REVIEW: Game of Thrones, season four, episode one

LONG distance relationships are tough under the best of circumstances. But apparently, a long distance relationship with your twin sister is particularly tricky.

JAIME Lannister is back in King’s Landing, and Game of Thrones is back on TV. What a combination.

The first hour of season four was a slow, methodical reintroduction to Westeros. It wasn’t a spectacular episode, but it did contain a bunch of important plot points, along with some rip-snorting character development.

I repeat. Rip-snorting.

GoT: Who should live and who should die?

REMINDER: We’re talking about the TV show here. If you’ve read the books, that’s fantastic, but keep any earth-shattering spoilers to yourself or I’ll get Oberyn Martell to pin you to a table. The Dornish way.

“By the way, I’m probably going to murder your whole family.”

Key points

• In a long opening sequence set to the increasingly familiar Rains of Castamere, Tywin had Ned Stark’s old sword, Ice, melted down. This scene was about as subtle as one of Sandor Clegane’s disembowelments. The Starks are done. Defeated. DEAD. Got that?

• Tywin then used the extremely rare Valyrian steel from Ice to forge two new swords. He gave one of them to Jaime, who struggled to, err, handle it, and the other ... is currently in an unspecified location. Along with most of Jaime’s hair, his beard, and his street cred.

• The Hand of the King (an unfortunate title, given the circumstances) also ordered Jaime to return to the Lannisters’ home, Casterly Rock. But Jaime refused, preferring to honour his oath as a Kingsguard and, rather conveniently, remain in the same postcode as that twin sister he likes to fondle.

“Wait, you’re disobeying? That can’t be right. I gave you the glare and everything.”

• We were introduced to Oberyn Martell, a Dornish prince who really loves perving on people, and really hates the most powerful family in Westeros. When Tyrion found Oberyn casually pinning some poor sod’s wrist to a table with his knife, the guy basically admitted he was in King’s Landing to murder Lannisters.

• Dany’s dragons, which are suddenly HUGE by the way, displayed their sophistication by fighting over the corpse of a goat. Or was it a sheep? All the blood made it pretty hard to tell. Anyway, Dany appeared to be unnerved by the idea that she could actually lose control over three bad-tempered, fire-breathing monsters. Never saw that coming.

• In other news, Dany doesn’t approve of gambling. But she certainly does approve of strange, insubordinate foreign men who hit on her using poisonous flowers. I have yet to decide whether middle-aged, bearded, everyman Daario is better than the walking chin from last season. But I’m willing to bet Ser Friend Zone still doesn’t like him.

“He was way hotter last season. But still. The poisonous flowers were nice.”

• Sansa is still miserable. All the freaking time. But she ran into that drunk guy from Joffrey’s Name Day — actually, he was totally stalking her — and he gave her a sort-of-pretty necklace. That lifted dear Sansa’s mood to such an extent that she might actually acknowledge Shae’s existence in the next episode. Maybe.

• Shae herself tried to seduce Tyrion on Sansa’s bed, which was extremely unprofessional of her. She obviously hasn’t read every page of the handmaidens’ handbook. When Tyrion refused to initiate one of the show’s gratuitous sex scenes, Shae asked him whether he wanted her to leave King’s Landing. He said no. She then asked whether he wanted her to stay ... and he said nothing. Awkward much? Making matters worse, one of Cersei’s spies saw Shae storm out of the room, so she’ll presumably turn up dead at some point.

• At Castle Black, Jon Snow was put on trial for killing Qhorin Halfhand. Janos Slynt, who used to take bribes for a living back in King’s Landing, wanted Jon to be executed, and so did the curly-haired, rodent-faced guy who made bold predictions about everyone dying back in season one. But doddery old Maester Aemon was having none of that, so Jon is officially free to expose his abs to the adoring masses in future episodes.

“Just realised, I hate pretty much everyone around here.”

• Jaime got a shiny new hand, then tried to test it out on Cersei. She didn’t respond well to that, slapping him down for “taking too long” to break out of prison and trudge all the way back to King’s Landing. I wouldn’t usually root for incest, so to speak, but I reckon Jaime deserved a “welcome home” snog at the very least.

• We didn’t see much of Justin Bieber in this episode, but he’s only getting more delusional. In a brief conversation with Jaime, Biebs claimed to have won the war against Stannis, even though he spent most of it cowering inside a castle. For a brief moment, Jaime seemed to fantasise about slaying another king. Incidentally, the royal wedding is just a fortnight away.

• Arya is turning into a cold-blooded murderer. At the end of the episode, she spotted the bloke who stole her sword, Needle, and proceeded to poke said sword through his neck with a vaguely satisfied expression on her face. The guy had killed her friend, yes, but she enjoyed returning the favour a little too much. In lighter news, this increasingly casual killing is deepening her adorable friendship with the Hound.

“Leave, already? But I’m not done murdering people yet!”

Best one-liner

Having refused to return to Casterly Rock, Jaime offered to give back his new Valyrian steel sword. Tywin’s response was sharper than any blade in Westeros.

“Keep it. A one-handed man with no family needs all the help he can get.”

Best Tywannical glare

Shae is not a happy handmaiden these days. When Tyrion asked for a moment alone with his wife — you know, in an extremely selfish effort to stop her from starving to death — Shae shot him the sort of look that says, “I would be quite content to kill you in about 10 remarkably painful ways right now.”

Tyrion’s love life is kind of a mess right now. Like his face at the start of season three.

Nipple count

Five. They all came in the same scene too. Oberyn and his partner, Ellaria Sand, were checking out some of the workers in Littlefinger’s brothel. One of Oberyn’s targets was a skinny blond dude, but he only disrobed halfway. Hence the odd number.

“Hodor” count

Zero. Zilch. Where the hell was Hodor?

Oh, he was just chillin’ up north.

Least appropriate sexual tension

It was pretty awkward when Oberyn and Ellaria launched into a full-blooded makeout session right in front of Tyrion and Bronn. Oberyn made his point, sure, but still. Go behind a curtain or something. Tyrion needs to keep that pair away from Podrick, god knows what they’d do to him.

Most disgusting moment

The whole expletive-filled conversation between Sandor and Baldy McBald Bald was nauseating. Entertaining, mind you. But the allusions to child rape weren’t exactly classy.

For once, Sansa was not the most annoying person in Westeros.

Most Sansastically irritating character

Cersei. Seriously, I know life as the queen regent of seven goddamn kingdoms is super-tough and everything, but don’t take it out on the poor guy who just got given C3PO’s hand. Take it out on Joffrey. Duh.

The burning question

When will Oberyn stop disrobing brothel clerks and start killing Lannisters?

What did you think of episode one? Comment below, or talk to us on Twitter: @SamClench | @newscomauHQ