Hot News: Game of Thrones recap: season four, episode one – Two Swords

Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Game of Thrones airs on HBO in the US on Sunday. Do not read on unless you have watched season four, episode one (which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Monday at 2am and again at 9pm). As ever, we are going to (hopefully) avoid book spoilers as well. Click here to read Sarah Hughes' season three finale recap 'Tell your father I'm here. And tell him the Lannisters aren't the only ones who pay their debts'

Hello, everyone and welcome back for what promises to be a fantastic series if this tautly paced opening episode is anything to go by. We're now 31 episodes into our journey through Westeros and David Benioff and DB Weiss are increasingly confident about juggling both an expanding cast and ever more complex storylines. Two Swords barely wasted a word, managing to fill us in on most of the main players (alas, poor Stannis, I missed your dour proclamations - here's hoping you return soon) while introducing some interesting new ones. Of these, the most notable were Dornish prince Oberyn Martell and his 'paramour' Ellaria Sand (played by Rome's Indira Varma with near combustible levels of smoulder). Despite a tendency to veer into Inigo Montoya territory, Oberyn (the Red Viper) is one of the most entertaining characters in the books - a lover and fighter determined to extract vengeance for his sister's violent death. With him, Chilean actor Pedro Pascal (of The Good Wife), all flash and swagger, had a ball. Within minutes of arriving in King's Landing, he had stripped two whores, procured a procurer and severed the veins in a Lannister soldier's wrist. It was quite an entrance and I eagerly await his meetings with the rest of King's Landing's treacherous crew. In particular it's hard to see Tywin responding well to either Oberyn's arrival or his older brother Doran's rather pointed snub. 'I saved the city. I won the war. I broke Stannis on the Blackwater'

One of Game of Thrones' key themes is the gaping chasm between the songs sung of the noble deeds of war and the brutal reality. History, as Churchill famously said, is written by the victors - he could have added that when they come to write it they tidy up the loose ends and smooth away the trauma. But the greatest thing about this show is that it lifts up the curtain to say, 'This is what it costs to win a war.' And so the episode began with Tywin melting down Ned's great sword, Ice, and throwing a wolf's pelt on to the fire. The message was simple: the house of Stark has fallen; long live House Lannister. Away from the propaganda, things weren't so simple: Jaime refused his father's order to return to Casterly Rock, Cersei set spies on Tyrion and rejected Jaime (I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Jaime's sincerity almost had me rooting for twincest) and Tyrion tried to save Sansa, losing Shae in the process. Fittingly, the episode ended with Arya reclaiming Needle following a brutal clash, which ably demonstrated that war's reality is found not in statues or songs but with Sandor Clegane's sword being repeatedly thrust through your face. Things weren't much better elsewhere - in the frozen north, Jon mourned Robb while a heart-broken Ygritte sharpened her arrows of great vengeance. Across the Narrow Sea, Dany was learning that the conquest of Meereen will not be without cost (for starters, the mutilated bodies of 163 slaves, one for each mile her army travels) while grappling with the twin issues of growing dragons and an overload of testosterone. Personally I'd leave Jorah, Barristan, Daario and Grey Worm to square off and head to Meereen with my dragons, but I'm not the Khaleesi and I suppose she can always say 'Dracarys' if she wants them to shut up. 'A man's got to have a code'

Grief strikes us all in different ways. While Jon marked Robb's death by remembering 'He was better than me at everything,' and confessing his childhood jealousy (and Sansa retreated into silence), Arya learned not simply to kill, but, more disturbingly, to enjoy it. Game of Thrones has always been great at creating dysfunctional buddy pairings, from Tyrion and Bronn to Jaime and Brienne and the newest coupling of Arya and a fugitive Sandor Clegane has the potential to be the most brilliant (and bloodiest) yet. In part, this is down to the way in which Benioff and Weiss have kept their powder dry when it comes to the Hound. For three seasons he has done little more than glower and occasionally utter gnomic expressions of disgust; this week he waltzed off with the episode thanks to a few well-chosen profanities and a sharp way with a sword. Not that his partner in mayhem was backwards in coming forwards - the episode's final eight minutes saw our mismatched duo debate morality, wipe out a gang of Gregor Clegane's men (including the loathsome Polliver) and reach as much of a detente as you can hope for when one of you is a psychopath and the other a psychologically damaged girl already half in love with death. Their burgeoning friendship is basically an even darker version of the one in Leon, one with no chance of houseplants and happy endings. Additional thoughts

* Sophie Turner did a great job of suggesting someone who has been frozen by grief.

* After the unfortunate decision to lumber Ed Skrein with a haircut that was more Fabio than seasoned mercenary commander, we have been granted a new Daario Naharis in the shape of Treme's Michiel Huisman, who already appears a much better bet, not least because he looks as though he might know what to do with a sword.

* 'Now I've been forced to marry my eldest son to a wicked little witch from Highgarden while I'm supposed to marry her brother, a renowned pillow biter.' Oh Cersei, how I've missed your unique way with a plot summary.

* Talking of Cersei - was Qyburn terminating an unwanted pregnancy or treating her for crabs? Either appears to be a possibility.

* 'I'd like a sigil' - no one does sardonic asides like Bronn. Rolling Stone summed him up perfectly as 'a roguish Errol Flynn gone feral'. I say long may the Jerome Flynn revival continue.

* The best moment in the entire episode was an almost throwaway sight gag - the shot of Joffrey's newly commissioned statue of himself, sword in hand standing over the body of a wolf pierced with arrows. Dictator chic at its finest. Violence count

The severing of a Lannister soldier's wrist by an angry Dornish prince; a bunch of cooked crows; a tortured slave left to mark the way to Meereen, a group of slaughtered peasants and the gruesome takedown of five of Gregor Clegane's men by The Hound and Arya (featuring a particularly unpleasant sword-to-eye scene and a chance for Arya to cross another name from her shortening list). Nudity count

Two whores at Littlefinger's brothel checked out by a lascivious Dornish prince and his 'no lady' love; one 'wildly expensive' procurer sized up and an unsuccessful attempt by Shae to win back her lion of Lannister. Random Brit of the week

The perpetually hangdog Tony Way - best-known to me as that guy from Dick and Dom's Funny Business - returned as the drunken Ser Dontos Holland.

So what did you think? Has Sansa found a friend in time of desperate need in Ser Dontos? Are Arya and The Hound destined to star in their own ultra-violent buddy movie dispensing justice while making liberal with the profanities? Is this the end for Westeros's most wrong and yet strangely right twincestuous pairing? And do you hope Stannis heads back to the action glower firmly in place next week, or is that just me? As ever, have your say in the comments below.

Post By http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/apr/07/game-of-thrones-recap-season-four-epsiode-one-two-swords