Quick and Dirty Plot:
Ned Stark (Sean Bean) has made it to King’s Landing to do right-hand-man stuff. There, he meets some other people in the king’s circle: Lord Varys (Conleth Hill) and Littlefinger aka Petyr (Aiden Gillen). While at some meeting, Varys and Littlefinger are all, “Let’s do something fun like a jousting competition and some archery shenanigans.” They plan to have prizes for the winners and stuff. But Ned learns that the crown is 6 million Westeros currency in debt, and he’s all “Heck no!” This demonstrates he’s an outsider. Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya (Maisie Williams) are not getting along because Arya was stupid and got Sansa’s direwolf killed. Ned has a heart-to-heart with Arya and gets her sword fighting lessons.
Back at Winterfell, Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) woke up, which is good, but he is super bummed he won’t be able to walk and climb things again. Bran also doesn’t remember the whole twincest incident, which is for the best. At the Wall, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) learns about this little thing called privilege. Jon Snow excels at all the things and Lord Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) pops in saying, “No duh. You may be a bastard but you had a bougie lifestyle.”
Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and the Dothraki are continuing their trek. Daenerys is not happy about slavery. At one point, her creepy brother (Harry Lloyd) gets mad at her and tries to harm her, but the Dothraki are like, “Nah, boo. Ain’t letting that happen.” Daenerys also learns that she is pregnant. Guess those horribly awkward sex scenes paid off??
Back at King’s Landing, Cersei (Lena Headey) is teaching her stupid son Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) about Machiavellian ruling tactics. Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) just lurks the whole episode. Weird. Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) arrives in King’s Landing to let her husband know what’s what about Bran. While there, she sees Varys and Littlefinger. She apparently knew them previously. Friends from college? Reunited, Catelyn tells Ned about Bran’s assassination attempt. She brought the knife and learned from Littlefinger that it belonged to Lord Tyrion. Ned is all, “That’s nice. You can go back North now. Write to you later!” And then Catelyn leaves.
Takeaways:
Am I stupid? Did I miss a whole bunch of backstory? I am starting to piece some stuff together. So, Ned’s brother and father were killed by the Mad King (Daenerys’s dad). Then Jamie and some people killed the king and put Robert into power. That is all I understand at this point. Three episodes in. “Game of Thrones” is really confusing, y’all.
Does Arya get better? I need to know. She is a little bit (a lot a bit) of a brat. Ned getting her sword fighting lessons is not going to help. It will just make her more bold. And she has blood on her hands. Direwolf blood. Sansa was barely in the episode. I kind of like her. So I was bored with the heavy Arya stuff.
I just don’t understand Jon Snow. He literally knows nothing. What has he been doing all of this time? Play fighting and brooding?! For someone who is a bastard, he was pretty sheltered. How does he make it to the end? I am honestly surprised. He literally goes by “Lord Snow” aka the name of the episode. You are pretty privileged if people call you Lord Anything. I did appreciate Lord Tyrion not sugarcoating the situation. He’s the first person to actually talk to Jon Snow about the realities of the world around him. The Lannisters are so weird. Are Jaime and Cersei the first people in their family to twincest or is there a long line of incest? They are too odd for there not to be something.
This episode did feel like a setup for Daenerys to start being a boss. We saw that the Dothraki respect her and see her as their queen. I am hoping that the next episode has more of her doing something. Anything! I know I have said it before, but I will say it again (and probably many more times): Everything regarding Daenerys shows how painfully unaware the male writers and showrunners are about women. They are going to do big things with her as the show progresses, but she just feels like an after-after-thought.
I am continuing to wait for the hook of the show. I still haven’t found it. I think my background knowledge of what is to come is keeping me patient, but this show is really slow. If I were to ditch it here, it would not be memorable. Okay, the twincest is memorable, but not in a good way. Let’s see what episode four brings! More Daenerys, less twincest!
Out-of-Context Notes:
- That map in the title sequence is confusing
- And what’s Prince Charming doing here?
- Lord Varys looks like that foot fetish serial killer (Jerry Brudos)
- Now that Bran is awake, he has to lay in bed, listening to some old lady
- Oh, Bran can’t remember the twincest, probably for the best
- That dagger belonged to Tyrion! But I like him…
- Oh sweet, the Wall has an elevator
- It’s over. Did anything happen??
“Game of Thrones” is available to watch on HBO and HBO Max.
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Featured image credit: HBO
Morgan Roberts (she/her) was by films and television. She spent many nights watching “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” or whatever the family rented from Blockbluster. Morgan is particularly interested in cinematography, supporting female filmmakers and “Fleabag.” Outside of a deep love of film, Morgan is passionate about mental health advocacy, gender equality and true crime podcasts. Morgan also contributes to In Their Own League.