Ned Stark has just arrived in King's Landing, where he will act as hand to the King, if everything goes as planned. As he enters the throne room, he is warmly greeted by Jaime Lannister.
Ned just can't take a joke, it seems. He insults Jaime, but Jaime isn't discouraged. He tries to reconnect with his old buddy by reminiscing about the good times.
But Ned isn't impressed. He starts rambling on about how Jaime had just stood and watched the Mad King, Aerys Targaryen, kill his father in the first place, and how it took sooo long for him to get around to killing the King, just because it wasn't convenient for him at the time.
Man, Ned. Get over yourself. I mean, sure. Maybe Jaime and his peeps did just happen to watch as the Mad King Aerys Targaryen burned his father alive, but he got around to avenging him eventually! He just wanted to serve the King a little while longer first. I mean, gosh! What does Ned expect?
Ned moves on to meet with some of King Robert's trusted advisers, including the king's brother and a man who knew Ned's wife and brother back in the day.
But that will have to wait. This council has very important matters to attend to.
King Robert wants to hold a tournament for entertainment, complete with games and prizes. And whores, probably. And these guys are in charge of organizing it.
The only issue is that the royal treasury is about 6 million in the red. The King, as it turns out, is not so good with money, and he has borrowed at least 3 million from the Lannisters. Ned decides it would be best to maybe not hold an expensive tournament given these circumstances.
Meanwhile, Queen Cersei is helping Prince Joffrey bandage his wounds, telling him how badass these scars will make him look, especially if he tells everyone the heroic tale of how he got them and bravely killed the beast that did it.
But Joffrey doesn't like that idea. He can't just tell people a made up story about himself! It wouldn't make any sense! They just need to accept him for who he is and do what he says. And when he's King, he'll start by kicking the North in the face and demanding tribute from them. Good game plan. Taxing people into poverty is a great way to keep their loyalty.
Back at the new Stark home, Ned brings home a gift for Sansa.
She doesn't like it.
Ned goes into Arya's room to have a talk about her recent violent tendencies. She has been pretty steamed at Prince Joffrey for cutting up her friend's face and lying about it, and she really doesn't want Sansa to marry him. Ned tells her that she and Sansa are family, so regardless of how Sansa behaves they need to stick together. So suck it up, you big baby.
Meanwhile, back in Winterfell, Bran asks his grandmother to tell him a scary story. She tells him
of a time when winter lasted for years on end. No crops would grow. Mothers killed their children, so they wouldn't have to watch them starve. She knows what's up.
Bran's brother, Robb, relieves the batty old crone of her bedside duties. He asks if Bran remembers anything about how he fell. He doesn't remember anything. (And he'll keep not remembering anything, if the brat knows what's good for him!) Bran asks if it's true that he'll never walk again.
Catelyn Stark arrives in King's Landing and is immediately escorted into a building filled with half naked women. Oh, and this guy:
She is displeased about being brought into a whorehouse, but he assures her that if she wishes to be covert, this is the last place anyone would go looking for her. They are able to discuss freely her theory about the Lannisters trying to kill her son. It turns out, this guy knows exactly whose knife the failed assassin used--his own. He had lost it to Tyrion Lannister in a bet some time ago.
Over at Castle Black, Jon Snow is stabbing a man in the face.
As part of the training for the Night's Watch, the recruits are pitted against each other. Jon is just beasting his way through this thing. The man is a maniac.
Unfortunately, this raises the ire of all of the other Watchmen-in-training, and hardly even impresses the trainer. What does it take to get a little recognition around here?
Meanwhile, back at King's Landing, Ned gets word that his son woke up, but his legs are just busted straight to shit. Then this fucking guy comes in and tells Ned he might want to tell his wife, because guess where she is?
Ned doesn't take too kindly to the implications of that statement.
But the jokes on him! His wife was in the brothel! And everyone learned a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusions.
Inside, they were able to discuss, in more detail, the evidence for the Lannisters' involvement in Bran's tumble. Unfortunately, if they were to simply come forth with an accusation, they could be declared treasonous, and that would end poorly for them. Ned agrees to speak with the King about it in private, in the hopes that his old friend won't let him down.
Back at Castle Black, Jon's first sparring partner is ticked off at him for some reason. Something about breaking his nose, or some other such nonsense.
He and his buddies all jump Jon, but luckily Tyrion walks in at just the right moment to let them know that he could report all of them to his sister, the Queen, if they do not stand down.
After they stand down, Tyrion tells Jon all about who they are and why they're here. Most of them had hard lives, turning to petty theft just so that they could survive. When given the choice of amputation or becoming a Watchman, they reluctantly chose the latter. Very few of them had ever even swung a sword before, whereas Jon had training from some of the best of Winterfell's swordsmen. He needs to gain some perspective.
Word of Bran's awakening has also reached Cersei and Jaime. Cersei is not too pleased about all this defenestration business, and she worries about what will happen if Bran remembers what he saw later. Jaime has other things on his mind...
Jaime says that if the kid talks, they'll say he's lying. If the King isn't fooled, well, guess he has to die. He will go to war if it means he gets to keep boffing his sister. Now that's love right there.
Later on, King Robert is having a chat with an old soldier about the first time each of them killed a man.
He decides to call Jaime in to remind him that he gets to stand outside having no fun while the King gets to sit inside having all the fun. Then he asks him about some of his kills, including what the previous King had said when Jaime stabbed him. Gosh, it's a good thing Jaime is such a reasonable guy, or this kind of thing could really put the King's life in jeopardy.
Meanwhile in who-the-fuck-knows-where, the Dothraki are still trotting along on horseback when their Khaleesi, Daenerys, instructs them to stop the horde. She gets off and walks through the forest where she is met by Viserys who is mad at her for giving him orders, apparently? I'm not entirely sure when she did that, but long story short, he verbally abuses her at swordpoint, only for one of the Dothraki to catch his neck in a whip and yank him to the ground.
Daenerys commands the Dothraki lad to let her brother go. Viserys gets up and demands that the Dothraki lad be killed. Everyone ignores him. He is made to walk the rest of the journey without a horse.
When they get to their next camp, one of Daenerys' servants is...
...um. This seems private. Let's check in on Viserys' advisor, who is having a chat about weapons and armor with the Dothraki lad who had made a fool of Viserys earlier. It's not long before they are speaking entirely in the Dothraki tongue. Luckily, I have a handy phrasebook to help translate that.
Sounds about right. Anyway, Daenerys' servant bursts into the room with important news:
Back at Castle Black, Tyrion has a dispute with some of the Watchmen about what's really beyond the wall. He doesn't believe in the tall tales they tell about monsters. Some of them find this insulting, as they have guarded this wall with their lives. One man simply gives a warning that winter is coming, and this one is going to last many years, like the winters of the old days, and with it the return of the White Walkers. He tells Tyrion that they're going to need more men, trained men, to help them guard the wall.
Oh, and Arya gets sword fighting/dance lessons from Syrio Forel, perhaps the most wonderful character on the show so far. There are simply no words. All my yes.
QUESTIONS:
...Have you ever been 6 million dollars in debt? What advice would you give to King Robert to help him out?
...Can you see how swag Joffrey be?
...Jon Snow beat five men in a row. How many can you beat?
...What the fuck is axial tilt?
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