the book. Loras is shaving Renly’s chest, taking care to not cut off his nipple. I disliked this scene the first go around, I like it even less this time. They discuss the small council and Robert loving the hunt. Loras suggests that Renly think about taking the throne. Loras tells him he will make a great king and then gives him a blow job. I feel terrible, immediately in my head I heard the Lion King song “I just can’t wait…to be king!”
Back in the royal chambers, Cersei is antagonizing Robert a bit about his falling out with Ned. She chastises Robert, just like Ned, about his thoughts of assassination. She takes a glass of wine and drinks it. Which strikes me because Varys made it seem like she was out to poison Robert. He talks about all of the scheming and backstabbing in the kingdom. And then she asks “What was she like?” This allows a conversation about Ned’s sister Lyanna, Robert’s one true love. “She was the one thing I ever wanted. Someone took her away and seven kingdoms could not fill the hole she left behind.” They seem to be having a truly human conversation when Cersei asks him “Was there ever a time for us, ever a moment?” And, almost with anger, he responds “No”.
Little Finger takes Ned to the brothel where the bastard of Robert lives (infant) and his mother. “She looks like him, don’t you think my lord.” Ned asks about John Arryn when he visited, what he asked. Just if he was happy. As Ned leaves the brothel he asks Little Finger about Robert’s bastards. In the street he rungs into the crimson cloaks. He and Jory are out numbered as Jamie arrives, mad that Tyrion has been captured. Little Finger conveniently leaves to find the king’s guard. In the melee, Jamie kills Jory. With all of his men now dead on the street, Ned takes Jamie on himself and during the fight is stabbed from behind by one of the guard.
The bloody encounter between Eddard Stark and Jaime Lannister is significantly different from the novel. According to the novel, it was raining; Eddard and his men were riding horses, not on foot; they encountered the Lannisters on the way back to the Red Keep, not when exiting the brothel; Jaime did not participate at all in the fighting, but told his men to kill Eddard’s guards, then left; Eddard was not speared by one of the Lannister guards, but broke his leg when his horse fell.
| Sean Bean | Eddard ‘Ned’ Stark |
| Mark Addy | Robert Baratheon |
| Nikolaj Coster-Waldau | Jaime Lannister |
| Michelle Fairley | Catelyn Stark |
| Lena Headey | Cersei Lannister |
| Aidan Gillen | Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish |
| Sophie Turner | Sansa Stark |
| Maisie Williams | Arya Stark |
| Alfie Allen | Theon Greyjoy |
| Isaac Hempstead Wright | Bran Stark |
| Jack Gleeson | Joffrey Baratheon |
| Rory McCann | Sandor ‘The Hound’ Clegane |
| Peter Dinklage | Tyrion Lannister |
| Donald Sumpter | Maester Luwin |
| Conleth Hill | Lord Varys |
| Jamie Sives | Jory Cassel |
| Ron Donachie | Rodrik Cassel |
| Jerome Flynn | Bronn |
| Francis Magee | Yoren |
| Ian McElhinney | Barristan Selmy |
| Kate Dickie | Lysa Arryn |
| Julian Glover | Grand Maester Pycelle |
| Gethin Anthony | Renly Baratheon |
| Roger Allam | Illyrio Mopatis |
| Emun Elliott | Marillion |
| Finn Jones | Loras Tyrell |
| Conan Stevens | Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane |
| Ciaran Bermingham | Mord |
| Susan Brown | Septa Mordane |
| Esmé Bianco | Ros |
| Jefferson Hall | Hugh of the Vale |
| Lino Facioli | Robin Arryn |
Thoughts and Ponderances 