S1·E5 — The Wolf and the Lion
The hour retold
The wolf and the lion stop circling. Word of Tyrion’s arrest reaches the capital, and the feud goes public in the worst place possible — the small council, where Robert orders the assassination of a pregnant girl across the sea and Ned discovers the limits of friendship with a king. He lays the Hand’s badge on the table rather than sign a child’s death warrant, which is honorable, and also leaves him a private citizen in a city where the queen’s family wants him dead — a distinction Jaime Lannister demonstrates in the street within the day, with Jory dead on a dagger and Ned’s leg opened by a spear. Honor, the episode keeps noting, is not armor.
The map widens tellingly. Catelyn hauls her prisoner up the Eyrie’s goat tracks to her sister’s hall, where justice turns out to be a breastfeeding six-year-old shouting about making the little man fly — the Vale is not a refuge but a locked ward. In a garden in King’s Landing, Loras Tyrell whispers to Renly that a fourth-born pretty boy might make a fine king, and the seed of a second war goes in the ground. And in the season’s best two-hander, Robert and Cersei sit alone with their wine and conduct an autopsy on their marriage — seventeen years, one dead girl’s name between them, and the closest thing to honesty either has spoken in the capital. It changes nothing, which is the point.
What happens
- Word of Tyrion's arrest reaches the capital — the lion and the wolf are at odds in the open now.
- Robert orders Daenerys assassinated; Ned refuses and lays down the Hand's badge.
- Catelyn climbs to the Eyrie and finds her sister half-mad, her nephew unweaned, her prisoner unwelcome.
- Jaime Lannister meets Ned in the street: Jory dies with a dagger through the eye, Ned's leg is spear-struck.
- Loras Tyrell whispers a crown into Renly's ear.
The people of the episode
Eddard Stark — Throws the Hand's badge at his king rather than kill a girl.
Catelyn Stark — Learns the Eyrie's justice is her sister's madness.
Tyrion Lannister — Saves Catelyn in the hill-tribe ambush — into a sky cell anyway.
Daenerys Targaryen — A death warrant with her name crosses the narrow sea.
King Robert — Wants a dead girl and can't say why loud enough.The fallen — spoilers
- Jory Cassel — Captain of Winterfell's guard, a dagger through the eye from Jaime Lannister.
- Heward & Wyl of Winterfell — Stark guardsmen cut down in the same street.