S4·E1 — Two Swords
The hour retold
The cold open is a metallurgy lesson: Ice, the ancestral greatsword of House Stark, melted down in Tywin’s forge and recast as two Lannister blades while the Rains of Castamere plays like a victory lap. Everything the season will do is in that image — the North dismembered into trophies, and even the trophies restless. One blade goes to Jaime, home at last with a stump and a new haircut, who discovers that the family he lost a hand getting back to has no use for a one-handed Kingslayer: his father calls him crippled, his sister has grown cold, and the golden hand Qyburn fits him is the episode’s best joke about ornamental men.
The hour’s new arrival changes the capital’s weather. Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne turns up early for the royal wedding and is found in Littlefinger’s brothel doing exactly as he pleases, until a Lannister song in the next room turns the charm to ice: his sister Elia, her children, the Mountain — a grudge recited like a genealogy. The Lannisters, he tells Tyrion pleasantly, are not the only ones who pay their debts. And on a road in the riverlands, the season’s other collection begins: Arya and the Hound stop at an inn where Polliver is drinking, the man who stole Needle and killed Lommy with it. She takes the sword back the way it was taken — slowly, through the throat, reciting his own words to him — and rides out with her own horse and something colder than satisfaction. The Hound watches her the way one watches weather turn.
What happens
- Ice, Ned Stark's greatsword, is melted down into two Lannister blades.
- Prince Oberyn Martell arrives for the royal wedding with a grudge older than the king.
- Jaime returns one-handed to a sister who finds him changed and a father who finds him useless.
- Arya takes Needle back from Polliver, and crosses the first name off in person.
The people of the episode
Oberyn Martell — "The Lannisters aren't the only ones who pay their debts."
Arya Stark — Reclaims Needle the way it was taken: through a throat.
Jaime Lannister — A golden hand and no place that fits the man attached to it.
Daenerys Targaryen — Marches on Meereen past a mile-markers of crucified children.
Jon Snow — On trial for oath-breaking; saved by telling the whole truth.The fallen — spoilers
- Polliver — Killed with the sword he stole, exactly the way he used it on Lommy.