Watching the Throne: You Can't Hold a Crown Without a Hand (A "Game of Thrones" Recap)

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You know that drunk, obnoxious uncle that shows up to every family party and pisses everyone off? It appears that Robb Stark (Richard Madden) has one of those, though this one's less prone to drinking and more apt to terrible marksmanship and boneheaded war tactics. As Robb, mama Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), and some of his men watch Robb's grandfather's dead body float out to sea on a raft, his uncle, Edmure (Tobias Menzies), is tasked with firing the ceremonial flaming arrow onto the moving raft. Except that Edmure has the kind of accuracy that even a first-timer would laugh at—in fact, Robb himself chuckles.

Catelyn's hulking, humorless uncle, Brynden Tully, "the Blackfish" (Clive Russell), doesn't find Edmure's sloppiness to be all that funny. Pushing Edmure aside and firing off his own arrow, Brynden walks away before the arrow connects with the raft—it's the Game of Thrones equivalent of a battle rapper dropping the mic after spitting a game-ending punchline.

Inside their Riverrun castle, Edmure's follies start to piss Robb off as well. It seems that Edmure royally screwed up one of Robb's big plans: to trap the Lannister's goon known as The Mountain and kill him, or, rather, "have his head on a spike." Edmure preemptively struck against The Mountain, however, giving him the chance to evade Robb's next move, and now the Stark capo only has a mill and two of Tywin Lannister's (Charles Dance) "father's brother's great-grandsons." Even worse, Edmure lost 208 of Robb's men in the process.

Adding insult to injury, over at King's Landing, Tywin is plotting with Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) to have Mr. Finger woo Catelyn's sister, Lysa, which, in turn, will set one of Robb's family members against him.

For letting his irrational, gun-jumping, buffoonish uncle have any military power whatsoever, Robb's mission to overtake the Lannister regime takes one major step backward. He'd take an intoxicated relative over Edmure's untrustworthy ass any day.

Always good for a laugh or three every episode, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) is in rare form throughout "Walk of Punishment."

First, he makes a wonderful scene during a meeting inside daddy Tywin's chambers. All of the chairs are lined up on the left side of the table, making Lord Varys (Conleth Hill), Littlefinger, and Pycelle (Julian Glover) move in fear of pissing off master Tywin and sit down without evening out the table's layout. Cersei (Lena Headey), much more confident around his father, grabs a chair and positions it next to Tywin, on the table's right side; Tyrion, being his usually rebellious self, takes the fifth chair, slowly and loudly drags it on the ground, and places it at the other end of the table, opposite Tywin. It's his way of giving his dad the middle finger and mocking the pussy-footed Varys, Littlefinger, and Pycelle.

Is Tywin impressed? Not at all. He appoints Tyrion as the new "Master of Coin," a bullshit accounting job that the imp is clearly none too pleased about. Cersei, of course, laughs. "I'm quite good at spending money," says Tyrion, "but a lifetime of outrageous wealth hasn't taught me much about spending it."

That would seem like a demotion for Tyrion here on "Watching the Throne" if not for what he does next with his money. As a sign of gratitude toward his squire, Podrick (Daniel Portman), for saving his life during the Blackwater battle last season, the new Master of Coin drops some serious coinage on three especially talented whores to spend a few nice, recreational hours with the virginal Podrick. One of the women can do a "Merenese Knot," which is George R.R. Martin speak for the kind of backwards-pretzel move that porno yoga videos are made of—it's no wonder that Tyrion's bodyguard, Bronn, tells the young man, "Pace yourself, lad."

How can we not give Tyrion the crown this week for being so generous toward his boy? It's eve more apt once you learn that he ultimately didn't even have to pay. Hell, we should also give an honorary crown to Podrick for hitting the whores off so well that they refuse to accept Tyrion's money. Tyrion commands Podrick to sit down and give him "copious details" about his bedroom skills. It's the Game of Thrones equivalent of that teenager saying, "Teach me," to Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

In the Dragonstone section of the dauntingly complicated and vast Game of Thrones map, Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) isn't happy that his mystical witch/cut-buddy Melisandre (Carice van Houten) is heading off on a mission on which she refuses to elaborate. Before she leaves, he tells her that he wants both Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) and Robb Stark dead, and to see those goals through he wants to conceive another murderous Shadow Demon with his slightly demonic sex partner. She, unfortunately, informs Stannis that he's too weak to do so, and that bumping supernatural uglies with her again could kill him.

Her solution: If she sleeps with someone else in his royal family, she can produce another shadow child for him. Call it out-of-wedlock evil, but also realize that this means Stannis will have to willingly let his woman have sex with another man. Yeah, no crown for you this week, Mr Baratheon. Being the centerpiece of a "Game of Thrones meets Indecent Proposal" plot-line is an immediate downgrade.

Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) clearly wants to get the hell out of Astapor, and who can blame her? Any place that has its own walkway where crucified slaves (killed for their disobedience) are put on display for all to see (hence the episode's title, "Walk of Punishment") isn't a scenic vacation destination. Thus, it's time for Dany to get serious about buying Astapor's slave army from their misogynistic and condescending master Krazny. Dany tells his interpreter that she wants all 8,000 of his slave soldiers, plus the ones currently in training. Krazny, in the midst of  berating Dany in his native tongue so she can't understand him ("This slut thinks she can flash her tits and make us give her whatever she wants.")

Krazny's bottom line: He knows that Daenerys can't afford all 8,000 slaves. That is, not until she makes a risky power move, one that doesn't sit too well with her colleagues Jorah (Iain Glen) and Barristan (Ian McElhinney). "I have dragons. I'll give you one." And in exchange for giving Krazny her "biggest" dragon, Daenerys also walks away from the bartering session with his translator. Daenerys is always one step ahead of her competition, so she gets the benefit of the doubt here—maybe handing over one of her little fire-breathers isn't the dumbest decision yet in three seasons' worth of Game of Thrones episodes. For now, though, it's still a bad look. There'll be no crown atop that golden mane here.

Over in the snow-covered region of Game of Thrones' terrain, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his new boss, Wildling leader Mance Rayder (Ciarin Hinds), find the spot where Jon's men were killed by the White Walkers. All that's left, though, are the dead horses, strategically laid on the ground in a sort of spiraling mural. As Mance puts it, the Walkers are "always the artists."

Not one to get emotionally shaken up by such morbid sights, Mance orders some of his men, including Jon, to climb over The Wall (a roughly 700-foot ice wall, mind you) and attack Castle Black. It's far from a suicide mission: Mance points out that the castle is weakly built and can only withstand an attack from one side.

He then tells them to send an eagle to the top of the wall every night—when Mance is ready to join in on the attack, he'll "light the biggest fire the North has ever seen." A man with a well-thought-out plan deserves a nice crown, no? Of course he does.

On the road to Bad Look City, Jaime (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) are pulled by horseback by the captors who broke up their my-sword-is-bigger-than-yours duel at the end of last week's episode. Jaime gives Brienne some rotten news: He's pretty sure that their captors are going to forcefully have sex with her later in the night. His advice: Don't resist and "pretend they're Renly." Which must sting for poor Brienne. That Jaime can be a real son of a bitch.

And for a short period of time that night, he uses his slithery charms to sweet-talk the crew's leader, Locke (Noah Taylor), into untying Jaime from a tree because his father, Tywin, can make Locke "a rich man until the end of your days your— sons will be rich men and their sons after that." He also gets Locke's men to stop raping Brienne by telling Locke that she's from "the sapphire isle" and has a similarly wealthy father who'd also pay serious dollars to see her back home unharmed.

Just when Jaime thinks it's all good, however, Locke bashes the back of his leg, sends Jaime to the ground, where his right arm is extended before him, with his face pressed to the dirt.

"You think you're the smartest man there is," says Locke." You're nothing without your daddy and your daddy ain't here." Then, in the episode's first moment of carnage, Locke swings his knife downward and lops off Jaime's right hand. The once-arrogant Lannister's banshee-like scream says it all. A shiny crown is the least of his concerns.