Game of Thrones: “Two Swords”

Though everyone’s favorite show with more character’s than they can name returned this week, the season four premiere of Game of Thrones just felt lonely.

In the wake of the Red Wedding there was only one more thing Tywin (Charles Dance) could do to show us that he is beating the Starks in the war everyone is not sure is still happening: he melted down Ned Stark’s sword Ice and made it into two swords for House Lannister.

Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) spent all of last season trying to get back to his family and now that he has they don’t seem to want him around. His father gives him one of the two sword made out of Ice. He tells him to take it back with him to Casterly Rock because what good is a one-handed head of the Kingsguard? Jaime points out that he is already known as a oath breaker throughout Westeros and isn’t going to break another oath and leave the Kingsguard. Tywin would rather disown Jamie than allow Tyrion (Peter Dinkelage) to become the Lord of Casterly Rock.

Jamie’s reunion with Cersei (Lena Heady) doesn’t seem to be going so well either. She tells him he took too long to get back to her and too much has changed. Jamie also has to deal with Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) berating him for not being a good enough head of the Kingsguard. He ends up with the only person who has been nice to him in a while: Brienne (Gwendoline Christie). Brienne has also been dealing with being an outsider in the capital. She goes to Margaery (Natalie Dormer), the only person she knows, and tells her what really happened to Renly. Being the honorable knight that she is, she then gets on Jamie for not agreeing to keep his promise that he would help her return the Stark girls to safety.

Jamie uses the lame excuse that Sansa (Sophie Turner) is a Lannister now and should keep her safe. Brienne calls him crap on that. And with his only real friend doubting him along with everyone else, Jamie storms off.

A lot of the other King’s Landing scenes were dedicated to introducing Oberyn Martel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma). They are there for Joffery and Margery’s wedding. Tywin has forced Tyrion to deal with him but he is probably the best person to. He is able to get the truth out of Oberyn to way he came since the Martells and the Lannister have never gotten along. Oberyn said he come because the Mountain killed his sister Elia, (Rhagear’s wife, Daenerys’ sister-in-law) during the Sack of King’s Landing during Robert’s Rebellion. He makes it rather clear that if he sees the Mountain — and isn’t having sex with his girlfriend and multiple other people — he is going to kill him.

Tyrion also fell victim to the not-being-wanted sub-theme. Sansa is refusing to eat or really speak to anyone since she thinks her entire family is dead. Tyrion tries to help and does a nice job, but Sansa doesn’t want to hear it and runs off to the Godswood. Shae (Sibel Kekilli) is also running off on Tyrion after he says he doesn’t want to sleep with her because he is a little worried by the level of constant danger in King’s Landing. The danger is being made worse with the Martells in town and Joffrey’s wedding coming up.

Across the Narrow Sea, the show is letting us know that is it doing well and has an increased CGI budget with Dany’s (Emilia Clarke) first scene. Her dragons have gotten a lot bigger just like her army has. She has a quick scene with a re-cast Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman). He is both flirting with her like crazy and trying to help her be a better queen. But, Dany gets pulled away from that adviser by her other two. Jorah (Iain Glen) tells her that the body of a Yunkai’i slave, who she freed at the end of last season, is tied to every mile marker from her location to Meeren, the next free city 163 miles away. The Mhysa is not very happy about this.

While Dany seems to get exempt from the loneliness plague, Jon (Kit Harrington) didn’t. He made it back to Castle Black, but the higher-ups are not very happy with him. He has to go in front of them and answer for his actions. Jon admits to killing the Halfhand, deserting the Night’s Watch and laying with Ygritte (Rose Leslie). He said he had to do whatever was needed so the Wildlings would accept him. But, he calls them the Free People and that doesn’t sit very well with Janos Slynt. But, Jon lets him know that leading the City Watch and facing what is beyond the Wall are very different things.

Capping off all the loneliness and not belonging is the Hound (Rory McCann) and Ayra (Maisie Williams). She is confused why he hasn’t just left her somewhere because she has no where to go. He tells her he is going to sell her to her aunt in the Vale, because he has no money and they have no food. They eventually stop at an inn planning on just demanding food, I guess. Ayra spots Polliver, the guy who was torturing people at Harrenhal, at the inn and he has Needle with him. She wants to kill them all and get it back. The Hound really doesn’t want to kill people without eating first and I really love these two together.

Inside the inn, Polliver says the Hound should join his brother’s men, who are basically just raping and pillaging the Riverlands. The Hound is getting more and more pissed at him and after some more threats at him and Ayra, the Hound flips the table and starts killing his men.

Ayra hangs back for bit but smashes a pot on one guys head when he gets too close to injuring the Hound. She then sees a chance to take Needle back. She stands above Polliver and re-enacts how he killed Lemmy with Needle last season. She might not be Dany, but Ayra is getting pretty badass.

Overall, it was a pretty good episode. Expect for the fight at the end, it was a lot of sitting in rooms and talking with a splash of unnecessary nudity. It was interesting but kind of slow. There was a lot of foreshadowing in this episode and a couple important pins, but I’m not going to spoil anything in these posts.

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