SPOILERS
Episode 3 – Lord Snow
Writer – David Benioff & D.B. Weiss.
Director – Brian Kirk
What’s the saying? The King sh*ts and The Hand wipes.
Now we start to get into the main story, it’s still going slow but things are going somewhere. We follow Catelyn to King’s Landing where she discovers the knife that was going to be used to kill her son was originally Tyrion’s – we know it’s not but in terms of plot this revelation for her is important.
We also follow Jon in his first days at The Wall and how he’s hated because of his prior sword training from Winterfell, we hear more about the White Walkers and the coming Winter, Daenerys is becoming more and more the Queen she’s destined to be – much to her brother’s annoyance and we hear the first of her pregnancy and back in King’s Landing Ned starts his duties as the Hand Of The King only to find that his old friend Robert has nearly bankrupted the Kingdom.
There’s the introduction of a lot of new characters, Littlefinger, a coin master that carries a torch for Catelyn, Varys, a man that knows everything from his spies, Renly Barratheon, Robert’s younger brother, Barristar Selmy, a well respected Knight and Jeor Mormont, the Commander of the Night’s Watch – and father to Dany’s friend Jorah but this isn’t explained as much in the show as it is in the books. There’s also Arya’s sword-master Syrio who is just pretty damn cool in his short role. This episode spent a lot of it’s time introducing us to these new characters and expanding the world, it’s slow but it’s still moving forward.
There’s also more backstory that’s revealed, we can actually see the war that occurred before the show began by now. Ned’s father and brother were murdered by The Mad King, Aerys Targaryen who, as the show hopes you remember the surname, is related to Daenerys and Aerys was killed by Jaime.
A lot of this episode involved one-on-one moments and while the show does become infamous for them this is the first episode where it’s used to a knowing effect. Cersei and Joffery discuss what to do with The North if Joffery was King, Jaime tells Cersei that he’ll kill everyone for her – which is romantic in his own cold twisted, incestuous way. Ned and Arya talk about when it’s ok to lie and why Sansa has to stick behind Joffery, Ned also meets Needle for the first time. Jon and Tyrion share a moment on The Wall when Jon realises that aside from both being out-casts Tyrion is the only person to not lie about the harshness of The Wall.
Overall, this is the weakest episode so far (but we are only three in) because it’s still trying to introduce these new characters and this ever-expanding world and it only has the one hour to do so. However this episode still has enough great moments to keep your interest.
7.5/10
Best scene – I have to say the ending again, watching Arya learn how to use a sword from dancing master Syrio was all kinds of awesome but having Ned watch her and hearing swords clashing in his head made this scene. We don’t know if Ned is remembering the past and his own war-like nature or if he’s thinking about a possible future where Arya might have to kill to survive, it’s up to us to make our own distinction
