BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S2E1: Walk Like An Egyptian

[PREVIOUSLY] Season two, motherfuckers! Winter is still coming! And if you maybe needed another ominous portent, there's a big red asteroid streak in the sky now. Bonus Jonas's friend My Fair Lady thinks it signals dragons. I think it means one of our characters is about to find a bunch of cheap California wine.

I expected a gap in time, which is more or less the standard for Premium Cable Serious Dramas Featuring Strong Antihero Leads, but the action in season 2 picks up right where we ended. King Ladyboy is settling into his throne, celebrating his "Name Day" with a bit of the old ultra-violence. It's pretty fun.

Then, just as Ladyboy is gleefully razdrazzing some poogly naz, Tyrion returns in all of his baller glory to bring the good/bad news that he'll be serving as Substitute Hand Of The King. Queen Eyebrow is livid, Zac is ecstatic. (I would be remiss if I didn't note one of Tyrion's best bon-mots to date. To his sister: "You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality...that, and your cheekbones."

Speaking of cheekbones, Dany Of The Dragons is lost in the desert, starving and feeling self-conscious about the promises she made to her new followers during the orgasmic rush of the whole dragon-fire-birth thing. She went and talked like Moses, and now she has to walk like him too. And then her Horse With No Name dies. Man, she's really putting the "drag" in dragon right now, huh?

Elsewhere, Jon Snow and his merry men stop for a while to tarry in another house built on generations of daughter-fucking. But unlike Filch, this Anthony Hopkins-looking dude is living way out beyond the ice wall. So he must be doing some especially fucked up shit to his daughters. One of whom is Cassie from Skins! Hey Cassie! Sorry about your current situation!

Then we meet a new character, Stannis Meatsauce, former brother of the King and current party to the War Of All Against All. He's got a redheaded chick on his side who is doing some Satan-worship shit on his behalf, which upsets a few of his men. But Stannis is like "I'm pretty sure the Old Gods are OK with me riding this out to see if the carpet matches the drapes." So she finishes the ceremony and only like one dude commits suicide in protest so I'm pretty sure it'll work out fine for ol' Stannis.

And Rob Start's got Jamie Lannister in an Apocalypse Now-type prison, where he finally confronts him about all that incest and attempted child murder. Jamie Lannister is like "Yes. Everybody else has known this forever." And Rob Stark is like "I just had to catch people up in case they were just tuning in for the first time." It is fun to watch them bitch at each other, though. The exposition ups and downs continue from there, with Tyrion (awesomely, typically) telling his new lady about the "good liars, bad liars, [and] one or two great liars" that make up the population of King's Landing. I love these two. But then Littlefinger and Queen Eyebrow have about as direct an exchange of thematic concepts as two people could ever have. Actual dialog: "Knowledge is power." "Power is power." So OK, that's where we are there.

Finally: I guess because Stannis has been putting the word out,* Ladyboy now knows of the rumors that he was not a product of King Meatsauce's reliably brunette sperm. He confronts his mother about it, who fails to adequately reassure him. So he, or maybe she, or maybe a backpedalling Carcetti, orders  all of the bastard children of the (prolific) former king hunted down and murdered. Did you ever think you'd see a baby get stabbed in a brothel? I sure didn't! I never even thought I'd get to write those words in a sentence! Hahaha, "get to." Also, isn't it terrible that I saw this as a pretty reasonable reaction on Joffrey's part? I mean, in context! The last bastard standing turns out to be Chris from Skins, who we see being all Huck Finn and shit with Lil' Katniss. Good luck, you two! Seriously!

(*I'm kind of sad we didn't get a Wire-style scene in which Ladyboy freaks out that anyone's been allowing gossip about him on the streets. YOUR NAME IS YOUR NAME! Get a little more Marlo and I'll start to respect you, Joffrey.)