[rating=6.00]
“No prophecies, dreams or flashbacks.”
That was the agreement the two Game of Thrones showrunners, David Benioff and D.B Weiss, had with one another when they started filming the first season. By the end of the second season, they’d broken both the first two. The highly-anticipated fifth season premiere, ‘The Wars to Come,’ breaks the third right out of the gate.
We follow a young girl through a wooded area, where, against the advice of her friend (or servant, or slave) she enters the home she hears belongs to a witch. When there, she demands her fortune be read. While she’s disappointed that the woman’s rumored appearance was decidedly not hideous, she assures that her “two boring eyes” will be gouged out should she not get her way, freely name-dropping her father to underscore these threats.
If there were any questions at first as to who this was so far, this confirmed it. We were seeing young Cersei on screen. Of course she gets her way, and after the witch drinks her blood, she’s told that she’ll one day become Queen. Although this news comes with a dark side, which she stands, transfixed and bleeding from the hand, listening to her fate before leaving in terror.
It’s a peculiar move as a way to kick-off the premiere, a likely attempt humanize Cersei, as the narrative returns to the show’s present, where she goes to view the body of her father, murdered by Tyrion, the brother she hates, who was aided in his escape by Jamie, the brother she loves/hates/procreates with.
Jamie adheres to his duties of the Kingsguard as a sort of posthumous rebellion, given his father’s unfulfilled desire to name him as his heir. As the two stand there, both at odds while in mourning together, it’s impossible to not recall the nearly identical scene early in the prior season, only with body of their murdered, bastard son. Though this one, thankfully, doesn’t end in a controversial sex scene, it does end with Cersei’s typical rancor toward Tyrion, which is now extended to Jamie.
Perhaps that the Lannisters are now without their central patriarch, her threats now come off as toothless and empty, lacking the kind of scouring verbal assertions that regularly punctuates scenes such as these. The power they held, largely an illusion maintained by Tywin, is certain to unravel, be it through debt, betrayal, or worse.
Across the narrow sea, Tyrion is freed from the shipping crate he entered at the end of the Season 4 finale, escaping in disgrace the night before his execution, but not before murdering both his father and former lover. He’s on a clear streak of self-destruction while Varys, always playing the long game, wants his help in the chaos he sees coming on the horizon.
When asked what he wants, his reply is the same he gave Ned Stark in the dungeon near the end of Season one, “Peace!” We all remember how well that worked out for everyone then.
More importantly, Varys’ solution is Daeneryes Targaryen, which will at long last bring her perpetually isolated story arc into a much prominent position.
While Daeneryes, in the meantime, is having troubles of her own with the bureaucracy of ruling as a Queen, a member of her army, The Unsullied, is murdered when visiting a brothel (he was paying to be spooned in a remarkably quiet and introspective moment into the mind of a dehumanized eunuch soldier.) Those responsible, The Sons of the Harpy, leave the killer’s mask on the body, a clear indication that they are unhappy with her presence in Meereen.
She’s also having trouble with her dragons, as the two chained and locked in a pit, while the third, Drogon, has been missing for weeks. Her unsettlingly quiet descent into the pit, calling the names of the dragon’s she’d cast aside out of fear for the lives of the people she declared herself ruler of, and their decidedly unwelcome reaction, stood out as the lone tense and powerful moment. Consistent with the water-treading episode, nothing really comes of it, as she leaves the pit in fear before having it re-sealed.
Other plot-points that manage to be shoe-horned in include; Brienne trying to sever ties with Podrick, Sansa, who happens to be riding past their camp with Littlefinger unbeknownst to anyone, flee to the west while telling those at The Veil otherwise, and Margery Tyrell seems to hint at a nefarious plans involving Cersei.
The bulk of the storyline remains at Castle Black. Stannis, having set up camp there, demands the captive Mance Raydar bows before him as the one true king, allowing him to utilize the Wildling armies to reclaim the north in his pursuit of the Iron Throne.
Jon Snow does everything short of pleading with Mance to succumb in the name of both his legacy and the benefit of the massive amounts of Wildlings, the women and children, being offered sanctuary behind the wall before the pending winter. Mance reacts predictably, stating his freedom in bad decisions, despite their possible repercussions.
Again, in an episode that largely concerns itself almost solely with vague, far-reaching or otherwise just not that interesting beadledom, this moment tries to stand out. Jon Snow, seeking compromise in the face of a larger threat, still admires Mance, even in his frustration over his inevitable choice of being burned to death over bending his knee to Stannis Baratheon.
His admiration carries through to the last moment, as following Melisandre’s religious spiel before beginning to burn him alive, Jon Snow (already in hot water for giving Ygritte a proper burial north of the wall), ends Mance’s screaming prolonged death by arrow to the heart, which as we’ve seen over the years is nothing short of true compassion in this world.
While not quite disappointing, it is uncharacteristically quiet episode, like the eerie calm before a violent storm. In fact it’s a testament to the severity of Game of Thrones that it was not only unusual, but actually shocking, to have only contained two on-screen deaths. Instead, lots of things were said, most of them vague, while several prominent characters were left to sit this episode out, leaving us typically anxious for next week’s installment.
Game of Thrones airs at 9/8 central on HBO
