Reviewed: Game of Thrones: Two Swords

There will be spoilers ahead, so read on at your own risk...

With Breaking Bad now finished, Game of Thrones, in my opinion now takes its place as the best show on television. I know I'm not the only person who is of that particular opinion so Game of Thrones has set itself very high standards... and the first episode of the fourth season of the fantasy thriller shows us that they don't look like they will be falling short of those expectations any time soon....

The season starts off with a cruel reminder of the events of episode 9 of season 3, The Rains of Castamere, as Tywin has House Stark's former valyrian greatsword 'Ice' forged in to two new greatswords as the Stark's no longer had any need for it. It replaces House Lannister's greatsword which they had been missing for quite some time. After Tywin gifts one of the swords to Jaime, we see one the start of one of the trends of the episode as Tywin tells Jamie to leave the King's Guard and return to Casterly Rock. Jaime didn't want to break another oath and refused.

Later on we see Jaime, now reunited with his sister/lover Cersei who also doubts whether he should remain in the King's Guard with him having just one hand. She also now appears to have zero interest in their relationship anymore "You come back after all this time with no apologies and one hand and expect everything to be the same." Cersei is mad at Jaime for getting captured and taking too long to get back while she had to go through everything like her daughter being shipped off and the siege while Jaime was a prisoner. Jaime and the viewers obviously know that Jaime did everything he could to get back to her but Cersei has never been known as one of the more rational characters in the show.

The Kingslayer's troubles would continue, this time with his son and nephew, King Joffrey. After making a couple of snarky remarks towards Jaime, Joffrey begins to read through a book of the great deeds of the Kings Guard. Joffrey reaches Jaime's section of the book but his part appears to focus more on him being a 'Kingslayer' rather than him saving thousands of people in King's Landing because of his decision to kill the Mad King. This gives the King reason to once again doubt what use a 40 year old knight with one hand will be to the Kings Guard.

If you able to look past the incest and Jaime attempting to kill a child to prevent the truth about his relationship with his sister see the light of day you are probably feeling quite sorry for him at this point. All he did and all the things he suffered through happened because he was trying to do the right thing for his family, but his fellow Lannisters choose to ignore this fact and focus on him having one hand now and being gone for so long through no fault of his own. Poor Jaime.

One of the other notable things to take away from the season premiere was the introduction of Oberyn Martell who is the second Prince of Dorne. In under ten minutes of screen time, we saw him in a sex seen (kind of), put a dagger through someone’s wrist, introduce some backstory (yes, backstory!) and threaten the Lannisters. Fans of the show have been craving more backstory and Oberyn delivered. He informed Tyrion that he was in Kings Landing seeking revenge for his sister, nephew and niece who were butchered when Tywin took the city during Robert's rebellion. He told Tyrion to inform his father that "The Lannisters aren't the only ones who pay their debts." It was a hell of an introduction for Oberyn who appears like he will be a very important character in the season ahead.

There wasn't a whole lot of fan favourite Daenerys in this episode but they managed to show off how incredible her dragons look and sound, it's pretty clear that no expense was spared on the dragons. One of the dragons snapped at Daenerys when she attempted to pet it and calm it down when the dragons where fighting over a sheep. Those dragons are getting fairly big now and Ser Jorah tells her not even their mother can tame them, I'm guessing we can expect that to running theme over this season. We also saw Michiel Huisman play Daario Naharis for the first time, as Ed Skrein who portrayed the Tyroshi sellsword during the third season left the show for another role. Huisman did seem to lack charisma compared to Skrein but I'm sure we'll all forget about the recast in a few weeks.

One of the other Lannisters not having a great time at the moment is Tyrion, who's marriage with Sansa showed no sign of improving unsurprisingly. As far as Sansa knows, Tyrion's father is responsible for the death of her mother, father, sister and one of her brothers and she doesn't know what happened to Bran or Rickon either. Small talk around the dinner table with her husband was always going to be awkward after that. Sansa did have one nice moment for once though as Ser Dontos played by Tony Way who you probably don't recognise from Ali G Indahouse thanked her and handed Sansa his mother's necklace as a gift for stopping Joffrey from killing Ser Dontos on the King's name day celebration. It was nice to see Sansa have a scene where she wasn't close to tears for once.

Speaking of people who always seem close to tears, Jon Snow, now back at Castle Black admitted breaking his vows but seemed to have a new found confidence gained from his time with the wildlings. He stood up to Janos Slynt and told the leaders about Mance Rayder's plans to attack Castle Black, he seemed to know they wouldn't kill him for breaking his vows and good old Aemon Targaryen affirmed those beliefs. 

The episode finishes with everyone's favourite duo, Arya and the Hound as they are on the lookout for some food. Chicken to be precise, as you know if you watched this episode, the Hound seems to really like chicken. Arya spots Polliver, the man who took her sword 'Needle' that Jon gave her. Arya sets out to get it back and she eventually does after a brilliant intense battle between the Hound and some of Polliver's men which saw Arya kill one man and injure Polliver before taking back Needle and putting him out of his misery after reciting the words Polliver said before killing Arya's friend. I know I'm not alone when I say I cannot wait to see more of this great duo, their relationship makes for fantastic viewing. Even though The Hound killed Mycah, Arya's friend back in the first season she has to depend on him now if she wants to survive this mess she's found herself in following her father's death. 

This was a relatively slow episode by Game of Thrones standards but it still had all the qualities of a great episode. This episode was just a way of easing the viewers back in, reminding everyone where the main characters all stand following the end of the war with the North. There are still quite a lot of characters we haven't seen yet but I'm sure that'll be taken care of in the coming weeks. It's safe to say there will be more exciting and action filled episodes of the Game of Thrones in season 4 but this was still a fantastic opening for show that shows no signs of being anything other than that.

Next week's episode is entitled The Lion and the Rose and will hit screens on Sunday on HBO in the States and one day later on Sky Atlantic in the UK. Here is a preview of next week's episode courtesy of the official Game of Thrones YouTube channel.