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 “Shut it down,” said Ray Marak, motioning with his hand at his neck. The driver of the combine, Judd Blanks, turned off the engine, causing the rusting behemoth to clatter and knock until the engine stopped, emitting several guttural diesel sounds, bucking forward nearly a yard in the last throe.
“Thought we might finish a field once without a breakdown,” said Ray. “Five more minutes and we’re done here.”
“Should I call the service guy again?” asked Judd, who stood on the combine’s platform, scratching his head using his hat.
“No,” said Ray, “it’s just plugged.”
“Again?” said Judd. “You need a new combine.”
“Do you have a hundred thousand dollars to loan me?
“I don’t have a hundred dollars.”
“You just got paid. Where’d that money go?”
Judd dismounted the combine and walked in rangy steps. With one knee bent and his boot . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 2
 In the cool grass, the Werther girls tackled their brother, pressing yellow construction paper to the front and back of his shirt, wrapping him in packing tape. Dawn and Rhea wore their Halloween costumes a day early while they sat upon the toddler, drawing on him with magic marker, rough strokes on the paper creating the black lines of a bee. They pinned his arms over his head. The stinger he refused, violently, when they attached it to his nose. He cried and protested, flapped his arms until they gave up and then he missed the attention once they abandoned him. They had moved to the edge of the yard, to where the corn stood, resuming an argument started on the school bus that afternoon, when certain boys questioned their costumes.
Dawn said, “You really do look like a fly.”
“I’m not . . . → Read More: The Plenty: Chapter 1
Ned’s severed head is raised before a bloodthirsty mob of King’s Landing residents.
 Arya’s stake in the story rises after she witnesses the death of her father. Her hair is chopped so that she can pass as a boy, and slip away from the crowd. She’s instructed to use the pseudonym “Arry” and sell her story as an orphan lad. Soon she runs into more bullies in the street. Another fat bully threatens to kick her to pieces, and she pulls her sword “Needle” on him and says, “I like killing fat boys.” As luck would have it, Robert Baratheon’s bastard son connects with Arya, and an interesting alliance in the slum begins. Oh, and best of all, a truck . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: Fire and Blood
Ned cannot escape the dungeon, and the sentence of death looms unless he recognizes the vile boy Joffrey as king. Sansa, Ned’s daughter, who is still betrothed to Joffrey, begs for mercy, and blinded by her ambition to be Joffrey’s queen, makes less than loyal decisions.
A eunuch named Varys asks Ned to recognize Joffrey as the rightful king. Surely, it is the only sensible decision – or the only decision that will allow Ned to continue draw air. But the sense of honor and duty runs deep in Ned. He won’t budge, his conscience will not allow it. Varys warns Ned that Robb Stark is going head-to-head with the Lannister army, and the odds do not favor Winterfell in this battle. Thus, the Stark outlook is…stark. A summary:
1. Robb Stark is an untested leader challenging a professional army.
2. Tyrion Lannister has gone free from Lady Stark’s charge . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: Baelor
 A slaughter begins. All men loyal to Winterfell in King’s Landing are sought for killing during a spell of lawlessness. House Stark is on the run now, with Ned branded as a traitor.
Arya is still in class with Syrio, her “Dancing Master,” while the peace of her daily life falls apart. The brave Syrio defends Arya so that she can escape when Lannister men attack. With a wooden practice sword and no armor he gracefully defeats all comers, but we don’t really know if he dies in the end. We hope not, and suspect that he survives. But in Game of Thrones, the typical trope where the hero is rescued does not hold water. So Syrio’s fate is a mystery. Arya ends up in the slums . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: The Pointy End
At long last, we see the Lannisters in their native land. The patriarch, Tywin converses with Jaime while caping a deer. Clearly an aristocratic family, they have a passion for keeping their blood clean, hence the incest between Jaime and Cersei. Blonde and blue-eyed, handsome, moneyed, educated – they are the Jones’s of Westeros that all others try to keep up with.
A scene in Littlefinger’s brothel shows him tutoring Ros and another prostitute on how to act while making love to Johns. This scene was so outrageous I had to watch it several times. While his new prostitutes please each other, Littlefinger delivers a speech that has insight into every man’s mind. I have to reprint it here because it’s hilarious…and all too honest:
“You’re not fooling them, they just paid you. They know what you are. They know it’s all just an act. Your job is to make . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: You Win or You Die
King Robert sits in the classic quandary – his wife and his best friend do not like each other. Well, not too classic – her brother has stabbed the best friend, and the best friend’s wife has kidnapped the queen’s other brother. King Robert clearly doesn’t care for his in-laws, but his monetary debt to them handcuffs him from acting out against the Lannisters. The Lannister family seems to have everyone held by the purse strings, and the motto, “A Lannister always pays its debts” make the Lannisters the sovereign wealth fund of the Westeros world (like Norway or Saudi Arabia in our world).
 The dragon eggs that Khaleesi received on her wedding day are said to be petrified. But Khaleesi keeps them warm and . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: A Golden Crown
The theme song haunts my sleep. I feel like The Iliad could use this theme song, or that Diomedes and Ajax would sharpen their spears while listening to this song on their iPods. For many great se ries, the theme song begins to roust excitement before the first scene, but I’m not sure a song has ever captured the spirit of a series quite so well, at least for my taste.
Until this episode, I had never seen a horse beheaded, nor dreamt of it. But there it was. The Mountain, the enormous knight, loses a jousting match (because his horse is in heat) and promptly cuts the head off of the animal. For some reason I thought of Agamemnon dying “like an ox felled at the trough” . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: The Wolf and the Lion
Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage, continues to be an acting force. His quote about having a soft spot for “cripples, bastards, and broken things” titles this episode, as he extends a helping hand to the damaged Brandon Stark by designing equipment that will allow the boy to ride a horse. Tyrion does this while travelling toward King’s Landing where Lady Stark is stewing over his possible involvement in the attempted assassination of Brandon. Now we are really getting somewhere, as Tyrion oblivious to his being a suspect, and everyone in Winterfell does not know it yet either. This collision of Lady Stark and Tyrion Lannister occurs at the end of the episode, with Catelyn summoning her subjects to seize the dwarf.
At The Wall, a new recruit/character arrives in the form of chubby Samwell Tarly. He’s a funny, hungry young man who Lord Snow pities and takes under . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things
The Starks arrive at King’s Landing. This is a kind of country mouse in the city moment, with Ned’s daughters wide-eyed upon seeing the capital city. Ned later admits, after scolding his girls at the dinner table, that “war is easier than daughters.”
As the newly appointed “King’s Hand”, Ned is steadfast in his northern values, but has to converse with types that he does not prefer as company. First, the polished but rude Jaime Lannister offends Ned with his every  comment. A fight between the men brews. The danger of being in King’s Landing is clear, as Ned tells his daughter, Arya, “We’ve . . . → Read More: Game of Thrones: Lord Snow
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