Fire is an important part of Game of Thrones’ mythology. The book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, the dragons breathe fire, Sandor Clegane has a fear of fire, Melisandre is obsessed with fire, and Daenarys cannot be harmed by fire. Tonight, we learned that redheaded women, of which we have a few, are considered to have been “kissed by fire” which gave us the name of the episode.

Let’s talk about justice. Namely, the fact that it does not exist. It’s a construct. If I smack you across the face the scales of justice aren’t all of a sudden out of balance and the universe isn’t going to rework events so that I somehow get punished. The only way some form of “justice” is served is if people I am among think I deserve a punishment. It’s no different in Westeros and George R. R. Martin certainly loves to show us that.

Has there ever been a more heart wrenching and then hilarious cut to black on a show? I don’t even think The Sopranos has managed something as darkly funny with its credits. We go from seeing poor Jaime’s hand severed to a phenomenal rendition of George R. R. Martin’s “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” a song I enjoyed even when I read A Storm of Swords. I flinched at the hand and then had a huge smile as the song came on. Having a huge goofy smile is not something that one associates with Game of Thrones but nevertheless I had one. I love sudden changes in tone in fiction, it’s a daring move, and this one worked perfectly.

A common point of contention as this third season has started is whether or not the structure of the episodes is too chaotic. We go from one character’s story to another’s within minutes and sometimes, such as with Sam and Tyrion in tonight’s episode, we will only see a character for one scene. A few critics have said that the show should adopt the more focused narrative that season two’s penultimate episode, “Blackwater,” had since it gave us such a powerful story.