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GAME OF THRONES RECAPEPISODE 1: 'Winter is Coming':
“Game of Thones," the new HBO series based on George R. R. Martin's massive series of novels set in a medieval land -- a place where dragons are a historical reality, swords de rigeur and fox furs with the noses still on always in fashion -- begins with ... a freight elevator?
Okay, a freight elevator. Three glum men get on. Dressed in black, they sport creative facial hair. HBO's promotional materials for this show include an incredibly detailed map (plus not one, not two, but five illustrated family trees) yet nowhere on it do I find a renovated industrial loft building on the LES.
The guys glower. The elevator ka-chunks. We're going down.
Into a torch-lit hallway. The elevator opens and -- no, these aren't downtown hipsters after all. For one thing, they're on horseback. And that layered-cloaks look? So 2007. They exit the elevator, ride down the hallway, out a door and into white light.
We pull back -- the riders are now tiny black figures, trotting out of a door at the bottom of a big wall of ice. Not Great Wall of China big -- but North face of Everest big. They cross a white field of snow, enter a forest of skeletal trees. It's grim -- and beautiful, if you're into that kind of thing (and I am).
(Perhaps here is as good a place as any for the obligatory disclosure: I haven't read the "Song of Fire and Ice" novels this is based on, though I'm sure I'd like them; I've always been a sucker for books with maps of non-existent countries on the frontispiece. So those of you who speak fluent Dothraki -- yes, this series comes with its own made-up language, set to join Elvish and Klingon as an always reliable punchline! Please correct me when I get the details wrong.)
Our guys canter into the woods and split up. One rider -- blonde, slack-jawed, none too bright? -- spots something in the snow. He slides off his horse and investigates, crawling in on his elbows. No need: It's human (?) bodies, sliced and diced, heads on spikes and limbs laid out in a ritualistic circle. He scrambles back to his horse and trips over a spear -- a spear that's pinning a doll-like little girl to a tree, her pale eyes wide, mouth dripping blood. Shudder.
Blondie rides back to his companions, gibbering. They argue over going back -- "Our orders were to track the Wildings, and they'll trouble us no more" says Bearded Guy. Blondie's other pal -- let's call him Brownie -- reminds him that he'll be beheaded as a deserter if he bolts. Brownie goes to see the carnage for himself and -- whoopsie! The bodies are gone. Brownie turns around.
Blondie catches up with Bearded just as....a sword slices off Beard's head. A figure in ragged furs with blue glowing eyes tosses Beard's steaming, severed skull on the ground in front of Blondie.
And -- cut to the intro.
Where are we again? Geography is clearly going to be a big part of this show; the intro features a map of this country -- Westeros -- with its towns popping up from the flat landscape like little clockwork toys. Here's Winterfell -- fat, round buildings like stacked Skittles, a big white tree -- and here are the tall tube-like towers King's Landing, and hey, there’s the freight elevator! It goes to the top of “The Wall" in the north. It’s a neat intro -- if not as crazy atmospheric as the one HBO ginned up for "True Blood" -- more steampunk than medieval with its gears and metal bits.
Back on the ground. About a dozen knights on horseback surround Blondie as he runs across a green field. Blondie's not happy.
A messenger rides across another green field to a castle with rounded towers – which we just learned from the map is Winterfell.
Into the courtyard. An adorable little boy (Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who is painfully beautiful) is trying his hand at archery, two young men behind him. And -- for the first, but certainly not the last time -- let’s go to the HBO character list to figure out who these guys are: The little boy is Bran Stark, youngest son of the House of Stark. (There are more “houses” in this show than in “Paris is Burning,” it’ll turn out. And almost as many tragic hairstyles.) Watching him are Robb Stark (Richard Madden), eldest son of the house, and Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Lord Stark's bastard son. Well, that clears that up. Okay, not really – Robb and Jon and a bunch of their mates are all scruffy brunettes with wimpy mustaches. I’ve no idea who’s who. As others have already pointed out, It’s like trying to sort out the drug dealers in “The Wire,” but without an obvious hottie like Stringer Bell.
Bran takes a shot and misses wildly. “Your father’s watching,” one of his older brothers chides. Cut to Sean Bean, the star of our show, as Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark, watching from a balcony, his wife Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) smiling tenderly at his side. It’s sweet, it's like the Brady Bunch’s Special Medieval Times episode.
Cut to a room inside the hall. A servant is fawning over the embroidery work of a red-headed teen girl in a blue dress. This is Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), Stark’s oldest daughter. She’s watched with no small measure of spite by Arya Stark, her younger sister, who’s doing embroidery too. Reluctantly. There's a sound of arrows swishing through the air, and Arya looks speculatively at the window.
Outside, Bran misses again. “Which one of you was a marksman at ten?” Ned Stark asks his laughing older sons. Bran tries again – but before he can release this arrow, somebody shoots over his shoulder and hits the target dead center. It’s Arya – who skedaddles before a furious Bran can catch her.
The messenger we saw before rides up to Lord Stark, and tells him a deserter from the Night Watch has been found. Stark’s sad, and says he must leave – and tells Bran to come along. Momma Stark objects, Bran's too young for this -- but Stark mutters at her: “Winter is coming.”
Blondie is the deserter. Out on a foggy green field, he's being marched over to a suspiciously stained tree stump. He’s muttering. “I saw what I saw. I saw White Walkers,” he tells Stark. Stark doesn’t care. He pulls a sword -- out of a scabbard that appears to be made of an entire bear, the sword comes out of the bear's mouth -- and slices off Blondie’s head. Stark asks Bran if he understood why Stark himself had to do the beheading.
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword,” Stark says. Bran asks if it's true about the White Walkers. The raving of a madman, Stark says; the Walkers have been gone thousands of years.
Morristown native Peter Dinklage stars in the new epic fantasy series "Game of Thrones.""There are no direwolves south of The Wall, “ Robb says. (I think I've got them figured now -- Robb is the beady-eyed one.)
“No, there are five,” counters Jon Snow (high cheekbones, long curls), indicating the puppies. Over Bran's objections, the men are about to slice off the puppies’ heads – what is it with these people? – when Jon Snow pipes up again. There are five puppies, and five Stark children. And the direwolf “is the sigil of your house,” he points out.
“You were meant to have them,” he tells Stark.
“You’ll train themselves, you’ll feed them yourselves, and if they die, you’ll bury them yourselves,” grumps Stark. Right now, he’s just one more suburban Dad ganged up on by his kids at a pet shop.
“What about you?” Bran asks Snow, as the puppies are all gathered up.
“I’m not a Stark,” he responds. But wait – suddenly, another puppy mewls from down the path. It’s pure white, and smaller than the rest. Snow scoops it up. “The runt of the litter. That one’s yours, Snow,” somebody jokes.
The Starks take their puppies and go home. They pass a tree on which someone has carved the words "Major Symbolism." And that would be me.
Now off to another city -- King’s Landing, a caption informs us. It’s a long strip of land overrun by tubular towers – a Manhattan for a country boycotting right angles. Inside, the place looks like a Baroque church, and a body is laid out for burial. A pretty blonde lady (Lena Headey) watches from a side aisle, moodily. A pretty blond man (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) – very pretty, think Denis Leary with a nose job – tries to jolly her up: “As your brother, it’s my duty to warn you that you worry too much, and it’s starting to show.”
So this is the queen, Cersei, and Jaime Lannister, her twin brother. The queen is worried – the dead man in the center aisle may have known. (Known what?) But if he’s told the king, Jaime notes, “both our heads would be skewered on the city gates by now.” He reassures her that everything will stay the same as soon as there’s a new “Hand of the King” to do the king’s job while the king’s "drinking and whoring."
Michelle Fairley as Catelyn Stark in "Game of Thrones."“There’s only one thing he’s after,” Stark says. Aparrently, Stark's up for the dead guy’s job.
“You can always say no, Ned,” Catelyn suggests.
Winterfell kicks into overdrive. Lads tote bushels. Wenches scurry. Catelyn orders candles and beer. The young men all get haircuts – great, now how do I tell them apart?
Bran peeks over a stone and spies a group of knights riding through the green-green-green valley. It’s the king. He gets up and we realize he's on the castle’s roof. He scrambles across a thin beam of wood, across a rampart and starts to shimmy down a sheer wall. Mothers of little boys across the country stop breathing. His puppy is watching from the ground. The puppy's not breathing either.
Catelyn catches him shimmying down and yells at him “No more climbing!” He promises. “You always look at your feet before you lie,” she chides him. He’s looking at his feet. He look up and smiles. Heartbreakingly gorgeous kid.
Okay, I'm calling it now: Know what Chekov said about a gun hanging on the wall in Act One? That it guarantees somebody's getting shot in Act Three. Bran’s headed for a fall.
Meanwhile...the whole household comes out to see the king arrive. One tiny soldier in a tin helmet pushes her way to the front of the crowd. We glimpse her face – it's Arya, the girl who's good at archery. She happily watches the king’s retinue, complete with knights in nifty metal cat helmets. Stark and his family line up to receive the king – Arya comes peeling into the family group at the last minute. Her dad grabs her helmet off.
And here comes the king; everyone kneels. He’s enormously fat -- Falstaff fat, Pavarotti fat. He’s Mark Addy of “The Full Monty.” After a little horseplay, the King and Stark embrace. Sansa shoots come-hither glances at the king's suspiciously blond son (Jack Gleeson). The king demands to be taken to the crypt.
Queen Cersei, behind him, objects. “We’ve been riding for a month, my lord. Surely the dead can wait.” The king ignores her. She goes back to Jamie Lannister and asks where their other brother is. "Find the little beast!”
Cut to a man enjoying a long drink out of a massive beer mug. Really, really enjoying it. No, wait – as he grunts with pleasure, a woman’s head rises from his...um, waist. Her hair is elaborately dressed. The rest of her is not dressed at all.
“It’s true what they say about the Northern girls” the drinking man says, leering, his teeth snapping at her neck sexily – and hey, it’s Peter Dinklage, the pride of Delbarton. The Northern whore reveals that she knows who her customer is – the queen’s brother, Tyrion Lassiter, a dwarf known as The Imp, legendary for his appetites, carnal and otherwise. In service of which Jamie Lassister – who barges in as the Imp and whore are about to get going again, on a bed this time – arrives, with a whole posse of supplementary prostitutes in tow as a gift.
Dinklage – who’s really a dwarf, he’s about four feet tall -- disappears under a tsunami of jiggly flesh.
In the candle-lit crypt, the king asks Stark to be the Hand of the King, to run the kingdom while the king himself gets his whore on. Seems to be the national sport. Stark prevaricates. The king mourns Stark’s sister, who he was supposed to marry long ago. They decide to marry Stark's daughter to the king's son. They reach a statue a young woman. It's Stark's sister. The king looks at the statue mournfully and says in his dreams, he still “kills him every night.” (Him who?) Stark reminds them that the Targaryens are dead now. “Not all of them,” the king says.
And…
Suddenly, it's a lot warmer. Stucco walls. Floral vines. Mediterranean seascapes outside arched windows. People in togas meandering about. I'm expecting to see Kevin Sorbo to arrive any minute. This is Pentos, across the Narrow Sea, says the caption. And here's a giant steaming bathtub made of iridescent mosaic tiles – hey, it's the Spa at DePasquale in Morris Plains!
A beautiful girl, maybe 14, gazes out the window. She's got bleached hair and black eyebrows -- despite the setting and her shimmery nightgown dress, the effect is oddly Jerseylicious. (And not for nothing, but first Draco Malfoy, now this – when did platinum blond become cinema shorthard for evil?)
Harry Lloyd as Viserys Targaryen in "Game of Thrones."“Let me see you” he says, opening and removing her dress. He studies her breasts thoughtfully, handling them like fruit. “I need you to be perfect today, will you do that for me?” Daenerys looks terrified.
Viserys leaves. Full-frontally nude – because HBO was afraid we might have stopped paying attention? -- Daenerys rotates slowly (and this is going to be screen-grabbed a hundred thousand times by morning) and steps into the pool. It’s steaming, but she doesn’t flinch.
Outside the villa now – which looks like an Italian restaurant – the brother and sister stand at the top of the steps with a guy in a red toga. We’ll call him Mr. Exposition; he appears to be the host. They wait, and then a dozen riders on horseback clatter up to the house, dressed in multiple belts and chaps, but not much else. A Chippendale’s troupe? No – these must be the Dothraki. They all wear ponytails; Mr. Exposition explains they don’t cut their hair until defeated in battle. Mr. Exposition bursts into a Dothraki greeting and then adds, “May I present my guests – Viserys Targaryen, of house Targaryen, the third of his name, the rightful king.” Just in case you didn’t get it yet.
Daenerys is called forward, so the Dothraki king, Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) can examine her. He’s a head taller than the other riders, and a couple yards across the shoulders. He looks at Daenerys for a minute, turns his horse, rides away.
Viserys watches the Dothraki ride away, fuming. “Did he like her?”
“Trust me your grace, if they didn’t like her, we’d know,” Mr. Exposition says.
Then, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, Mr. Exposition sums up the situation: With a Dothraki army, Viserys can cross the sea and reclaim his throne. “I give him a queen, he gives me an army,” Viserys reiterates. Wow, they’re really afraid we’re not going to be able to follow this, aren’t they?
“I don’t want to be his queen,” Daenerys says suddenly. “I want to go home.”
Viserys and Mr. Exposition stop, turn around, and look at her, baffled – it’s as though one of the trees has started talking. Viserys say he wants to go home too, but how are they going to accomplish that?
“With an army,” he explains. Kal Drogo’s Army. And to get it, Viserys says -- tenderly, patting her little head -- “I would let his whole tribe fuck you, all forty thousand men, and their horses too, if that’s what it takes.”
Back to Winterfell. Sansa is fretting to her mother over whether Joffrey will like her. She can’t wait to be married and to be queen someday. In the hall, there’s a feast lit with candles, giant platters of meat and bread, beer mugs made of horn. Long tables of peasants. The king is groping wenches. It’s a Breugel painting.
Outside, one of the young people – seriously, I can’t tell them apart -- is practicing fencing on a canvas dummy. He’s pissed. I guess this is what the feudal folk do, what with the tragic lack of boxing bags.
A rider enters, and the fencer greets him happily as “Uncle Benjy.” Okay – so that’s Benjen Stark (Joseph Mawle), Eddard’s brother, a man of the Night’s Watch. The fencer says he wasn’t welcome at the feast because he’s a bastard -- thank you! So that’s Jon Snow, the bastard brother. For future reference, he’s the one with the chubby cheeks. Jon says he’d like to join the Night Watch; Benjen tells him the mandatory celibacy is a bummer, and goes into the feast “to rescue your father.”
“So your uncle’s in the Night Watch,” a voice says from the barn. Here’s Tyrion, strolling in, drink still in hand. Jon guesses he’s the queen’s brother. Tyrion nods: “My greatest accomplishment. And you, you’re Ned Stark’s bastard.” Jon doesn’t take this well, but Tyrion is nonplussed.
“Let me give you some advice, Bastard. Never forget who you are. The rest of world will not; wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you,” he says.
“What the hell do you know about being a bastard?” Jon asks.
"All dwarves are bastards to their fathers," Tyrion says, and saunters off.
Dinklage delivers the line with a pitch-perfect blend of nonchalance and bitterness. He’s fantastic. (I was lucky enough to catch his "Richard the Third" at the Public years ago; Dinklage does rage, evil -- and medieval, for that matter -- beautifully.)
Still, I can't help feeling -- that particular line is in there solely for the inevitable "’Game of Thrones’ in 15 Seconds" YouTube video to be released before the second season begins, right?
Back to the feast. Benjy talks to Stark; Stark’s worried about the boy he beheaded. He’s worried about the wildings, the direwolves. “Winter is coming,” Stark says. Okay. I think that’s been established!
The queen and Catelyn make awkward small talk, and the queen meets Sansa. “You are a beauty,” she says. The queen asks Sansa about her age, her sewing skills – and her menstrual period. Nice! Sansa returns to her seat, makes googoo eyes at Joffrey. Arya throws a dollop of food into her hair from across the hall – and promptly gets carted off by an older brother. (Or, you know – one of those guys.)
That night: Stark and Catelyn are in bed, snuggling and joking, when a message is brought in from “a raven in the night.” It’s a letter from Catelyn’s sister. Catelyn reads it, and throws it into the fire. Cate’s sister has fled the capitol; she says her husband was murdered, and it was the Lassiters – the queen and her brothers – who did it. And they have designs on the king’s life too. If the letter had been intercepted, both sender and receiver would have been killed. Okay, so let’s get this straight: Stark’s wife, Catelyn, has a sister who was married to the King’s Hand. Who’s been killed by the King’s Queen. Who also wants to kill the King. The king who now wants Stark to come to his castle, to be the new King’s Hand.
“Who but you can protect the king?” asks the bald guy who brought in the message – previously unintroduced, he’s Maester Luwin (Donald Sumpter) “counselor/healer/tutor,” according to HBO.
Stark’s not thrilled by the idea. Cate argues against going, Luwin for going.
Back to KevinSorboLand, by the sea shore: Daenerys and the Dothraki king, Khal Drogo – today he’s got blue paint stripes on his shoulders -- sit and receive presents, while bare-breasted Dothraki women do Beyonce’s “put a ring on it” dance for an appreciative crowd. Viserys sits to one side, fretting about when they can quit celebrating and go to war. Two spectators attempt to feel up the same dancer at once, and a fight breaks out, with both parties quickly dismembered. Khal Drogo, heretofore stone-faced, grins.
“A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a very dull affair” Mr. Expositon says from the sidelines.
A white guy – did I mention that these violent, hyper-sexual Dothraki are all dark-skinned? They are – arrives and gives a present of Westerosian literature to the new Dothraki queen. He’s Ser Jorah Mormont (Ian Glen) – and nodding at Viserys, he says he hopes to serve the rightful king one day.
He wanders off. Another present arrives.
Daenerys opens the box to find....three giant artichokes? Well, I never know what to give the bride and groom either....
"Dragon eggs" says Mr. Exposition. They are so old they've turned to stone, "but they will always be beautiful." (To a vegetarian?)
Khol Drago stands. Jason Momoa is freakishly large. Daenerys, looking sick, follows her new husband slowly throught he crowd of Dothraki, who surround her. Khol Drago presents her with a white horse. Daenerys looks around for an interpreter and spots that white guy.
“Ser Jorah, I don’t know how to say thank you in Dothraki,”
“There is no word for thank you in Dothraki,” he tells her. Khal Drogo picks her up and puts her on the horse.
Apparently there’s no word for please, either – Khal takes her to deserted stretch of beach, opens the back of her dress, takes off his belt, and, ignoring Daenerys’ sobs, bends her over.
Back to Winterfell. The king thanks Stark for taking the King’s Hand gig. “You’re a loyal friend, the last one I’ve got,” the king says.
They riding off to hunt a boar. On the way out, Stark nods to his gorgeous little son Bran. Bran smiles and runs off to climb the castle wall again, followed by his worried direwolf puppy, who’s gotten pretty big now, maybe Jack Russell sized. Bran’s scooting around a wall a good three stories up when he hears the sound of enthusiastic…ahem, coitus. Like a big dummy, he climbs to the window the sound is coming from and looks in. It’s Jaimie Lassiter and …OMG! The queen, his twin sister. They’re doing it direwolf style in what looks like an abandoned attic. Classy!
Jamie collars the boy. “Quite the little climber, aren’t you?”
Jaime looks at him, looks back at the queen.
"The things I do for love," he sighs -- and pushes Bran out the window. We see the boy’s tiny arms windmilling. Seconds before splat, we cut to black.
Yeah....Toto, I don't think we're in Middle Earth anymore.
