Game of Thrones: Valar Morghulis First Watch
May 29, 2015 11:54 AM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe
Tyrion awakens to a changed situation. King Joffrey doles out rewards to his subjects. As Theon stirs his men to action, Luwin offers some final advice. Brienne silences Jaime; Arya receives a gift from Jaqen; Dany goes to a strange place; Jon proves himself to Qhorin.
--
Melisandre [to Stannis]: "This war will last for years, thousands will die at your command,
you will betray the men serving you, you will betray your family,
you will betray everything you once held dear"
--
Longer Summary (contains spoilers)
At King's Landing: An injured and recovering Tyrion awakens to find he is no longer Hand of the King. For saving the city, Tyrion has been left powerless and without allies, except for his squire, Podrick, who saved his life. Varys informs Tyrion that the Queen was behind the attempt on his life and says that despite Tyrion's bravery, he will receive no official credit for winning the battle. Tyrion is consoled by Shae, who tries to convince him to leave King's Landing for Pentos with her. Tyrion refuses to leave. Meanwhile, after a decisive victory over Stannis in the Battle of Blackwater, Joffrey gives Lord Tywin the title of "Savior of King's Landing" and formally names him Hand of the King. For uniting Houses Tyrell and Lannister, Littlefinger is given the castle of Harrenhal. Ser Loras Tyrell asks the king to wed Lady Margaery , his sister, saying that she is still a virgin despite her previous marriage to Renly. Joffrey insists he is bound by oath to Sansa. Cersei and (newly freed from the dungeons) Pycelle argue that the gods would allow him to reject the oath since Ned committed treason. Sansa is thrilled. Littlefinger warns her that she remains in danger at King's Landing and offers to get her home safely.
At Dragonstone: Stannis reacts poorly to his defeat and tries to strangle Melisandre. After informing Stannis that he will betray all that he has known in his quest to be king and assuring him it will be worth it in the end, Melisandre leads Stannis to a burning bowl of coal and has them together observe the dancing fire. As Stannis watches the flames, he seems to be struck by divine visions from the Lord of Light, restoring his faith in his red priestess.
In the Westerlands: Brienne continues to escort Jaime to King's Landing. When Stark soldiers attack, she kills them. Robb tells Catelyn that he is in love with Lady Talisa. He refuses to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters. Despite Catelyn's warning that breaking his oath with Lord Frey is reckless, Robb marries Talisa in private.
At Winterfell: With Winterfell under siege from Roose Bolton's bastard son, and facing defeat, Theon rejects the advice of Maester Luwin to abandon the castle and join the Night's Watch. Theon believes Jon Snow will kill him for his betrayal, and decides to fight to the death with his men. During Theon's rallying speech, Dagmer knocks Theon out and drags him off to be handed to the Bolton forces in exchange for a pardon. When Luwin attempts to intervene, Dagmer stabs him.
Later, Bran and his party emerge from hiding to find Winterfell sacked and Luwin dying in the Godswood, where he declares his loyalty and love for the Starks before asking Osha to kill him, out of sight of Bran and Rickon. Bran's group then heads for the Wall.
At the Outskirts of Harrenhal: Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie flee from Harrenhal. Jaqen H'ghar offers to take Arya with him to Braavos for training. Arya declines -- she wants to reunite with her family. Before departing, Jaqen gives her a coin and tells her if she ever wants to meet up with him again, to give the coin to anybody from Braavos and say "Valar Morghulis" Before departing, Jaqen turns to reveal he has changed his face, and is one of Braavos' "Faceless Men".
Across the Narrow Sea Ser Jorah and the Dothraki Kovarro go with Dany the House of the Undying to rescue her dragons. Dany finds herself separated from the men, and sees visions of various locations in Westeros: a ruined, snowbound Red Keep, north of the Wall, Castle Black, and the Haunted Forest. She sees her deceased husband, Khal Drogo, holding their stillborn son Rhaego, both apparently alive and well. They share a moment. Daenerys leaves when she hears her dragons and finds herself in an antechamber, with her dragons chained to a pedestal. Pyat Pree appears and conjures chains to bind her. She orders her dragons to breathe fire, killing him and freeing her from his magic. After escaping, Dany and her clan find Xaro Xhoan Daxos asleep in bed with Doreah, who Daenerys now realizes has betrayed her. Opening Xaro's vault, they find it empty. Xaro's boasts of wealth were lies. Dany orders her followers to seal them both in the vault and loot the grounds, so she can buy a ship.
Beyond the Wall: Prisoner Qhorin Halfhand goads Jon Snow into killing him to convince the wildlings that Jon has defected. The wildlings free Jon and show him their army, telling him he will soon meet with their King-Beyond-the-Wall, former Night's Watch Ranger, Mance Rayder. Meanwhile, while on duty, Sam, Grenn and Edd three horn blasts signaling White Walkers' approach. The others flee, leaving Sam behind. He is quickly surrounded by an army of wights and a White Walker riding an undead horse. The White Walker glances at him, and then orders the force to advance. Sam, now isolated from his allies, watches in horror as the army marches onward towards the Night's Watch encampment at the Fist of the First Men.
--
Arya: "I need to find my brother and mother. And my sister. I need to find her too."
--
Notes (Cribbed from here and here.)
* The name of this episode is a phrase Jaquen H'ghar says to Arya, but neither she nor the viewers are told what it means.
* The episode was 10 minutes longer than usual to allow for the resolution of the Battle of the Blackwater and setting up new story lines for the third season.[2]
* Executive Producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss decided to play a practical joke on Alfie Allen (who plays Theon Greyjoy), by giving him a fake script for the season finale, in which Bran Stark kills Theon Greyjoy, in a massive departure from the novels. Their hope was to get a rise out of Allen, on seeing that his character was not only unexpectedly killed off, but by none other than Bran. However, instead of being frustrated, Allen actually thought that such a major departure was an intriguing idea, to the point that he didn't realize it was a joke for quite some time, just a bold change the writers were making. Thus he had no particularly strong reaction to the fake script. Some time later they called him on the phone to say that they were thinking of bringing Theon back as a wight with no dialogue, which was so obviously a joke that Allen realized they'd just been trying to play a prank on him.
* The sword fight scene between Jon Snow and Qhorin Halfhand was filmed on a cliff with a 500 foot drop. It was a two day shoot, and they were sinking into the snow which left them both exhausted.
* The final sequence of the camera panning away to reveal the White Walkers and their army of hundreds of wights was meant to be filmed in Iceland in November 2011. However, the producers weren't happy with the White Walker costumes from Season 1, and they wanted to redesign them for their full reveal in the Season 2 finale (as up until this point they've just been glimpsed in the shadows). This meant the final scene had to be reshot on a sound stage in London. The design changes took so long that by the time they had finished, director Alan Taylor had to leave to work on Thor: The Dark World and was unavailable to film the reshoots. As it was primarily a special effects sequence being produced by the TV series' special effects studio Pixomondo, the sound stage reshoots were ultimately directed by Pixomondo’s visual effects supervisor Rainer Gombos.
* No less than 1,000 wights are depicted in the closing special effects shot. This was achieved by the series' special effects group Pixomondo using only fifty extras, digitally doubled up to make the entire army. Roughly 10-30 White Walkers are interspersed among them. However, only one full version of the redesigned White Walker costume had been created, so only one stunt man played all of the White Walkers, digitally doubled up (and sometimes wearing different equipment to try to distinguish them).
* At the end of the episode, when Daenerys' followers are ransacking Xaro Xhoan Daxos' palace, Jorah says in subtitled Dothraki, "take all the gold and jewels!" This was added with only a few hours before shooting had to wrap, but the crew was not able to contact language consultant David J. Peterson in time. Because Iain Glen (Jorah) has delivered a large amount of Dothraki dialogue before, the crew asked him to just ad-lib the line as best he could. The correct way to say this exact line in Dothraki is "Fichas ei hoshor ma dan", but the line that Glen ad-libbed was something close to "Mas ovray movekkhi moskay". Peterson retroactively came up with a translation so Jorah's line would make sense in Dothraki, with the literal translation, "The remaining valuables are for loading."
--
Theon: [addressing his men as the horn continues to blow outside the walls] "You hear that? That's the mating call of the Northmen. They want to fuck us! Well, I haven't had a good fuck in weeks, I'm ready for one! They say that every Ironborn man is worth a dozen from the mainland. You think they're right? We die today, brothers! We die bleeding from a hundred wounds, with arrows in our necks and spears in our guts! But our war cries will echo through eternity. They will sing about the Battle of Winterfell until the Iron Islands have slipped beneath the waves. Every man, woman, and child will know who we were and how long we stood! Aggar and Gelmarr! Wex and Urzen! Stygg and Black Lorren! Ironborn warriors will cry out our names as they leap onto the shores of Seagard and Faircastle! Mothers will name their sons for us! Girls will think of us with their lovers inside them!"
[The horn blows again]
Theon: "And whoever kills that fucking horn-blower will stand in bronze above the shores of Pyke! What is dead may never die!"
[Dagmer hits Theon over the head with his spear, knocking him unconscious]
Lorren: "Thought he'd never shut up."
Dagmer: "It was a good speech. Didn't want to interrupt."
--
Melisandre [to Stannis]: "This war will last for years, thousands will die at your command,
you will betray the men serving you, you will betray your family,
you will betray everything you once held dear"
--
Longer Summary (contains spoilers)
At King's Landing: An injured and recovering Tyrion awakens to find he is no longer Hand of the King. For saving the city, Tyrion has been left powerless and without allies, except for his squire, Podrick, who saved his life. Varys informs Tyrion that the Queen was behind the attempt on his life and says that despite Tyrion's bravery, he will receive no official credit for winning the battle. Tyrion is consoled by Shae, who tries to convince him to leave King's Landing for Pentos with her. Tyrion refuses to leave. Meanwhile, after a decisive victory over Stannis in the Battle of Blackwater, Joffrey gives Lord Tywin the title of "Savior of King's Landing" and formally names him Hand of the King. For uniting Houses Tyrell and Lannister, Littlefinger is given the castle of Harrenhal. Ser Loras Tyrell asks the king to wed Lady Margaery , his sister, saying that she is still a virgin despite her previous marriage to Renly. Joffrey insists he is bound by oath to Sansa. Cersei and (newly freed from the dungeons) Pycelle argue that the gods would allow him to reject the oath since Ned committed treason. Sansa is thrilled. Littlefinger warns her that she remains in danger at King's Landing and offers to get her home safely.
At Dragonstone: Stannis reacts poorly to his defeat and tries to strangle Melisandre. After informing Stannis that he will betray all that he has known in his quest to be king and assuring him it will be worth it in the end, Melisandre leads Stannis to a burning bowl of coal and has them together observe the dancing fire. As Stannis watches the flames, he seems to be struck by divine visions from the Lord of Light, restoring his faith in his red priestess.
In the Westerlands: Brienne continues to escort Jaime to King's Landing. When Stark soldiers attack, she kills them. Robb tells Catelyn that he is in love with Lady Talisa. He refuses to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters. Despite Catelyn's warning that breaking his oath with Lord Frey is reckless, Robb marries Talisa in private.
At Winterfell: With Winterfell under siege from Roose Bolton's bastard son, and facing defeat, Theon rejects the advice of Maester Luwin to abandon the castle and join the Night's Watch. Theon believes Jon Snow will kill him for his betrayal, and decides to fight to the death with his men. During Theon's rallying speech, Dagmer knocks Theon out and drags him off to be handed to the Bolton forces in exchange for a pardon. When Luwin attempts to intervene, Dagmer stabs him.
Later, Bran and his party emerge from hiding to find Winterfell sacked and Luwin dying in the Godswood, where he declares his loyalty and love for the Starks before asking Osha to kill him, out of sight of Bran and Rickon. Bran's group then heads for the Wall.
At the Outskirts of Harrenhal: Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie flee from Harrenhal. Jaqen H'ghar offers to take Arya with him to Braavos for training. Arya declines -- she wants to reunite with her family. Before departing, Jaqen gives her a coin and tells her if she ever wants to meet up with him again, to give the coin to anybody from Braavos and say "Valar Morghulis" Before departing, Jaqen turns to reveal he has changed his face, and is one of Braavos' "Faceless Men".
Across the Narrow Sea Ser Jorah and the Dothraki Kovarro go with Dany the House of the Undying to rescue her dragons. Dany finds herself separated from the men, and sees visions of various locations in Westeros: a ruined, snowbound Red Keep, north of the Wall, Castle Black, and the Haunted Forest. She sees her deceased husband, Khal Drogo, holding their stillborn son Rhaego, both apparently alive and well. They share a moment. Daenerys leaves when she hears her dragons and finds herself in an antechamber, with her dragons chained to a pedestal. Pyat Pree appears and conjures chains to bind her. She orders her dragons to breathe fire, killing him and freeing her from his magic. After escaping, Dany and her clan find Xaro Xhoan Daxos asleep in bed with Doreah, who Daenerys now realizes has betrayed her. Opening Xaro's vault, they find it empty. Xaro's boasts of wealth were lies. Dany orders her followers to seal them both in the vault and loot the grounds, so she can buy a ship.
Beyond the Wall: Prisoner Qhorin Halfhand goads Jon Snow into killing him to convince the wildlings that Jon has defected. The wildlings free Jon and show him their army, telling him he will soon meet with their King-Beyond-the-Wall, former Night's Watch Ranger, Mance Rayder. Meanwhile, while on duty, Sam, Grenn and Edd three horn blasts signaling White Walkers' approach. The others flee, leaving Sam behind. He is quickly surrounded by an army of wights and a White Walker riding an undead horse. The White Walker glances at him, and then orders the force to advance. Sam, now isolated from his allies, watches in horror as the army marches onward towards the Night's Watch encampment at the Fist of the First Men.
Arya: "I need to find my brother and mother. And my sister. I need to find her too."
--
Notes (Cribbed from here and here.)
* The name of this episode is a phrase Jaquen H'ghar says to Arya, but neither she nor the viewers are told what it means.
* The episode was 10 minutes longer than usual to allow for the resolution of the Battle of the Blackwater and setting up new story lines for the third season.[2]
* Executive Producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss decided to play a practical joke on Alfie Allen (who plays Theon Greyjoy), by giving him a fake script for the season finale, in which Bran Stark kills Theon Greyjoy, in a massive departure from the novels. Their hope was to get a rise out of Allen, on seeing that his character was not only unexpectedly killed off, but by none other than Bran. However, instead of being frustrated, Allen actually thought that such a major departure was an intriguing idea, to the point that he didn't realize it was a joke for quite some time, just a bold change the writers were making. Thus he had no particularly strong reaction to the fake script. Some time later they called him on the phone to say that they were thinking of bringing Theon back as a wight with no dialogue, which was so obviously a joke that Allen realized they'd just been trying to play a prank on him.
* The sword fight scene between Jon Snow and Qhorin Halfhand was filmed on a cliff with a 500 foot drop. It was a two day shoot, and they were sinking into the snow which left them both exhausted.
* The final sequence of the camera panning away to reveal the White Walkers and their army of hundreds of wights was meant to be filmed in Iceland in November 2011. However, the producers weren't happy with the White Walker costumes from Season 1, and they wanted to redesign them for their full reveal in the Season 2 finale (as up until this point they've just been glimpsed in the shadows). This meant the final scene had to be reshot on a sound stage in London. The design changes took so long that by the time they had finished, director Alan Taylor had to leave to work on Thor: The Dark World and was unavailable to film the reshoots. As it was primarily a special effects sequence being produced by the TV series' special effects studio Pixomondo, the sound stage reshoots were ultimately directed by Pixomondo’s visual effects supervisor Rainer Gombos.
* No less than 1,000 wights are depicted in the closing special effects shot. This was achieved by the series' special effects group Pixomondo using only fifty extras, digitally doubled up to make the entire army. Roughly 10-30 White Walkers are interspersed among them. However, only one full version of the redesigned White Walker costume had been created, so only one stunt man played all of the White Walkers, digitally doubled up (and sometimes wearing different equipment to try to distinguish them).
* At the end of the episode, when Daenerys' followers are ransacking Xaro Xhoan Daxos' palace, Jorah says in subtitled Dothraki, "take all the gold and jewels!" This was added with only a few hours before shooting had to wrap, but the crew was not able to contact language consultant David J. Peterson in time. Because Iain Glen (Jorah) has delivered a large amount of Dothraki dialogue before, the crew asked him to just ad-lib the line as best he could. The correct way to say this exact line in Dothraki is "Fichas ei hoshor ma dan", but the line that Glen ad-libbed was something close to "Mas ovray movekkhi moskay". Peterson retroactively came up with a translation so Jorah's line would make sense in Dothraki, with the literal translation, "The remaining valuables are for loading."
Theon: [addressing his men as the horn continues to blow outside the walls] "You hear that? That's the mating call of the Northmen. They want to fuck us! Well, I haven't had a good fuck in weeks, I'm ready for one! They say that every Ironborn man is worth a dozen from the mainland. You think they're right? We die today, brothers! We die bleeding from a hundred wounds, with arrows in our necks and spears in our guts! But our war cries will echo through eternity. They will sing about the Battle of Winterfell until the Iron Islands have slipped beneath the waves. Every man, woman, and child will know who we were and how long we stood! Aggar and Gelmarr! Wex and Urzen! Stygg and Black Lorren! Ironborn warriors will cry out our names as they leap onto the shores of Seagard and Faircastle! Mothers will name their sons for us! Girls will think of us with their lovers inside them!"
[The horn blows again]
Theon: "And whoever kills that fucking horn-blower will stand in bronze above the shores of Pyke! What is dead may never die!"
[Dagmer hits Theon over the head with his spear, knocking him unconscious]
Lorren: "Thought he'd never shut up."
Dagmer: "It was a good speech. Didn't want to interrupt."
--
If Jaqen "Sexy Jesus" H'ghar can change his face like that, it's a wonder he was ever captured in the first place. A lesser show would try to use some fancy-pants CG effect to do the face change, and my guess is it would look very dated, very fast. I prefer the use of a clever edit instead. A man knows how to create compelling television.
I love Tywin's horse taking a huge crap outside the throne room. It's all so very... Tywin.
The end of Tyrion's tenure as Hand of the King is so heartbreaking. Watching him wield power is mesmerizing. Watching him stand up to Joffrey is absolutely thrilling.
posted by rocketman at 1:20 PM on May 29, 2015
I love Tywin's horse taking a huge crap outside the throne room. It's all so very... Tywin.
The end of Tyrion's tenure as Hand of the King is so heartbreaking. Watching him wield power is mesmerizing. Watching him stand up to Joffrey is absolutely thrilling.
posted by rocketman at 1:20 PM on May 29, 2015
If Jaqen "Sexy Jesus" H'ghar can change his face like that, it's a wonder he was ever captured in the first place
The fans have theories on how or why a man was captured. Many, many theories.
posted by nubs at 2:23 PM on May 29, 2015
The fans have theories on how or why a man was captured. Many, many theories.
posted by nubs at 2:23 PM on May 29, 2015
The end of Tyrion's tenure as Hand of the King is so heartbreaking. Especially that moment when he realizes (and it takes him a few seconds) that Shay really is in love with him -- his last defenses just crumble and all he can do is hold her.
posted by Mogur at 7:06 AM on July 7, 2015
posted by Mogur at 7:06 AM on July 7, 2015
Did love Tywin's entrance into the throne room on horseback.
Since the party laying siege to Winterfell was sent there by Robb Stark, won't he be rather pissed that they trashed the place?
zombies, so not interesting, heresy I know.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:55 PM on September 22, 2018
Since the party laying siege to Winterfell was sent there by Robb Stark, won't he be rather pissed that they trashed the place?
zombies, so not interesting, heresy I know.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:55 PM on September 22, 2018
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
Please do not reveal spoilers for subsequent episodes from any source.
Thank you.
posted by zarq at 11:55 AM on May 29, 2015