Tyrion’s Champion
The central columns of this episode are our visits to Tyrion’s cell, as he tries to arrange a champion to fight for him in his trial by combat. Cersei’s champion will be Ser Gregor Clegane, “The Mountain”, whom we’re shown butchering a crowd of helpless peasants at the beginning of the show, presumably as a warm-up.

The first choice, his once-masterful brother Jaime, is now missing his dominant hand, and his efforts at training the other one haven’t gone so well. The next choice his Bronn, whose victory in a previous trial by combat helped the two forge a lasting relationship– though neither would use that word. Bronn, though is all set to marry Lollys Stokeworth, and off her older sister Falyse so he’ll inherit their father’s castle– he doesn’t fancy his chances against The Mountain, anyway. Tyrion applauds his selfishness, but looks doomed.

An unlikely ray of light arrives in the form of Prince Oberyn of House Martell. He believes The Mountain killed his sister, and sees the trial as a chance to extract justice, although Tyrion warns him that King’s Landing is the entirely the wrong place for that. It’s a noble move from a very likeable character; since Oberyn joined the cast at the beginning of this season he’s been one of my favorites: cocksure of himself, philosophical about his licentiousness, and entirely unmoved by the machinery of power used by the ruling Lannister/Baratheon house.

Who will triumph? We know little about Oberyn’s combat skills besides his reputation as a formidable warrior, which is pretty nebulous. If The Mountain excels in strength then we might reasonably suppose Oberyn excels in skill– there was a brief glimpse of the trial by combat in the season 4 trailer, and it looks spectacular.The Odd Couple


There’s a bit of stereotypical “odd coupling” about Arya and The Hound’s pairing, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. Despite her hardships, and hardening ruthlessness in battle, Arya remains wide-eyed, inquisitive, and idealistic. The Hound is world-weary, pessimistic, and pragmatic. He’s also the wittiest character in the show, in my opinion: he may not have the guile of Tyrion Lannister, or the knowledge of Varys, or indeed the range of accents deployed by Petyr Baelish, but he has the delivery. His nonchalant “He on your little list?” as he and Arya are ambushed by two of Yoren’s prisoners who had threatened to rape Arya as she rode with them to the Wall drips with swagger; Arya scores a kill with a stab to the heart, and The Hound notices that she’s learning.In MerreenDaenerys is growing into the authoritative Queen we always expected her to become. It’s worth noting that she starts off significantly younger in the books (13 at the outset), so that the bildungsroman aspect of her arc are slightly dulled by the TV show’s decision to cast her as older. Her growing regality, though, is a thing to behold, as Emilia Clarke dominates the screen and makes her advisors grateful to be in her presence.

As if there weren’t enough internet memes about Ser Jorah Mormont being ensconced in Daenerys’s friendzone, he bumps into Daario Naharis outside Dany’s quarters, right after Daario has slept with a more sexually confident Khaleesi. He’s allowed some solo time with her too, though, and manages to convince her not to butcher all of the masters in Yunkai– and she makes it abundantly clear that he was the one to change her mind. It seems that Dany has learned to be a very competent manager of people on the micro-level of her inner circle, but whether she can do this on a macro-level remains to be seen.Down With Lysa


The episode ends with a talking point as big as the trial by combat: Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish kissing the daughter of the love of his life, Sansa Stark, and Sansa not immediately pulling away– though we can hardly blame her for putting her life ahead of her romantic preferences. The whole thing is witnessed by Sansa’s auntie, Lysa, whom Littlefinger had promised to marry. As Lysa holds Sansa over the “Moon Door”, Littlefinger talks her down and pushes Lysa out instead, as if he’d been planning the scenario all along.

It seems that everything is going according to Littlefinger’s plan, but just what is that plan? We mustn’t forget it included the not-unspectacular feat of murdering King Joffrey at his own wedding. He now has “the key to the North”, as Sansa was dubbed by Tywin Lannister, under his control, for the time being at least. What next?