Game of Thrones --The Little Psycho King / The Khaleesi Rises

To say Fire and Blood is more than a bit gratuitous would be an understatement, but fans of Game of Thrones are perfectly accustomed to over the top characters and nudity/sex defying too much subtlety. Joffrey pointing to the decapitated head of Ned on a spike, ordering Sansa to look at her dead father, offering to give her the "rest of him". Slapped by Trant, for a remark towards Joffrey about his head on a spike, Sansa is told to keep the handkerchief of The Hound, Joffrey's self-proclaimed "pet", because "she's going to need it". Oh but for further spite and just to prove the jolly little cretin that he was (wonderful to use past tense), Joffrey points at all the Stark company whose severed heads also rest on spikes. Eddard wanted to stay in Winterfell when Robert came calling. Sansa liked the idea of being Joffrey's wife, a queen. And this, at the end of the first season, is where both father and daughter reside. Obviously Ramsay Bolton is still to come, so we can't just throw around gratuitous lightly, but Joffrey having a singer of folly decide if he would rather keep his tongue or fingers (he also uses a musical instrument) with orders to his officers to cut, he's certainly a psychotic little monster who delights in the extremes to make a point...or just to prove the levels of depravity are limitless.

The end of the episode has Daenerys and her hatched dragons, naked and surrounded by the ashes of her Khal Drogo and the witch who put a curse on him, as he was alive but a shell without a mind or presence available. Smothering him with a pillow and vowing to those who remain loyal to her that she will lead them as a non-slave people, Daenerys is the character the season closes with. Sure, Tyrion is sent back by his father to be Hand of the King in his stead to try and keep Joffrey from continuing to embarrass the Iron Throne, Snow remains at The Wall despite a feeling of duty to his Lord Commander and those assigned to serve there by now, and those in the company of Robb Stark kneel to serve him as their King of the North; Daenerys closed the episode with her dragons and renewed purpose to go forward as the Khaleesi.