Tis quite good to be back. “Two Swords” was your typical Game of Thrones premiere episode; a reunion of fans, characters, and their storylines to ease the viewer back into the various plots and worlds of Game of Thrones. And the viewer better get used to more characters being introduced because Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand are just the tip of the Martell iceberg (hopefully that won’t come until the end of the season).
Most importantly “Two Swords” introduced Oberyn Martell, the second Prince of Dorne. Oberyn seems consumed to seek revenge on The Mountain to avenge his sister’s death, his sister being raped and slain by The Mountain during the battle for the throne that saw Robert Baratheon take it. Oberyn is definitely a bit of a badass with a great introduction scene of him in one of Littlefinger’s whorehouses perusing the wares for Ellaria Sand, his paramour.
Once he chooses and convinces the overseer of the whorehouse, who is not being peddled, to join him in bed he hears some lesser Lannisters carousing about in the room next to him. Showing his dislike of both the Lannisters along with his acumen for battle and his take action attitude he immediately stabs one in the wrist and leaves it up to his companion to either attack Oberyn and lose his friend or take his friend to get patched up. Tyrion breaks it up and sort of bonds, as much as one can with someone who hates your family, with Oberyn. Oberyn will certainly be hovering over King’s Landing for most of the season and, hopefully, will get ample screen time.
The happenings in King’s Landing seem to be focused around Joffrey’s impending marriage to Margaery Tyrell. It seems like this will happen within the next two episodes but Game of Thrones does like to string out plot lines if there is little else for the characters to do the rest of the season. The wedding is, of course, the reason why Oberyn is in King’s Landing.
Following the episode’s cold open featuring Ned Stark’s sword being melted down and forged into two swords for the Lannisters was, perhaps, one of the most enjoyable aspects of Season 3 – Tywin sitting behind his desk and delegating. This time it was Jaime who, after receiving one of the swords Tywin made for him, refused to take Tywin’s orders to become the lord of Casterly Rock. Where Tywin was completely in control last year whenever having a debate or conversation it looks as though some of his magic has gone with the dawn of a new season. For the rest of the episode Jaime feels out of place as Cersei spurns his desire to rekindle their love and Joffrey diminishes Jaime because of his one good hand and his newly fashioned gold hand.
Jaime had been seen for most of the series as a bad guy, someone who butt heads with Robb Stark and did so with far too much arrogance. His plot looks to be changing however, especially if his family continues to relegate him to a lower status. When Joffrey was looking in the book of the lore of all the Kingsguard it seemed that Jaime was unhappy with his lack of accomplishments and has a desire to begin to fill his page up.
And the Lannisters are no stranger to relegating family members as Tyrion has seen himself fall from the King’s Hand to the leader of a paltry greeting party for the Prince of Dorne, Doran Martell. Unfortunately he is only met by the Martell bannermen who tell Tyrion that Doran could not make it to Joffrey’s wedding due to illness and that Oberyn had already entered King’s Landing. After Tyrion breaks up the whorehouse kerfuffle with Oberyn he gets Sansa’s cold shoulder when he tries to comfort her and then pisses Shae off when he reminds her that she can’t just show up in his bed chambers. Poor Tyrion.
For those hungering for action you got some at the very end of “Two Swords” with the promise of more to come later in the season. First, Arya and The Hound are great together as neither one wants to back down from the other. The Hound gets in a fight in an inn somewhere in Westeros and Arya eventually joins in the fray, retrieving Needle, the sword that was taken from her before she was taken to Harrenhal. The Hound, however, brought the most brutality by repeatedly impaling one of the men’s eyes repeatedly on his sword. These two will be great to see together for the season and will offer a nice respite from some of the more political aspects of King’s Landing.
The big battle, however, will be coming up North. Jon tells the remaining leadership council of the Night’s Watch what he had seen when he was North of The Wall with the Wildlings, warning them of the impending attack. Maester Aemon let’s Jon go unpunished for his betrayal of Qhorin Halfhand because Jon was “telling the truth.” The episode also checks up on Ygritte and Tormund as they ready their weapons and meet up with the Thenns, a Wildling tribe of cannibals. This will probably unfold rather slowly but the impending attack is certainly something to look forward towards.
Perhaps a more immediate attack would be Dany’s on the city Meereen. Her many troops and freed slaves march towards Meereen to free some more slaves. On the way they come across mileposts with a dead slave girl pointing towards Meereen – which definitely sticks in Dany’s craw. If that’s not enough Daario is still intent on wooing her. And, yes, Daario has been recast for whatever reason and looks completely different. And, perhaps, the best part of visiting Dany this episode is seeing that her dragons have grown and look more realistic than ever.
“Two Swords” left out updates on Bran, Stannis, and Theon so expect next week’s episode to heavily focus on those characters. “Two Swords” marked the very welcome return of Game of Thrones. It may not have set up may story lines for the season or many consequential moments but it filled its primary purpose to reintroduce all the characters and what has happened since the season finale. It’s just good to be back in Westeros and Essos again.