Office Ladies Do Game of Thrones | Office Ladies

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I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We were on The Office together and we're best friends.

And now we're doing the ultimate Office Lovers podcast just for you.

Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of The Office with exclusive interviews, behind the scenes details, and lots of BFF stories.

We're the Office Lady 6 .0.

Oh, that can only mean one thing.

Welcome to a day that I never thought would happen on our podcast. I never thought it would happen either, but it is Office Ladies 6 .0 and really anything can happen.

So brace yourself because today it's, as Jenna titled it, Office Ladies do Game of Thrones.

Just winter is coming.

OK. Just the first episode.

We're not going to go crazy.

We're not doing all of Game of Thrones.

Not yet. I'm holding out hope.

All right. So here's what's happening today.

We are going to be discussing Winter is Coming.

It is the first episode in the Game of Thrones series, and for those of you who know the world, you know the series is based on A Song of Ice and Fire, which is a book series by George R .R.

Martin, and it was written for television by creators David Benioff and D .B.

Weiss, and this first episode was directed by Tim Van Patten.

I would like to point out that Angela came dressed today in a Mother of Dragons t -shirt.

Hell yeah! Yeah. And you know, I have owned it for probably a decade.

I also bought Josh a shirt that said winter is coming and we might've posed together in both of them holding our kids Nerf swords.

You might have. I might have. You definitely did.

I definitely did. Well, lady, I am actually excited to dive into this with you.

I did watch the first two to three seasons of Game of Thrones once in my life and I enjoyed revisiting this pilot.

Why don't we go old school and why don't you give us a summary, lady?

Maybe some fast facts?

Let's do it. I know you normally write a summary, but I thought because this is my special show that I would tackle the summary.

So here goes. I love it.

Lord Stark is troubled by news of a deserter from the Night's Watch and the death of his friend, Hand of the King Jon Arryn.

Meanwhile, King Robert Baratheon and the Lannisters arrive at the Stark home in Winterfell where the young Bran Stark climbs a turret and accidentally witnesses a incestuous affair between Jaime and Cersei Lannister leading to his tragic fall slash push from Jaime Lannister.

And listen this was a very far fall.

I mean what the F Jaime.

Meanwhile across the Narrow Sea.

That's part of your summary.

A little sidebar. I like an Angela summary has some spice.

Has some spice. Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Viserys Targaryen brokers a marriage deal between his sister Daenerys and Khal Drogo of the Dothraki.

He's trying to secure an army to reclaim the Iron Throne.

And let's not forget, winter is coming and we witnessed our first White Walker.

It's true. I have some questions and maybe I'll pose the first one now.

Okay. This iron throne that that brother is after.

Yeah. Viserys. That's not the King of the Lord's place.

What's it called? The King of the Lord's place.

What's it called? There's Winterfell and then there's the house of the - The Red Keep.

Westeros? Westeros?

King Robert Baratheon?

Yeah. Where's he live?

That's his throne. Oh, so he is trying to get the throne from - Yes.

Robert. Okay. There's only one throne.

Yes. Okay. I was, I was a little bit confused.

There's one throne.

And that's why Robert Game of Thrones.

I know. So I thought maybe there were several thrones in play.

Well, castles have their thrones, but this is the big mamma jamma.

Okay. Okay. Of thrones.

Got it. That's why later we'll get to it.

Robert is worried about this Targaryen gal getting married to the Dothraki.

I missed that. Okay.

I missed that. That's not a good sign.

okay all right go on i do want to give a cast shout out there are 43 cast members in this first episode they're all phenomenal it's an amazing group of actors i'm not going to list them all because there's 43 and we'd be here yeah but if anyone wants to know an actor's name as we're going through this breakdown i have the full pilot cast list should you say ang who played that role i can tell you okay okay now let's get into some fast facts i can't wait fast fact number one According to Ranker .com, this Game of Thrones pilot that aired on April 17, 2011, is as of January 2025, that's this year,

it is still considered the number one television pilot ranked by fans.

Oh. That's kind of amazing.

That is really amazing.

Are you curious to hear the top five?

I am. Good, because— Are you going to tell me?

Yes. Do you have other thoughts?

You paused. You looked off to the side.

Well, I have a personal favorite pilot episode of a show.

It's Breaking Bad. Is it on the list?

Would you let me do the list, lady?

Yes, I'm curious. Okay.

I was going to say, wait and see if it's on the list. Okay.

Here are the top five pilots on Ranker .com.

Number one, Game of Thrones.

Number two, The Walking Dead.

I would agree. That is a very good pilot.

I don't even like zombie stuff, but I watched that pilot and I was like, dang, that was good.

Okay. Number three, Breaking Bad.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Very good pilot.

Number four, Lost. I would agree.

Really good. Really good.

Scared the crap out of me.

Number five, The Simpsons.

Huh. Only one comedy on the list. Yeah.

So yes, the pilot performed very well, and the show was a hit, but there was soon to be some online snobbery.

Oh, was it book people versus show people because it was based on a book?

Well, there's lots of that.

There's a very funny meme that's like, Like the people that read the book can't wait to tell you they read the books.

Okay. But the one that got me tickled and cracked me up because I thought it was really spot on was, and I printed one to show you and I'll share it in stories.

So for all the thousands of people who loved Game of Thrones and they were watching it in every friend group, there was that one person and they were so proud of themselves and they would say, no, I'm not watching it.

Yeah, I'm not watching it.

And look at this meme.

And you know, each episode came out every week.

So this was one of the memes I saw one week that cracked me up.

It said, only one more week until people who don't watch Game of Thrones tell everyone they don't watch Game of Thrones.

That's very funny. Come on, that's funny.

That was me. That was you.

Okay, moving on to fast fact number two.

And I should say Jenna is going to do fast fact three.

I am. Yeah. Fast fact number two.

I call this locations and a trailer.

Locations and a trailer.

It's got a title, my fast fact.

The Winter Is Coming episode was filmed in several locations in Iceland.

and Northern Ireland.

Specifically, Iceland's icy landscapes and dramatic scenery that were used to portray the harsh conditions north of the Wall where the threat of the White Walkers was.

Yeah. Very snowy. Very snowy.

And in March of 2011, HBO released the very first trailer for Game of Thrones.

And it's pretty long, but I thought we should hear a little snippet of it.

Oh, okay. Get us in the mood.

Okay. I, Eddard of the House Stark Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North sentence you to die I saw what I saw I saw the White Walkers You understand why I did it?

He was the deserter The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword I literally saw the White Walkers the madman sees what he sees fear and blood a lot of suspense a lot of great dialogue great dialogue the madman sees what the madman sees yeah and you must have loved that one about the man who makes the sentence has to swing the sword a sword why would how do you know i like I like that.

Because it's kind of edgy.

It is. It has an edge.

What one man can do, another can.

Yeah. Yeah. I felt it for you there.

Well, you guys, those are the end of my Fast Facts.

We have a bunch of fun stuff we're going to sprinkle through.

Jenna has Fast Fact number three.

And you guys, it's a doozy.

Some real great behind -the -scenes stuff you're about to share.

Yeah. I was so impressed with the cast of Game of Thrones that I also went to IMDb to look at the cast list. Sure.

Who are these actors that I know are now famous, but were really a lot of them made famous by this show?

And while I was poking around, I saw that there was an episode before Winter is Coming.

The pilot before the pilot?

The pilot before the pilot.

There is an unaired pilot for Game of Thrones.

Yes. It was shot on film.

Winter is Coming and the rest of the series were all shot on digital, but this original pilot was shot on film like a year before Winter is Coming came out.

I became so curious about it.

I was deep diving it, and I guess it was not good.

I love the quote by their friend that they showed the film to.

Did you see the quote?

What he said? Yeah, I mean, he basically was like, it's garbage.

It is a bunch of garbage.

Yeah, he said like, start over.

Yeah, exactly. So they did.

They rewrote the script, and they re -shot almost all of it.

And they had to recast some people.

Yes. Two actresses dropped out.

They recast the role of Ned Stark's wife and Daenerys.

One of the reasons that they had to almost completely reshoot that pilot that didn't air was because they did not recast the kids, and they were all a year older by the time they got around to reshooting, and they had to redo it so that they would match. I guess a lot of creative decisions were reworked.

For example, they changed the look of the White Walkers and how they acted.

Also, the original pilot did not really include the incestuous relationship between the Lannister twins.

I guess it included that they were in a relationship, but it was not clear to people that they were brother and sister.

So I don't know if you notice in Winter is Coming, literally the first line that she says to her brother is, hello, brother.

Like, it's like, we're going to make this clear right away this time.

I thought that was very funny.

There's also a line, I think, where they're like, that's Cersei's twin.

Yes. They really hammer it home this time.

So that final scene is very, very clear.

I guess there was a book that came out.

It's called Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon.

And it has all kinds of interviews from the cast and crew about this unaired pilot and I found a lot of more cool tidbits.

I'm going to sprinkle them throughout when we break it down, but I just found it all kind of fascinating.

Yeah. I can't believe that HBO gave them the budget to reshoot it.

That shows how behind it they were.

They were like, you know what?

That does not happen in Hollywood.

You do not just get to do over.

Do over. Yeah. No. It just also goes to show how much they trusted their friend who they showed it it to Craig Mazin when he was like, yes, Craig Mazin, who was in charge of adapting The Last of Us.

I have to think he saw Pedro Pascal in Game of Thrones and was like, who's that guy?

Someday we have to watch the episode with Pedro Pascal.

OK, here's my wish list before we get into this.

After we break this down somewhere down the road, doesn't have to be anytime soon.

I'll let you have a breather from Game of Thrones, Jenna.

OK, I want you to watch the episode where we meet Pedro Pedro Pascal.

I'm in. I mean, done.

Done. And then I also really want you to watch the Red Wedding.

Because I think of all the episodes, that was the one where I was like, holy crapsticks.

What is happening? Don't like a lot of people die in that.

Well, I mean, it's not the white wedding.

Um, okay. But I do want to say that I know that Pedro Pascal has like a horrible, gruesome death in game of thrones i saw an interview about it and i don't know if i can do that again well she doesn't die in the episode where he's introduced right no of course not okay my heart can't take it okay well we'll watch the one where you meet him where we meet him and i'll watch this red wedding business with you let's do it okay okay well listen why don't we take a break and then when we come back we are gonna do game of thrones i can't wait i texted jenna when i was watching this and I said, this is so ridiculous that this is my

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All right, we are back.

And I'd like to bring us into this, Ange.

When we watched The Edge together, you were really taken by the wind.

Oh, okay. And you played me a lot of audio of wind.

Okay. I was really taken with the sound design and sound editing on this show.

It's fantastic. Absolutely incredible.

I asked Sam to grab a clip of the opening one minute of sound.

Oh, I love it. Let's hear it.

I love you. do you hear that there's a little wind at the end just for you yeah yeah but you hear it's It's like gates opening.

Oh, oh. There's clip -clops of horses.

It's a giant metal gate.

And then they go into this dark tunnel, these three men from the Night's Watch. The torches flare.

Yeah. Dark, icy tunnel.

Then they get to another even bigger metal gate.

That goes up. They come out of that.

And you see that that gate is so dwarfed by the size of the giant ice wall that it's built into.

Well, I'll have you know, the sound designer for this episode was Andy Kennedy.

And guess what? What?

He won the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing Short Form, Sound Effects, and Foley in Television for Winter is Coming.

He was also nominated for an Emmy for Game of Thrones.

He left the show in season one.

But in general, Game of Thrones was known for its amazing sound design.

It won multiple awards.

Starting in season three, Paula Fairfield became sound designer for the show.

And she is responsible for creating the cries of the baby dragon.

from the ground up.

She had to figure out what the baby dragons were going to sound like.

She and her team were nominated for an Emmy in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017.

And they won an Emmy in 2015 and 2019.

And now she's the sound designer for House of Dragon.

So I mean, this is a stellar group of folks.

And in the very first minute of the show, I am in and it's honestly, it's all all sound design.

I mean, it's like 90 % sound design.

It's really powerful.

Pretty cool. Well, you guys, these three nights watchmen are now, they're beyond the wall and they ride into the snowy forest. There are snow flurries.

This is bad. Angela, hot tip.

What? If you are north of the wall and see snow flurries, bad is about to happen.

Leave immediately. Is that the winter that's coming?

Winter is the white walkers.

They are one in the same.

What? Oh, winter is coming.

I mean, I, they kept saying it like it had a double meaning threat level.

Midnight winter is coming.

Oh, Sam. I love that you're just realizing this in real time right now.

I literally just Just thought winter was coming.

Just winter. And the first time I watched the show, I was like, how much longer till winter?

Like, how do we not know?

It's already snowy.

Is winter not now? Also, that's going to get annoying as the show goes on.

They reference winter coming for a while.

No, I know. I know.

And I'm like, it's snowing all the time.

But winter is what happens in winter.

The bad stuff. Just so.

You know, I mean, for sure, some real hardships come in your way.

And if you're north of the wall, real bad.

But anyway, Angela hot tip, you see snow flurries, get the heck out of there.

All right. All right.

Now the men, they're deeper in the haunted forests.

They're trying to investigate these reports of missing wildlings.

Wildlings are sort of the people that live beyond the wall.

They're kind of a ragtag group of folks, right?

Okay. Like peasants, kind of.

Eh? Like, I mean. Forest people.

Eh? How would you describe wildlings, Sam?

Yeah, they're feral.

Feral. Yeah. Got it.

They're wildlings. They're wild.

Okay. In the world.

Got it. So, one of our night's watchmen, he sort of sees some smoke coming out of what looks like a camp area.

And he gets on the ground and he crawls to it.

And guess what? He is surrounded by snow flurries.

Mistake. Do not go there.

But he does. He does.

And he discovers a bunch of corpses arranged in a kind of spiral pattern.

in the snow yeah i have a fun fact about that let's hear it this was a change from the book the writers of the series added the idea that the corpses would be arranged in the pattern in the script they called it a witchy mandala and it was designed to send the message that the white walkers were not mindless creatures they wanted them to be like established as as beings that had a culture, had a purpose.

They thought it would make them scarier.

It does. It does. It makes them scarier.

Well, the night's watchman who discovered this, his name is Will, he is freaked out.

He runs back to his other two friends and he's like, hey, there are corpses everywhere.

We, you know, this is craziness.

We got to get out of here.

But he says he wants to run away.

Why doesn't he want to run back to the wall?

wall why not that wall seems super safe is it because if he goes back to the wall they're going to make him go out again and like fight whatever's happening that I don't know the other guy is like no we should go to the wall and tell everyone that's me I'm him yeah then at four minutes and nine seconds there's this other nights watchman with kind of short dark hair anyone else think he looks like matt damon sure yeah yeah also the answer to your question jenna would be yes they would make him go fight as a member of the night's watch okay but wait a second can we get back to Matt Damon for one

second. I'm sorry that throughout this breakdown you and Sam are gonna have to explain the show to me as well.

No no no. I hope that it doesn't become.

That I don't mind I just went down a rabbit hole that is the question is Matt Damon in Game of Thrones last night and I was not the only one that thought this okay look at this I did a side -by -side of of The Night's Watchmen.

He was playing the character Waymar Royce.

And in real life, his name is Rob Ostler.

Look at this side by side.

Oh my God. That is crazy.

There's a whole Reddit thread of like, is Matt Damon in Game of Thrones?

This was like a real thing.

Has this guy, has he ever doubled for Matt Damon?

Like, has he ever played Matt Damon's brother in a movie?

Not that I could find.

He's done a bunch of series on BBC One.

Look at that. Sam. Yeah.

Yeah, that's pretty spot on.

I mean, come on. Have Rob Osler and Matt Damon ever been seen in the same room together?

Is it possible that Rob Osler is Matt Damon?

He's like Matt Damon's British counterpart.

Or how about this? Rob, tired of being pigeonholed into like serious, dramatic British work, took on the alter ego Matt Damon so that he could become like an action star in The Bourne Identity.

But first he had to write Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck.

Like, wow, that's some real dedication.

The long game con. Here's what's going to happen.

What? When I meet Matt Damon. Yep.

I mean, I met him one time.

Remember, he took wine off our table at the SAG Awards.

I do remember. But if I ever see him again, you know what I'm going to do?

What? I'm going to yell, Rob!

And see what he does?

See if he turns around.

Yeah. Okay. Anyway.

Okay. Well, that guy, not Matt Damon, wants to go and see what's up.

Yeah. He's like, bad idea, guy.

We're going back. Yeah, they go back.

And Will is like, to where all the corpses are?

Are you crazy? Yeah.

Guess what? They go back and they're all gone.

Yeah. There's not even a footprint in the snow.

It's because they've all been made into White Walker zombies.

Yes. That's what happens after a White Walker kills you and dismembers you.

Then you get put back together into a zombie.

Are you just realizing this right now, Jenna?

No, no, no, no. This I knew because I will say, here is my comment on the opening of this show.

I wrote down. This show literally opens like a horror movie.

I mean, this could be the opening of any horror film.

Dismembered bodies arranged in a pattern in the snow.

And then the girl that was impaled on the tree is now alive and chasing a guy.

And then the White Walker beheads a guy.

This is literally a zombie movie.

Like literally the opening of Dawn of the Dead.

I mean, it's like the same thing.

It's total zombies.

But yeah, so the White Walker, you know, Now, once he kills you, then he can make you into a White Walker minion.

Your eyes turn bright blue.

Yeah. But they do have a weakness.

It's not clear to me yet.

It's not clear yet.

Okay. It will be revealed.

So, anyway, the White Walkers, they kill two of the Night's Watchmen, the Matt Damon guy and the other one who just wanted to go back to the wall.

Yeah, return to the wall and not Matt Damon get killed and Will is just runs off.

He's like running for his life.

Yeah. And then now we have the opening credit.

Yes. I do have a little GOT trivia for you.

What's GOT? Oh, Game of Thrones.

Sam, it's going to be a long day.

What's GOT? Shut this down.

This show's done. Wrap it up.

We haven't even got to the opening scene.

Okay. Here is my. My brain was not made for these shows.

My brain cannot follow these.

I'm going to throw a question out there for you.

I'm too logical. All right.

Anyway, GOT trivia.

Ready? Yes. Get this.

The White Walkers had their own language.

According to an interview with David J.

Peterson, we've talked about him before on the podcast. The person who created Dothraki.

That's right. He created several languages for Game of Thrones.

And he had a White Walker language that was going to be called Scroth.

I'm quoting David J.

Peterson here. He says it was actually going to be for the very first scene of the show, where the White Walker comes out and cuts the guy's head off.

There are parts where you hear them kind of grumble and vocalize.

But ultimately, Scroth was scrapped because, according to Peterson, I think ultimately they decided they didn't want them to actually say stuff and even subtitle it.

That might have been a little corny, honestly, for the opening scene of the show.

I like this idea that they just, like zombies do, sort of telepathically communicate or just kind of like operate in a different plane than with language.

Well, this article went on to say, for season two, the sound designer created an ice -cracking sound that finally sort of brought this Skroth idea to life.

It's what you would hear kind of right before you would see them or when they were around.

So it's kind of like a language, but without any verbalization.

Well, next up, we are going to go to my favorite place in Game of Thrones, and it is Winterfell and the home of the Stark family.

Yes. From my previous viewing, I remember just loving the Stark family, loving Winterfell.

I thought this is where I'd like to live.

It seems pretty great.

A lot of this was shot in Ireland.

You love Ireland. You've been there.

This makes sense. Mm -hmm.

Well, we open on that same deserter, Will.

He is running over a big green hill and closing in behind him are soldiers, and then we see in the horizon Winterfell.

Yes. The boys are practicing their bow and arrow shooting, and the girls are practicing their sewing.

Sansa's really good.

Arya is not. You're going to see your very first classic Arya side -eye.

Also, the hairdos on these girls would make Angela Martin swoon.

So many braids. Real elaborate braids.

Especially Arya, who, by the way, would rather be doing the bow and arrow.

We learned very soon that she's pretty good with it.

Yeah, she's really good.

Much better than her brother.

So I do have to point out, speaking of hair, an older man is going to approach the Stark family.

Buckle in for some serious facial hair alert.

Okay. It's Sir Roderick Castle.

He is the master at arms at Winterfell.

Okay. But he has these long white lamb chops that go down the side of his cheeks.

And then they meet underneath his chin.

And he braids them into like a little ponytail.

It's so crazy. I have a whole hair breakdown coming up.

I became a little bit obsessed with the hair on the show.

And I went on IMDb looking at all the people who did the hair on the show.

And there's like a dozen people whose job was crowd hair.

There were so many people who worked on this show.

The crew was humongous.

I have for later a little bit that would piggyback off of that for the costume department.

Oh, okay. Well, we're going to learn about the deserter.

Lord Stark is notified about it.

So he's like, all right, I got to go, you know, chop his head off for deserting.

And he wants his sons, even his youngest, Bran, to go.

And Caitlyn's like, he's 10.

10. He's 10. He doesn't need to witness this.

And Ned's like, he won't be a boy forever.

And winter is coming.

Yes. Not actual cold winter.

Right. Just bad stuff.

Yep. And he needs to be ready.

I do want to point out, we have a super -ka -duper stare down.

Caitlin is going to peer over at John Snow.

I saw it. Yeah. She does what I'm calling the, quote, nose flare glare.

Yeah. She flares stares her nose at him she doesn't like him doesn't like him at all all right so we're going to be out in just the hills and there's a little spot where you can get beheaded this is clearly their beheading spot it's like a tree that's got a divot in it we have our very first long name title speech that's a classic game of thrones moment yeah i know you love them i love them so i'm gonna recite it okay lord stark as he's about to swing the sword says in the name of robert of the House Baratheon, first of his name, king of the Andals and the first men, lord of the seven kingdoms

and protector of the realm, I, Eddard of the House Stark, lord of Winterfell and warden of the North, sentence you to die.

Yeah. That's a lot you have to learn.

That's a lot of, you got to get that, you got to get that right.

As an actor. That's as hard as medical jargon, I think.

Also, just as Lord Stark.

Yeah. Like, what if he fumbled that right before?

He beheaded the deserter?

That would be kind of a want, want.

It really would. How often does he have to say that?

I don't know. Does he have to open every meeting with that?

I know. That's a mouthful.

It is. Well, he does it.

Yeah. He cuts off the guy's head.

Yeah. And Bran watches it, the little 10 -year -old.

Yeah. He sees it. I had questions at this point, like what do they do with the guy's body and the guy's head?

They've come so far to do the beheading.

How do they dispose of the body?

the tree stump thing it looked clean when they got there is that someone's job it had some red it didn't have I'm not going to get in the weeds about it okay I did have a moment of curiosity that's all I'm saying I like where your brain goes it's very sort of like chores list who's chores yeah who has to now deal with the chopped up guy well someone does someone does and I'm telling you right now if they're smart they'd burn them spoiler oh this guy this guy that was just beheaded will Will?

All dead people should be burned.

Oh, Sam. Oh, they should?

All of the dead should be burned.

It's true. Oh. All of them.

All of them. Okay. Anyway.

Well, they're making their way back to Winterfell, and they come across a giant dead animal.

I'll have you know that animal, that stag, I guess, it was real.

It was not a fakie dead animal.

It had been dead for about two days and it was decomposing and they talk, all the actors talk about it was really smelly.

You know what? What?

You know, I read the dad to all the Lannisters, Tywin Lannister.

I don't know. Is he in this episode?

He's not, but I read that he had to gut a deer, like prep a deer for an episode.

In a scene? He really did it.

They gave him a dead deer that he, one, practiced on, and then, one, he did it.

Why? Unnecessary. You know what I just saw on Instagram that I was like, oh my God, we have to ask for this.

You know how we always talk about when you have to eat steak or something like that in a scene and it just fills you up and it's hard to do take after take after take of eating steak, but what if there was a scene where you had to eat steak?

This prop guy figured out a way to make a big hunk of watermelon look like a steak by putting on like, like smoky.

Yeah. Like, uh, I can't remember what he used.

I think he used like liquid smoke on top of it.

And then he like painted it with a little bit of like edible food coloring that was brown.

It looked like a steak.

And then when you cut into it, the inside, it just looked really rare.

I was like, Oh my God, that's genius.

And I bet that guy could have made a real convincing fake deer.

Yeah. You know, probably.

Yeah. It's a lot of watermelon i'm not saying he made it on watermelon i'm just saying like if you can make a piece of watermelon look like steak you can make a fakey deer to cut up um okay anyway we do see though now also a dead wolf and it's got an antler like through its neck a dire wolf a dire wolf so the dire wolf and the deer they kind of tussled i guess so and neither of them made it but what we we find are six little pups.

Ned wants to have them killed.

Ned's like, kill them.

Ned's like, hey, they're not going to survive without their mother.

And then Bran really wants one.

And Jon Snow was like, you know what?

They're the symbol of your house.

And they were here for a reason.

And there's five of them, one for each of your children.

They should each have one.

And then Ned gives a very dad speech where he's like, you will clean up after it.

You will take take care of it.

If it dies, you will bury it.

Oh, I wrote it down.

What I wrote down was, has anyone written Ned Stark's book of parenting?

Is there a parody book?

Because so far, he has laid down the following wisdom.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. You will train them yourselves.

You will feed them yourselves.

If they die, you will bury them yourselves.

I have a feeling there's got to be some stocking stuffer, ned stark book of parenting yeah i also like when he says the madman sees what a madman sees that's just kind of like look it is what it is yeah what are you gonna do yeah yeah that's right i mean yeah no i like it well um there is an extra pup at first we only see five but there is a sixth one it's the runt and john snow is gonna get the runt yeah because he's not a real stark we're learning he's not a Stark.

Yeah. Not a full -fledged Stark.

I do have a costume fun fact.

Oh, what is it? This is from a great article on mentalfloss .com.

You might have noticed in these wintry scenes, these guys are all wearing these gigantic coats, right?

Yeah. Well, Game of Thrones owns much of the credit for its characters' iconic looks to costume designer, Michelle Clapton, and she would oversee a team of anywhere from 70 to 100 customers each season because they had to have all of these costumes for so many actors.

Wow. And they're not like shopping for those either.

That's like you're creating this.

Creating. Sewing. So listen to this.

What? This is so creative.

Clapton revealed that several of the show's luxurious looking capes and coats were made from Ikea rugs.

She said, we'd take anything we can, we'd cut, we'd shave them, then we'd add like a strong leather strap.

And following the share of hers, Ikea created a set of instructions for how to turn one of their rugs into a cape.

That is brilliant. It is, right?

I love it so much. I have a wolf pup fun fact.

Oh yeah? Okay, so you know each of the Stark kids kids are going to get a wolf and Sansa names her wolf Lady.

Lady was played by a pup named Zuni from Malik Northern Inuit Dogs.

Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa, adopted Lady as her own pet when the first season wrapped.

I know. I thought that was so cool.

You already knew that.

Everybody already knew that.

No, it's not. It's not.

It's listen. I was just a fan of the show.

So I was I was like, not everybody knows.

Sophie Turner has her wolf.

Not everybody knows.

Not everyone does. No, they don't.

Sam, did you know that?

I did not know that.

Hey! There you go. Well, I guess after season one, all live animals were replaced by CGI.

And I guess dead animals were replaced by real dead animals, per your fun fact about the deer.

Yeah. But live animals became CGI after season one.

That's good. I can take us into this next thing because we're now at King's Landing.

Anding, that's the land I was trying to think of earlier, capital of the seven kingdoms. And Jon Arryn, the previous Hand of the King has died.

Hand of the King was very clear to me.

It's the king's sidekick.

Kind of sounds like the person who does all the work while the king is like drinking and having fun.

Yes, it's his like counselor person.

Yeah, we see a shot of Jon Arryn and he's dead and he has rocks on his eyes and the rocks have eyes painted on them.

Yeah, I became curious.

I know this show is made up, but it seems to be a type of medieval alternate reality.

I wondered if this was based on anything.

Well, I know in like old Westerns, they would put coins on the people's eyes.

Yeah. Do you know why?

So the eyelids don't roll back and open.

Yes. I guess your eyeballs like deflate.

Yeah. And then your eyelids can pop open so you can put a coin or a stone on the eyelid to keep them closed so it doesn't freak people out.

Wow. Yeah. Are they sew them shut for like wakes?

Well, nowadays they put like fakie eyeballs in.

So their eyes are open?

No, no, no. So they stay shut.

It's like I believe a fakie eyeball.

That's it said modern undertakers put fake eyeballs in place.

It makes the facial contours look correct per the website I read.

Wow. Well, now we're going to meet Jamie and Cersei Lannister.

sister. They're the twins.

The minute I saw these two, I knew they were going to hook up.

And then as soon as I heard they were brother and sister, I was even more sure they were going to hook up.

Like I just knew it.

We should say the Lannisters have a very distinctive look.

They're all very blonde, very blue eyed.

And the Starks kind of all have brown hair.

You know, there are these patterns and how these different groups look.

Oh, yeah. Well, the Hottie brother and sister, they're both super good looking as well.

They're going to talk about the death of Jon Arryn.

Cersei thinks Jaime should be hand of the king.

Yeah. But he does not want that responsibility.

Their days are too long and their lives are too short, Angela.

I know. That's some foreshadowing.

But you know what? He says he doesn't want the job, but then later he's going to get in this pissing contest with Ned Stark, who is going to get offered the job.

And now his feathers are a ruffle, but you just said you don't want it.

So settle down, Jamie.

Pick a lane. Right.

What do you want? What do you want?

Besides your sister.

Well, now we're going to see a raven and it's flying towards Winterfell.

It comes with a message.

Caitlin Stark is going to make her way through this muddy courtyard to the very iconic Game of Thrones piece of scenery.

Is it the tree with the red leaves?

It's so pretty. I wrote it down.

I said the production design is It's so pretty here.

So it's a tree with a white bark.

It's got these very red leaves, red sap.

It's often found in the god's woods is what it's called.

That's the forested area within the castle walls.

And many of these trees have faces carved into their trunks.

And they're considered sacred by the followers of the old gods.

Okay, well, it's beautiful.

I was very impressed.

So are you telling me that like many important conversations are going to happen at this tree?

or trees like it? Yes.

Yes. They're sacred and they kind of in some ways are like all knowing.

Well, this is where Caitlyn is going to tell Ned about the hand of the king dying.

And this guy was like a father to Ned.

We're going to learn.

He is crushed. She also says, you know what's coming next.

The raven had more news.

The king and queen and their whole entourage are on their their way to Winterfell.

You know what that means.

They are going to want you to be the next hand.

Caitlin's like, you can always say no. She really wants him to say no. Oh, she's going to make that clear.

Now we're inside the Winterfell Castle.

There's lots and lots of hubbub because they're getting ready.

The king is coming.

Yeah, there's food prep in the great hall.

And we learned that Lord Tyrion's chamber is going to need a lot of candles because he likes to stay up late reading.

And Master Lewin says, I heard he drinks all night.

Yes. This is the other sibling to the Hardy brother and sister who are getting it on.

Yeah. And Caitlyn says, how much could he possibly drink?

A man of his stature.

Which is foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing. Well, also now the Stark boys are going to get shaves and haircuts in preparation.

So prerequisite for this scene is everyone had had to be shirtless.

Yes, I noticed. Everybody has their shirt off.

Calm down, HBO. Don't get me started on the number of breasts we're going to see in this episode.

It's literally the Benny Hill of drama.

So many boobs. I just love the Benny Hill reference.

I mean, that's what I thought of.

I was like, what is this?

Remember that? Of course I remember.

We all remember it from our childhood.

It was a comedy show, but there was lots of boobs.

It was on TV. It was a comedy sketch show.

And then just topless women.

I know. Okay. The boys obviously didn't need to like shower or anything before their haircuts because they also are kind of like sweaty and dirty and shirtless.

I noticed the writers think that this shaving scene is quote the worst scene we've ever written and probably the most embarrassing.

That includes the pilot before the pilot.

Well, they said that the only reason it was there was because there were a few snippets that they did use from the original show and their beards weren't going to match. So this was designed to create continuity between like their shaggy beards before and then they're like non -shaggy beards after.

Oh, this was like a forced scene.

It was. And HBO was like, make them topless.

I guess so. So. Yes.

Yes. Well, everyone is sort of like watching the entourage of the king and queen make its way.

Bran has scaled up the castle walls.

He's watching. I mean, this kid can climb.

Oh, yeah. He's like way up high.

And his mom catches him and is like, hey, no more climbing.

Foreshadowing. At 25 minutes, 35 seconds, as everyone is riding in with their red flags and the lion symbol, that's the symbol of the Lannisters, we see Prince Joffrey for the first time.

And one of my favorite characters from the series, the Hound.

What's the Hound? The Hound is the younger brother of Sir Gregar, aka the Mountain.

The Hound is the personal guard of Prince Joffrey.

The Mountain protects the Queen.

Anyway, they're not really featured in this episode, but Lady is someone who is a fan of the series.

This is the Hound. You're seeing the Hound.

And then when the Stark family lines up, 25 minutes, 58 seconds for the first time ever, and he doesn't have a single word in this episode and you only see him here, it's Hodor.

Oh, Hodor. I wondered when we were gonna see Hodor.

Hodor is right there.

I have a spoiler about this moment because what's gonna happen is the king is gonna arrive.

He comes in sort of last. He gets off his horse.

He walks over to Ned.

He's like, you've gotten fat.

And then Ned kind of looks at him like, someone else.

And they laugh and they hug and, oh, look, they're old friends.

And then the king goes and he, like, greets all the Starks.

Here's the thing, I guess, that when Robert greets the Starks, he hugs Ned, he hugs Caitlyn, he ruffles Rickon's hair, and he shakes hands with Rob.

He does not touch Bran, Sansa, Arya, or Jon Stark.

Here's the thing. All four of the Starks that Robert makes physical contact with die violently in future seasons and the four that he doesn't touch survive.

This strange coincidence became a popular theory that Robert has the touch of death.

Oh, Sam, what do you think of that coincidence?

Jenna, I need you to watch every episode.

I need this to continue for years.

What is it that you need to continue?

There's just so many horrible, heinous things coming up.

I'm like replaying all the things.

Yes. Wow. She doesn't even know about reek yet no oh god for reek okay well i know john snow dies and i know he gets revived i know because there were like articles about it where people were freaking out pissed off yeah well now pretty quickly king robert is gonna say to lord stark i want you know take me to your crypt i need to pay my respects cersei is like um hey we've been writing for a month my love Love, surely the dead can wait.

Robert's like, nope, Cersei is pissed.

She's embarrassed. She's not happy.

Well, we're gonna find out why.

Yeah. I thought he wanted to pay his respects to like the men who had fallen in his service.

No, no, it's always about a woman.

Yeah, he had the hots for Ned Stark's sister who's buried down below.

But wait, first I need to go back to Queen Cersei getting out of the chariot because all I could think about was, oh my God, I would be so queasy.

And she is so sour.

She looks like she could throw up, truly.

And it's no doubt that she is so cranky.

But also, did you know that Lena Headley was pregnant while filming this episode?

No. Yes. And so that's why in so many of her scenes, she's either like wrapped in furs or like sitting down or like the opening.

She's totally you in Dinner Party.

Like in the opening scene when she's like, hello, brother, she's like leaning forward. and that was so like her robe would like cover up her belly and then at the end when they're getting it on originally she was going to be naked she couldn't be naked because she was so obviously pregnant so they had her clothed and then I guess that started the trend where whenever Cersei has sex she's always clothed she's like the one person we don't see nude in the series apparently also I have to imagine much like Paul Feig Tim Van Patten had to sort of figure out how do we have a sex scene and not see the belly,

which is what you had to do with Dwight.

Yes. Where do we put him to block it all?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So now we're going to go down to the crypt.

Yes. And Robert is paying his respects to Ned's sister.

He was clearly in love with her.

He says to Ned, we were meant to rule together.

If your sister had lived, we would have been bound by blood.

And he's like, you know what, though?

It's not too late. I have a son.

You have a daughter.

Let's join our houses.

This is also when he says, I want you to be the new Hand of the King.

Yes. Like he just says it.

And I mean, how can you say no to that?

This guy just rode for 30 days to personally ask you.

He came with his whole family.

Yeah. I mean, this is a lot of pressure.

And he says, I need you.

They're old friends.

Yes, they're old friends.

Did you think that these two guys looked slightly different in the scene compared to the rest of the episode?

Tell me why. why? This is one of two full scenes that were left over from the original pilot.

It was also shot on film, so it looks a little different.

Okay. And the next scene coming up, this is the other scene that survived from the original pilot.

Well, it's Tyrion Lannister, and he's, you know, he's with a lady and getting serviced by the lady.

He is. And And Jamie bursts in and says, look, our sister is requesting your attention.

All right. This is when I got real interested in everyone's hair.

This scene? Yeah. When I saw Peter Dinklage's hair.

Okay. His blonde hair.

They have clearly dyed all of the actress hair because Lena Headley as well was like kind of known for being a brunette, right?

And now she's clearly wearing a wig.

Yes. Yes. Because the Lannisters are blonde.

So they tried to make Peter a blonde.

Yes. Yes. I really felt like Peter Dinklage's hair in this scene had a hint of Ryan during Michael Scott Paper Company.

It had a little hint of like early 90s sun in by the swimming pool.

Yes. I guess, like I said, this scene was from the original pilot and this was their first take on his hair.

I guess in the book, Tyrion's hair is described as so blonde it seemed white.

This is a wig. So for the pilot, Peter Dinklage wore a wig, but by the final version, version they changed it to look more natural and you can see his hair change throughout the pilot you can tell when it was wig and when it was different wig no wig mm -hmm speaking of hair because they became so obsessed joffrey also had a different haircut in the original pilot it was more of a page boy cut it was kind of like henry the eighth they decided that this more modern cut in the version that aired gave him a type of spitefulness without making him look so dorky.

I see it. Yeah. And finally, before we leave this scene, I need to give an actor shout out to the woman who plays the sex worker with Tyrion.

She was played by Esme Bianco and she's going to go on to be a recurring character.

I remember her from the first time I watched the series because I thought she was so good.

And I found this quote from her.

She said, I was originally cast and my name was the redheaded whore.

I didn't have a name at that point and I was only meant to do this one scene.

And they ended up loving her so much that she became a recurring character and they named her Roz.

She's in the series for a long time.

I remember her. Yeah.

Well, basically, I guess Cersei wants Tyrion and Jaime to keep her company because they hate the Starks and they don't want to sit through this long meal with them.

And then Jaime, I guess, gets three more girls for Tyrion.

I don't know what's happening here.

He's like, I know you, we're going to get this all over at once.

Yeah. So, just have like four ladies at one time and then please come to dinner.

And make it to dinner.

Yeah. Right. Well, we're back in the crypt now, and Robert is just still talking about Ned's sister and just like saying, why did you have to bury her in a place like this?

She needs to be on a hilltop somewhere with sun and clouds.

And Robert says, you know, in my dreams, I kill him every night.

Who's him? Who's he talking about?

He kills who? Is this who killed Ned's sister?

Well. Is that who he wants to kill?

I can't answer any of this, Sam.

I can't answer. Or you can.

No, no, no. Because we have, we're holding out hope.

Here's the thing though.

Okay. Ned says, it's done, your grace.

The Targaryens are gone.

And then Robert says, not all of them.

Dun, dun, dun. Oh, and now we're going to meet some.

We're going to go across the narrow sea to Pintos.

Sure. We're going to meet Daenerys.

Why do you say it like that?

Sure. just like just made a made up place this whole that have you never watched anything that is like written like a movie it's all fiction everything is made up everything is made up is made up but it's under mifflin oh sure that's named they i know but paper companies are real scranton pennsylvania is real the jobs we're doing are actual jobs there were kings and queens i guess yes it's just so so many names to remember in places and lands and relationships it's like like the fact that i was watching this pilot and i was following along with an outline that ainsley made for me and i still was like

wait who's that like i had a literal like it was literally printed on a sheet of paper for me and i can't hold it in my brain this is learning a whole new world isn't that what happens when you read a book don't you learn a whole new world yeah but she just watched lord Lord of the Rings.

So I'm sure her tank is pretty full of names and places.

She's tapped out. She's tapped out.

Well, anyway, I have a little trivia about this scene.

Okay. Well, all of that is to say I was enjoying, I enjoy this pilot.

I think it's a good show.

Okay. Well, I do have a little bit of GOT trivia.

Game of Thrones trivia.

I'm keeping up. So apparently in the books, the Targaryens had silver hair and violet eyes.

And during shooting, denarius and viserious originally wore violet contact lenses i read that but the writers decided they impacted the actor's ability to portray emotion so they were like nope smart yeah here's what i am learning when i meet this guy viserious yep so we've got another brother sister relationship with weird sexual undertones and more than that though if you are a man with blonde hair in the the Game of Thrones in that universe, your character is very likely to be a creeper.

Almost all the blonde men are total creepers.

Okay, I'll track it in my rewatch. Well, he's a super creeper.

He needs her to be perfect because he's going to be presenting her today to Khal Drogo, who's very important in the Dothraki.

He wants this union to go well because he wants his army so he can go and get his throne own back, have a little foreshadowing, Daenerys is going to get into a bathtub and they're like, no, no, no, it's too hot.

She doesn't even feel a thing.

She just gets right in.

Yeah. I read that like later she's going to like walk into the fire or something.

I don't know. She can be hot is what we know.

Well, listen, in the next scene, we are going to meet this Khal Drago person.

Khal Drago. Karl Drago.

No R. Sorry. Khal. Khal.

I'll say it again. Karl.

His name is not Karl.

girl. I'm trying. I am really trying, by the way.

You are. You are. Kaldrogo.

Kaldrogo. Yes, we're going to meet him, but why don't we take a break and I will learn the names and then we will be back to finish breaking down Game of Thrones.

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And Daenerys is waiting for Khal Drogo.

I guess Dothraki are notoriously late.

They run a little behind.

Who's this helper guy?

Who's this guy who's like in his ear?

The guy who, he introduces the brother and sister to call.

He just works for them.

I don't know. Okay, well, I got an audio clip because Angela, he does the name and the house thing, and I know how much you like it.

So let's listen. I think you really like it, too.

I'm starting to like it.

I want to write my own for myself.

May I present my honored guests.

Viserys of House Targaryen, the third of his name.

the rightful king of the Andals and the First Men, and his sister, Daenerys of House Targaryen.

Yeah, the house thing.

It's a big thing. I wrote one for you.

Do you remember? I don't.

You did? I did, lady.

For your birthday one year, I posted on Office Ladies Pod and I wrote my version of your Game of Thrones title.

Oh. Jenna of House Fisher, the first of her name.

The Summery Master, Queen of the Fast Facts, Protector of the Chucket, Lady Regent of Wiffleball.

Maker of Bread, Stringer of Cheese, Commander of the Hockey Moms, Keeper of Sunny Cat, and Mother of Podcasting.

I love it. It's so great.

And I wrote one for myself.

You did? Yes. Where's that one?

Let's see. It's because I walk through my house and I pick up all the cups and bowls.

I'm that person. Yes.

We have three kids.

There's cups and bowls and all kinds of things.

And I just walk. I am familiar.

I picked them up. So I had my daughter take a picture of me on one of these errands.

Yes. Of picking up cups and bowls.

And then I wrote this for myself.

Cups Kinsey of House Clutter.

First of her name. Keeper of the mess.

Protector of the bowls and cups left behind.

mother of stacking items and queen of making only one trip to retrieve everything these are great and i mean i love them well i don't know if you know this but screen rant did a breakdown of what houses different office characters might come from oh really yes i didn't know this so i only pulled the ones that made sense based on having just watched the pilot because they listed a lot of houses that didn't make sense to me.

But they said that both Jim Halpert and Michael Scott were House Stark.

Do you agree with that?

Jim Halpert? I mean...

Here's what they said about Jim.

They said, quote, sure, sometimes Jim will goof off from time to time and pull elaborate pranks on his coworkers.

But at the end of the day, he is the character that the majority of people at Dunder Mifflin look up to.

He has a big heart, and he will do pretty much anything for the people he loves most. He'll make some mistakes along the way, but he's only human, just like the people of House Stark.

And for Michael, they said, quote, he is no stranger to slipping up and making cringeworthy mistakes, just like the characters in House Stark.

Yet, like the Stark family, whenever the chips are down, they get right back up.

They also said Michael Scott is the heart and in Soul of the Series.

And for that reason, he seems like a good fit for House Stark.

Well, he does pull a lot of shenanigans that could have ended him up in the Night's Watch. I will say that.

Oh, the Night's Watch is a punishment?

Yeah, a little bit.

Oh, I thought you like volunteering.

I mean, Jon Snow is going to be like, I'm going, I want to volunteer.

I thought it was like a monastery kind of thing.

Yeah, but he doesn't have anywhere to go kind of because he's not a Stark, so he won't have titles or land.

Are we going to find out who his mom is?

It's a big mystery right now.

Eventually. Okay. I guess when the writers were interviewing to do this job, they met with George R .R.

Martin. And he kind of gave them like a test. He was like, who do you think John Snow's mother is?

And they made their guess.

And he liked it. I don't know.

Maybe he had a secret idea all along.

Oh. And they made the right guess.

I don't know. This is what I read online.

Very interesting. who do you think this article said belongs to the house lannister angela no what ryan ryan and kelly they said that the lannisters are all about keeping up with appearances and they're obsessed with their image okay so there you go there you go well i do have a costume catch in this scene danaris has on this sort of very sheer dress it's see -through yeah it's not Not hiding much, but holding the dress up on her shoulders are these elaborate silver sort of like brooches.

Yeah. And they have three dragons.

They do? Foreshadowing.

Three dragon heads make up the brooch. Interesting.

Well, Call is going to ride up on his horse.

Basically, he's just like testosterone on a horse.

Yeah. He's played by Jason Momoa.

Yes. He has a long braid.

long braid and lots of eyeliner and when I guess in their world if they are like defeated in a battle they have to cut their hair yeah cut their ponytail and his is really long he's never been defeated never been cut no never been cut yeah and he kind of looks at Danarius and then he rides away and Viserys is like well what happened where's he going yeah and he learns that like listen he must have liked her because trust me if he didn't we'd know yeah and um Danarius is like, oh, I don't want to get married to this guy.

I just want to go home.

And he's like, Viserys is like, sister, how?

Where's home? We have no home.

That's the whole point.

And then he's so mean.

I said, this is what I'm calling a major a -hole alert.

For sure. He's like, I'd let the whole tribe have their way with you, all 40 ,000 men.

They're horses too, if that's what it takes.

Yeah. There is going to be a really good revenge scene for her with him.

Oh, I think I remember it.

It's in the first couple seasons.

Yeah. It was satisfying.

Yeah. Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys, she just leaps off the screen.

She is so great. I know.

And she doesn't have a ton of dialogue.

And she just emotes.

She's so good. Did you know, though?

I was Googling about her.

Did you know that she suffered two traumatic brain aneurysms during the filming of Game of Thrones?

Yes. Holy shit. I know.

She was carrying around this secret medical issue.

Yeah. Very scary. Life -threatening.

Yes. I know. This is what's happening.

I'm like, not only am I getting caught up on the plot of Game of Thrones, I'm getting caught up on the private lives of all the people who starred in this show.

I know. It's a lot of lives that happen.

That's like the office.

People ask us about an episode and we're like, oh, well, this was also happening in my life at the time.

Yeah. Well, now we're back at Winterfell.

Sansa's getting ready for dinner.

She wants to know, do you think Joffrey's going to find her attractive?

She really wants to marry him.

She does. She's like, says to her mom, I want to be queen.

Please, please make father say yes to taking this job as Hand of the King.

It's the only thing I've ever wanted.

Oh, Sansa. Oh, Sansa.

Sam. Sam, if we could go back in time and have a conversation with Sansa right there.

I mean, I saw Joffrey for like four seconds on his horse and I know he's a total dick.

Well, like every other Lannister.

It gets so much worse.

Oh, I know. I saw. I watched.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Forget Joffrey.

Yeah. Insert absolute human walking nightmare.

Oh, oh, all right. Well, we're going to go to dinner.

Cersei has to sit there and watch her husband like fill up.

I guess just like one of the bar wenches or something.

Not a waitress. Yes.

I don't know. And she's just like, she's over it.

Yeah. She's so sour.

She's super sour. I know.

She is the Angela Martin of Game of Thrones.

Very sour. Jon Snow is outside.

He's not even in the hall.

He's practicing his sword skills.

And his uncle comes up.

It's Uncle Benjen. Okay, so I just want to say I'm really proud that I followed this scene.

Okay, so tell me if I got it right.

Ned's brother, Benjen, is part of the Night Watch. Yes.

Yes. Okay. But you just told me that you had to be like banished to that, but he seems like he is like, where's this with honor?

I mean, did he do something wrong?

I don't know. Sam, do you know?

What did Benjen do?

How did he end up on the Night's Watch?

Uh, I don't remember actually.

Okay. Well, anyway, you want me to look that up?

No, it's not important.

I'm just really proud that I know that he works for the Night Watch. Jon Snow wants to work for the Night Watch. Benjen says don't do it.

You can't have a family.

Jon Snow says it doesn't matter.

I don't have a family anyway.

And then he goes inside and then...

Wait, wait. But we also find out why Jon Snow isn't in the party.

Because he's not really...

No, Caitlyn doesn't want him there.

She's so tacky. Oh, it's Caitlyn?

Caitlyn. See, I thought I got this scene.

You've got so many components of it.

But no, Caitlyn doesn't want him around.

That's another reason he wants to go to the Night's Watch because he's like, Caitlyn has it out for me.

Also, I just looked it up.

Benjen just signed up and joined the Night's Watch. So you can also just sign up.

You can also sign up.

My understanding of it is for some people, it's like a calling, a calling of service.

Well, Jon Snow is feeling the calling.

Yes, but he also doesn't have a lot of options.

Okay. And he has, you know, Caitlyn who hates him.

He's not going to inherit any land or titles or anything.

everything. Benjen's going to go into the party and then out of the shadows comes Tyrion.

And he says, never forget what you are.

You're a bastard. Wear it like armor so it can't be used against you.

Yeah. And then he has that just heartbreaking line.

Yeah, because Jon's like, what would you know about it?

And he says, all dwarves are bastards in their father's eyes.

Oh, well, when you meet his dad, they are going to have a real rocky relationship.

Okay. All right. Well, Well, Benjen's going to go say hi to his brother, Ned.

And guess what? Benjen knew the guy that Ned beheaded earlier.

He said he was a good guy, a true ranger.

So now we've got talk of White Walkers.

We have dire wolves south of the wall.

Winter is coming, y 'all.

Why does no one believe that he saw the White Walkers?

Like, why? Because.

Why do we just not believe him?

Ned says they haven't been around for a thousand years.

so if they're gonna come back someone has to be the first one to see them they're not gonna be believed at first I'm telling you that's how it works so the first report of the White Walkers is gonna get dismissed yes how many more are gonna get dismissed who knows I mean are there really aliens I don't know okay people have said they've seen them Sam honestly yeah that tracks I'm really loving like having Sam here so I can because he's just such my Game of Thrones buddy okay okay Okay.

Sansa. Sansa. Sansa.

So sorry. Everybody's going to hate me after this podcast because I can't get anyone's name right.

You're making such a valiant effort.

It's very adorable.

You are. And there's going to be so many people that are going to be like, Jenna, I'm with you.

I don't know Game of Thrones.

I don't know. I don't know.

You just told me. Sansa?

Sansa. It's what's interesting to me is that you go a little bit into your fake voice you do for your cats, like your cat, Ondi.

So you go, Sansa? Sansa?

It's just Sansa. Oh, my God.

Sansa says, oh, my God, I made my dress.

I made it all by myself.

Wait, I have an Angela hot tip here.

What is it? Cersei is going to say, hello, little dove, but you are a beauty.

How old are you? Angela, hot tip.

If someone in the Game of Thrones universe calls you little dove, buckle in.

Shit is about to go down.

Really? Yes, it's going to get real.

Okay. Well, she's 13.

She hasn't had her period yet.

Lots of personal questions.

But then she wants to know if she made her own dress and she's like, I did.

And she's like, you should make me one sometime.

But it's all like very, like, I'm scared.

I'm scared of the queen.

I have another Angela hot tip.

What? If Cersei pretends to be nice to you, run.

Yeah. This is some Mean Girls BS.

Remember in Mean Girls when she was like, oh, where's your necklace from?

It's so fetch or whatever.

Yes. No, that means she hates it.

She thinks it's horrible.

Yes. She didn't like her dress.

Sansa, retreat. Yeah.

I have an interesting fact that I read.

Okay. That I thought you might find interesting, Angela, Which is that while most married women in the series take on their husband's last name, like Caitlin and Lisa Tully, who took the names Stark and Aaron, respectively, Circe, Circe, Circe Lannister, who is married to King Barathon, did not.

I'm watching Jenna shut down in real time.

her body's shutting down just say it like andy you're closer to the mark okay okay i'm just gonna call them how i know them the queen whose last name is lannister did not take her husband's last name and the reason is that the name of the house that currently holds the the Iron Throne, can only be inherited through birth.

It is not given through marriage.

So, Sansa? Sansa. If Sansa marries Joffrey, she would still be Sansa Stark, but her child would be?

Lannister. Right. When Joffrey becomes king, which is going to happen really soon.

I saw it. This king is not long for the world.

Neither is Ned Stark, by the way.

And neither is Joffrey, by the way.

Joffrey lasts a little longer.

A little bit longer.

All right. Now we have the weird Jamie Nedd dick pissing contest. Yes.

I didn't get it. I didn't get it.

Why? I don't know. He's the queen's brother.

That's all he wants to be is literally in the queen.

He doesn't want to be hand to the king.

Is it that he wants to be king?

I don't know. That's what he wants.

They just, yeah. The Lannisters, they just want a lot.

Okay. Okay. So, whatever, the dinner ends.

Ned and Kat are in bed now, and he tells her that he belongs up north with her, not down in the capital, and then they are interrupted.

Yep. There has been a raven.

There is a letter. Wait for it.

48 minutes, 43 seconds.

Our very first wax seal.

We have a wax seal.

It's been spotted. Caitlin opens the letter, and all the color drains out of her face.

Yep. It was sent from the Eyrie.

That's where her and her sister are from.

And I guess her sister has fled the capital and gone back home because she says John Aaron, who was her husband, was murdered by the Lannisters.

And she says King Baratheon is now in danger.

Yeah. So Kat takes the letter.

I loved it. She goes over, she burns it right away.

Oh, I wish we could still do that today.

Just, you know, you get a piece of information.

Like I know we delete emails or you can delete a text.

It's not the same. It's not.

Throw it in in actual fire.

You know what I would like on my phone?

I would like a button that's like a tiny fireplace so that when I delete an email, it's like I'm throwing it in a fire.

Wouldn't that be fun?

I bet you would delete a lot more emails if you threw it in a fire lady.

Yeah. Or if there was some sound effect.

Yeah. Like if I got a satisfaction, if I clicked on it.

We could make a lot of money with this idea.

I'm just saying. And we could even like, maybe like try to link it to Game of Thrones.

It could be the, it could be the GOT fire.

And that's where like you throw all the stuff you don't want.

Maybe it's just a dragon that burns your shit up.

Oh, yeah. Dragon fire.

Dragon fire. Well, that's if you really want to burn it.

Why wouldn't you really want to burn it?

I guess. I'm getting rid of stuff.

I guess if you burn it in a fire.

I don't want to half ass burn it.

Okay. Here's what I wrote.

I wrote this. Wait.

I literally wrote wait.

Okay. Cat's sister was the wife of the Hand of the King.

John Aaron's wife. Cat's sister's husband was like a father to Cat's husband, Ned.

So Ned's brother -in -law was like a father to him, right?

The sisters, that means they're brothers -in -laws.

Ned's sister was the king's special love.

Who are the Lannisters and how did they infiltrate this whole system?

That's what I wrote down.

I think the Lannisters, they just have always had a ton of money.

Okay. And money came with the marriages.

So probably when he married her, he got some money.

49 minutes and 37 seconds.

There are lots of fakie scars on Ned Stark's chest. And I really like this detail of his battle scars.

I thought it was cool.

Yeah, I like it. Shout out to the battle scars.

Shout out to the battle scars.

We do find out in this scene as well that it is impacted on Ned that the king is in danger.

Yeah. This is his childhood friend.

and there really is no one he can trust and he does need Ned.

And now Ned feels the calling to go protect his friend and his king.

Yeah, but I mean, who are we kidding?

He was never gonna say no. He couldn't say no. I know, he was trying to think about it.

He was trying to figure out a way to say no. I feel like he was just putting off the inevitable to have like one last good night with Kat before he had to be like, they were maybe gonna get it on if they weren't interrupted by the Raven.

Maybe so, yeah. yeah, you know, maybe they already had.

Maybe they already had.

Yeah, but I think he was a nice night.

He was stringing it along.

Yeah, you didn't want to give the bad news and then kill the mood.

Yeah. All right, now we're going to go to a Dothraki wedding, which was really something.

It's like people are dancing, fighting, making out, having sex, all just in one big area.

I wrote my thoughts.

First, I made a list of their wedding gifts because what's her name?

named Daenerys and Khal are sitting there.

Yeah. They're sort of receiving people.

Yes. And here's what they got.

They got a silver bowl filled with something.

They got a chest of snakes.

They're just sitting there.

They're not talking.

They're watching these gifts go by.

I wrote, I'm worried she's getting a sunburn on her shoulders.

Then I wrote a fight breaks out because two men want to do a humping dance with the same woman.

It's true. It turns into a full on sword fight with sickle swords.

And one of the men gets his guts spilled out and dies.

Oh, and then kind of beheaded.

Everyone loves the violence because, quote, a Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair.

Yes. I also want to point out that Daenerys is also given a chest with three dragon eggs.

They've turned to stone, but they're always going to be beautiful.

So she's happy about that.

But wait, before she gets the dragon's eggs, some dude walks up and gives her some books.

He gives her the songs and histories from the seven kingdoms. And I wrote, do I sense some chemistry?

Yes. He's blonde, but I don't think he's a creeper is what I wrote.

No, that's Jorah Mormont.

And he ends up being like a counselor to her.

Yeah. And they have their hills and valleys, but he's a dear friend to her and cares for her.

Well, then I wrote, and now here come the eggs, the dragon eggs.

eggs. I remember these.

This is going to be her storyline for the next two years, these eggs and these dragons.

These dragons to her are like these foster kittens that I have. They're all over her all the time.

She's constantly taking care of them.

Yes. She is the mother of dragons.

That's what she becomes.

But then I wrote this, where do they keep all this stuff?

Because they're like a traveling society, right?

So like a good portion of their caravan is just all their crap.

Yeah. Like all these wedding gifts, all this stuff.

They've just got a cart they have to pull around.

Do have to say one thing while we're talking about dragons.

What? Which is, Sam, have you watched House of Dragon?

I have, yes. It's so good.

It's really good. I love it so much. It's a prequel.

Oh, well, I wondered from this wedding scene when this guy gets his head sliced open in the fight, I wondered how many prosthetic heads the show has made.

There are so many beheadings.

I couldn't find out that answer, but the Washington Post did do an article called, quote, an illustrated guide to all 6 ,887 deaths in Game of Thrones.

They break it down by season, deadliest locations, and deadliest weapons.

Can you guess the deadliest location?

King's Landing. It's not.

It's not the Red Keep at the end?

It's Winterfell. Winterfell has a total of 3 ,709 deaths over the series.

King's Landing only has 1 ,357.

Really? That's what Khaleesi does at the end is only 1 ,000?

That's what it said.

Do you know what the deadliest weapon is?

Broad sword? Nope. The blade is third with 801 deaths.

A dragon? Yes. An animal.

An animal. More people are killed by an animal.

It's 1 ,756 deaths by animal.

followed by 1 ,244 by magic.

They also have a category for the deadliest killers.

This one got me excited.

This one, this stat might keep me watching.

Drogon came in number one.

I don't know why it's spelled that way.

Is that a thing? The Drogon?

Drogon. Drogon. They had a picture of a dragon.

Is Drogon a special dragon?

Yes, very big. Well, Drogon came in number one as the deadliest killer with 1 ,426 kills.

Do you know who got number two?

What character is the deadliest killer after Drogon?

The Hound? No. The Mountain?

No. Ramsey Bolton? 1 ,278 kills.

Khaleesi? Nope. Smoke Guy?

They say it's Arya Stark.

Oh! Oh. Oh. Yeah. Well, she was with the Man of Many Faces for a while.

So that got me excited.

I was like, I'll watch that gal.

Oh, I know why. I know why, Arya.

I thought she had like a whole list of shit.

That's what I'm trying to act out stuff to you.

I can't see you because of reflection.

Oh, of course, Arya.

Duh. Okay. Do you know the deadliest season?

In season one, there are only 59 deaths.

I was going to say winter, but I guess that's wrong.

Season three? No. No, season eight with 4 ,548 deaths.

There you go. Well, here's what's going to happen now.

Yeah. Call is done.

Call is done, and I guess his gift to Daenerys is this very beautiful white horse that he puts her on and they're going to ride off.

Viserys says, make him happy.

I'm like, shut up, Viserys.

Yeah, I noticed this is going to be kind of the first time when we see Emilia Clarke.

and Jason Momoa standing next to each other when he presents her with this horse.

I looked it up. She is five foot two.

Jason Momoa is six foot four.

Angela Kinsey is five foot one and Rain Wilson is six foot two.

So it's an almost exact height difference by just one inch. They've got one inch on you guys.

But then I tried to Google to see if she had to stand on a lot of boxes when When she was filming this, I couldn't get a straight answer.

But if you ever meet her, it might be something you guys talk about.

I now want to rewatch and just think about how often they would have Rainn Wilson seated and me standing in a scene because that way they could get us both in frame.

Yeah. So I wonder if Kala's seated a lot.

Let's see. Oh, let's see.

Does that mean you're going to watch more?

I might. Okay. I'm sort of reinvested.

I know. Okay. It's the wedding night.

Wedding night on a cliff on some rocks?

Yeah. There's not even a bed.

It's not great. There's nothing cozy and intimate about this.

I want to tell you, I was really rooting for Carl to be like this sensitive and attentive lover.

I wanted him to go against type, you know?

I just think it would have been a cool twist. Instead, he is not sensitive and he rapes her on these rocks.

I looked this up and in the book, he's very gentle and it's what I wanted.

He waits until Daenerys warms up to him.

She consents by putting his hand between her thighs.

She enjoys the sex. And in the unseen pilot of the show, they went with a scene that was more like the one in the book.

But when asked about changing it for Winter is Coming, George R .R.

Martin said, ultimately you would have to ask the showrunners because it wasn't his idea.

But it has been speculated that given the forced nature of the wedding and Daenerys' his young age that modern audiences would not have accepted the sexist consensual and they chose to depict it as forced.

Clark believed that the rape and Viserys's abuse were instrumental in building up empathy for her character and for her eventual, I believe she has a comeuppance.

I didn't know that it was written differently.

And there is a storyline where she sort of tells him like, this is not how we're going to do this.

I feel like I remember that.

I feel like there's this moment where she is like, I believe this can be pleasurable for both of us.

Am I remembering this right?

You are. And they start becoming like lovers and she loves him.

I thought so. And so there is this scene where she's kind of learned from her ladies of court, if you will, in the Dothraki.

She has women that sort of tend to her.

Yeah. And she's like, I don't know anything about sex. This is all I know.

there's got to be more yeah and so he comes to her one night and literally she just stops someone is like no we're not doing it this way anymore and then it's like they it's on it's on they're really invested in each other and he kind of learns that like oh maybe I didn't know this is how you could be with someone you know kind of thing I remember watching it the first time and being like slightly conflicted about that whole storyline I was like this feels like very Well, they could have just started that way.

They could have just started.

I like the against type thing of like, he seems gruff on the exterior, but now this is his wife, and he's going to take care of her.

Well, we're not done with - Disturbing sexual encounters?

Exactly. Well, wait, before we get there, we do have a scene between Ned and the King, and they're about to go hunting.

And King Robert just says, thank you.

Thank you for being my hand king and that he says, you are my last loyal friend.

So yeah. Now we're up in the tower.

Yeah. We're up in the tower.

Bran is scaling the wall once again.

He's climbing up to the very top wall and he looks in and what does he see?

Yep. Jaime and Cersei.

They are getting it on.

They're getting it on.

They both look up and see him.

Because he's doing a horrible job of peeping.

How long did he need to watch that?

I don't know. He's like caught.

He's busted. And Jamie grabs him and has him like by the shirt.

And he's kind of half hanging out the window.

Yeah. And Jamie's gonna just tell him like, hey, get out of here.

Jamie's not going to hurt him.

But then Circe over and over is like, he saw, he saw.

And she's basically saying to him, he cannot have witnessed this.

Do we think this is why they killed John Aaron too is because John Aaron was onto them?

Because they sort of allude to that.

They're like, what if he told?

Yeah. No, for sure John Aaron found out.

For sure. I think. So many people have to die to keep this secret.

Yeah. Well, Jamie like shoves him out the window and you don't know what happens to Bran.

And then he sort of casually turns to Cersei and say, ah, the things we do for love.

And that's the end of the episode.

That's the end of the episode.

That's it. That's it.

it that was so fun and thank you for watching it jenna i think maybe now i owe you one oh no you know what will you all write in and say what should i pick for angela to watch now be nice y 'all i don't know i mean you already watched the edge for me yeah so that's all i I could ever really ask for, I feel satisfied.

I do. Really? Yeah.

I have so many things I want you to watch. Okay.

Well, maybe I'll have to watch another one of yours.

Okay. I really can't believe you haven't seen Pride and Prejudice.

Oh, yes. I need that to happen in my life.

Of course. Well, I have to decide now if I've gotten roped back into the Game of Thrones story, which I don't know.

I just know what's going to happen, which is that all of these terrible Terrible people are going to keep doing terrible things and they're going to kill all the people I like.

And I just don't know if I can go down that road again.

Well, when you put it that way.

All right. Well, you guys write in.

Let us know if there's something you want me to watch. And maybe, Jenna, we can take a break from Game of Thrones.

I'm not going to give up on it with you.

And maybe we watch Pride and Prejudice.

I would be up for that.

All right. Well, listen, everyone.

Thank you for tuning in to Office Ladies do Game of Thrones.

Jones. Next time we might do Pride and Prejudice.

See you then. Have a good one.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.

Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico.

Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

Our theme song is Repertree by Creed Bratton.

[Office Ladies Take on the Throne: A Deep Dive into the Game of Thrones Pilot]-[Office Ladies Do Game of Thrones]

📋 Summary

Exploring the World of Westeros: 'Office Ladies' Watch 'Game of Thrones'

The Unaired Pilot and Production Challenges

Sound Design and Atmospheric Horror

Character Dynamics and "The Touch of Death"

Behind-the-Scenes Tidbits

Final Thoughts on the Pilot

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript