How much fun is it to watch Tyrion Lannister slap jerkwad King Joffrey in the face? He hasn’t had the opportunity to do that since early in the first season of ‘Game of Thrones’, but he gets another chance this week, and we the viewers can take great delight in watching it happen again.

We’ll get to that in a minute. Episode ‘The Old Gods and the New’ opens with ungrateful jackass Theon Greyjoy following through on his plan to sieze Winterfell. He feels awfully proud of himself, even though the people of Winterfell don’t take him all that seriously as a conqueror. To teach them a lesson, he executes Sir Rodrik, the Master-at-Arms. This was likely a mistake. The Starks might have laughed off Theon’s foolish indiscretion after eventually taking back the kingdom (which is clearly inevitable), but now Robb is pissed.

Not realizing the extent of his error, Theon allows himself to be seduced by the slave girl Osha, allegedly in exchange for her freedom. As he naps in post-coital bliss, she slips out and rescues Bran Stark, ferrying him away in the middle of the night.

Over in King’s Landing, upset that her daughter has been sent away for a political marriage, Cersei Lannister vows to take away someone that Tyrion loves in return. This seems like a bad omen for his secret girlfriend Shae.

While Joffrey and his entourage travel through the city, someone in a crowd throws a handful of manure in his face. Petulant Joffrey freaks out and orders everyone in his sight to be executed. This was not a wise move. A riot breaks out. Joffrey barely manages to get behind closed doors to safety, whereupon Tyrion gives him a good, satisfying smack.

In the chaos, Sansa is grabbed and almost gang-raped, until The Hound shows up at the last second to save her. As if the poor girl didn’t have a miserable enough life…

At Harrenhal, young Arya Stark has been playing a dangerous game with Tywin Lannister. He still doesn’t know who she is, but she’s started to win his trust. However, her identity is very nearly discovered when Baelish arrives to propose an alliance between Tywin and the Tyrell siblings, Margaery (Renly’s widow) and Loras. Arya narrowly avoids Baelish seeing her, and thinks she’s awfully clever when she steals a letter concerning her brother Robb. This unfortunately leads to another predicament, when the knight Ser Amory Lorch catches her with the letter and runs off to tell Tywin. Arya has to use up her second wish with Jaqen H’ghar, who manages to kill Lorch before he reaches Tywin.

North of the Wall, Jon Snow and his raiding party slaughter a group of Wildling lookouts – all but one, anyway. Snow can’t bring himself to kill a girl named Ygritte, who seems far too pretty and well-groomed to be a savage. She slips out of his grasp and leads him on a chase through the mountains. He eventually captures her, but is lost and separated from his group. As night falls, he’s forced to snuggle with the girl for warmth, and she takes a bit of pleasure in taunting him with her feminine wiles.

Things wrap up in Qarth, where Daenerys is having a lot of trouble convincing any of the rich men of the city to provide her with a fleet of ships for her invasion. They seem to realize, which she still does not, that there will be no groundswell of support waiting for her when she arrives in Westeros. After her latest failure, Dany returns to her quarters to find a group of her people murdered and her dragons stolen.

[Note: I will be traveling on this coming Friday and through most of the following week. My recap of the next episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ will have to be delayed until I get back.]