Walk of Punishment

In the episode, Tyrion Lannister is named Master of Coin, and struggles to pay back the debt his predecessor left the kingdom in; Melisandre departs Dragonstone; Mance Rayder orders Jon Snow to climb the Wall with a group of wildlings; Theon Greyjoy escapes his captors at Winterfell; Arya and Gendry leave Hot Pie behind at the Inn before leaving with the Brotherhood; and Daenerys Targaryen negotiates with a slave master in Astapor to buy an army of soldiers.

Tywin plans to have Baelish wed Lysa Arryn to deprive Robb of allies, and names Tyrion the new Master of Coin.

The wildling army finds decapitated horses arranged in a spiral by the White Walkers, and Rayder tells Jon the fallen Night's Watchmen have become wights.

Ordering Tormund to take a party, including Jon, to climb the Wall, Rayder says he will signal them with “the biggest fire the North has ever seen” to attack the Night's Watch.

Meanwhile, the remaining Night's Watchmen continue south and take refuge at Craster's Keep, where Sam witnesses Gilly give birth to a boy.

At Riverrun, during Lord Hoster Tully's burial at sea, his son Edmure fails in lighting the pyre and is shamed by his uncle, Brynden "the Blackfish."

Arya and Gendry bid farewell to Hot Pie, who remains at the inn as payment by the Brotherhood after proving his skill as a cook.

"Walk of Punishment" was written by the show creators and executive producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, based on material from George R. R. Martin's novel A Storm of Swords.

This is an inside joke referring to the name that Martin gave (after the legendary Gordian Knot) to a complicated structural problem that he had to face while writing the fifth book of the series, A Dance with Dragons.

The band of Locke's men sing "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", heard for the first time in the series with music composed by Ramin Djawadi.

The group, one of Benioff and Weiss's favourite bands, was chosen because they wanted the rendition "to be bawdy and a little sloppy – drunken musicians getting up on the table and jamming while the rowdy party continues around them".

[16] Time magazine reviewer James Poniewozik praised the episode, writing "...one thing I love about it – as a fan of fantasy fiction since I was a kid – is that it has a level of ugly realism missing from much of the genre.