The 'Game of Thrones' season premiere was bloody and tantalizing — but how metal was it?

Welcome to this season’s first weekly Heavy Metal Review of 'Game of Thrones,' the most metal show on TV. Sure, the History Channel’s 'Vikings' is very metal too. But in 'Game of Thrones,' not only do long-haired dudes in leather and armor lop off heads and tap jugulars left and right, the HBO show has more dragons. And dragons are metal, bro.

Let the other sites recap the show down to the steel tacks, delight in the acting and debate the episode structures. Here, we’re all about the bottom line: How badass was the episode? We’ll tell you true.

HBO’s current signature prestige drama launched its fourth season last night with an overture of an episode called 'Two Swords.' It teased some riffs that are going to grow into epic jams.

When we last visited the world of Westeros, everybody died. The series’ trademark move is slaughtering  main characters — good guys, no less — right when things are looking up. If you want to play the Game of Thrones, you’ve got to bleed for it, baby. In this world, life is pain, from the Wall to Dreadfort. And it’s a kind of pain familiar to metalheads: The kingdom is run by a bunch of tools who are basically rich a--holes who make life miserable for the kind of people who need to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.

This week, we were re-introduced to a bunch of characters and their ongoing quests. And most of them didn’t really do anything, this being the first episode of the season ... and since it was necessary to bring us up to speed on like a dozen different plot lines, from a pack of barbarian cannibals to a swinger prince who’s equally content fighting and f---ing.

This season in particular, 'Game of Thrones' feels like an allegory for the '80s' L.A. hard rock scene: clean-cut white people are throwing a very big party in the palace. Some new faces are crashing the scene. And, as always, the best action is taking place in a little bar on the outskirts of the action.

In fact, the only real action came courtesy of an odd couple who look like they’ll be the center of the season’s most valuable plot line: a classic yoking of the Hound and Araya Stark, a veteran fighter and tween killer, each with a taste for blood.

'Two Swords''s final scene saw two human weapons in action, in a messy melee that was punctuated with some on-the-fly political compromises. Arya has no love for the hound, but the growing little hellion decides (very correctly) she’s far better off with the devil she knows.

United and triumphant, off they ride, one on a white horse, one on a dark steed, headed into a bloody future.

'Game of Thrones' - 'Two Swords' Stats:

Onscreen Body Count: 5
Dismembered Crucified Corpse: 1
Acts of Vengeance: 1
Acts of Macho Bulls---: 4
Poseurs: 4 (King Joffrey, the head of his Knight’s Watch and the Douche Night’s Watchmen at the Wall).
Nude Women: 2
Nude Women Actively Grinding: 0, but give it a week and see if the count rises.
Impaled Limb: 1
Dismembered Limb (on a Spit): 1
Overall Rating: Barely Metal, Except for That Last Scene, Which Was Metal As Hell

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