It’s back! Can you believe it’s been almost a whole year since we last left the Westeros realm? During that time the hype hasn’t died down any and we’ve all been clambering at the bit, excitedly waiting for Game of Thrones to return. Happily our not so patient waiting is finally over as season five has finally landed.
One of the best things about the show is of course the audience participation, we love to talk about Game of Thrones. THN will be here every week post evening UK transmission to chat about all the inevitable twists, turns and tragic deaths in our Blog of Thrones.
Be warned, only read on if you have seen the second episode of season five The House of Black and White as this article contains spoilers.
Writers: David Benioff, D. B Wiess
Directors: Michael Slovis
Cast: Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maisie Williams, Gwendoline Christie, Tom Wlaschiha
Synopsis: Arya arrives in Braavos. Pod and Brienne run into trouble on the road. Cersei fears for her daughter’s safety in Dorne as Ellaria Sand seeks revenge for Oberyn’s death. Stannis tempts Jon, and an adviser tempts Daenerys.
Our condolences if you got up extra early to watch today’s episode alongside America as you’ve had to wait in agony all day to be able to talk about the show. But rather than risk the wrath of those spoiler avoiders we thought it best to hold off until the more viewer friendly 9pm screening.
Arya is back; her boat journey is over, and she has finally made it to Braavos. She’s obviously had a safe journey and the chance for a rest (for a change), but she hasn’t forgotten her hit list. In order to enter Braavos you must travel underneath the imposing Titan statue; the legend is in times of need the Titan will spill the blood of its enemies. Is this a foreshadowing of what’s to come? Or just a fairytale? Either way it had our favourite Stark girl a little jumpy. Finally after her long journey across The Narrow Sea she arrived at the House of Black and White, where she thought to find Jaqen H’ghar, only to be turned away. Has she come all this way for the wrong address?
What is it about the Stark girls and not knowing help when it shows up and introduces itself? In last year’s season finale Brienne of Tarth finally caught up with Arya, only for the youngest Stark daughter to tell her to go away. Now Brienne ran into Arya’s elder sister Sansa only for her to turn her help away too. Of course Sansa may have been more than a little manipulated by that nastly Littlefinger. Either way, Brienne made a vow to the deceased Stark mother Caitlyn and clearly isn’t going to give up without a fight.
Teased extensively during the promo material for season five, we finally got our first glimpse of Dorne. It was suitably sunny and sandy, and gave us the chance to catch up with Ellaria Sand, the bastard mistress of the fallen Oberyn. She’s clearly spoiling for a fight, well technically war, to avenge her deceased lover. Sadly Oberyn’s brother and ruler of Dorne does not want to start a war; Oberyn did volunteer for that trial by combat after all. Ellaria isn’t the sort of woman to take no for an answer however, and the Lannister Princess Mrycella should probably think about making a swift exit. Luckily her uncle (dad) Jaime is on a covert mission to rescue her. Cersei, now the hand of the King remember, decreed that Jaime must go and free their daughter. She wasn’t as fussy about keeping it covert, but agreed to Jaime doing whatever he saw fit to get their little girl back. Seems his right hand man of choice is Bronn, the sell sword who brutally sold out the other Lannister brother Tyrion.
Speaking of, Tyrion and Varys continue their journey, though Tyrion is fast becoming bored of being cooped up in a carriage with Varys. His pseudo imprisonment is for his own good however, as Cersei has put a bounty on him and hunters are chopping dwarves’ heads off all over the seven kingdoms.
Arya and her trusty sword Needle later found themselves in a bit of a pickle, rescued by the stranger who sent her packing from the house of black and white. But he wasn’t who or what he seemed… How jazzy was that face change – I can’t recall a better swapping of faces since the John Travolta and Nicholas Cage film FACE/OFF. That film was truly magical – who knew that changing your face also changed you height, weight, voice and general appearance. Anyway back to Game of Thrones. Tom Wlaschiha has returned to play the faceless man aka Jaqen H’ghar, and although we’re pretty sure he once told Arya that she wouldn’t see that face again, we at THN are happy he’s back in the show. We interviewed him a while back for Amazon online television series Crossing Lines and found him to be a thoroughly lovely gentleman. In order to enter the House of Black and White, Jaqen told Arya that she must become no one. We’ll find out exactly what that means in the coming weeks I imagine.
Everyone’s favourite bastard Jon Snow found himself in trouble with Stannis. The ‘true’ King was upset that Snow eased Mance Raydar’s suffering. He does seem to like Jon though and believes he is the key to getting the North onside; as Jon pointed out Northerners are loyal to themselves. In exchange for his help in taking the North he offered to denounce his bastard standing and proclaim him Jon Stark. This is the first and only thing that Jon has ever wanted. Sadly he is loyal to a fault and confided in Sam that he will not take the offer because he swore an oath to the Nights Watch.
Our UK elections are edging ever closer, May 7th being the day we vote for our next leader. They do things a little differently in Game of Thrones as tonight’s episode gave us insight into how the Lord Commander of the Nights Watch is elected. Turns out you just need a mate to name you, then people pick a different shaped peg and but it in a box. And who won? Jon Snow of course!
In Meeren, Grey Worm and Daario are hunting members of the Sons of the Harpy. After much searching and some sly thinking from Daario they capture their first criminal. Daenerys and her council then debate as to how to deal with the murderer. After a chat from the Barristan Selmy, Daenerys agrees to a fair trial, her attempt at showing the Meeren people that things have changed. This did not go down too well with one of her advisers however, who took it upon himself to murder the man before his trial. Not a clever idea. Disgusted that one of her advisers went against her command, Daenerys decided to make an example out of him; channelling her inner Queen of Heart’s, she decreed ‘off with his head’ and thus ended him. The Mhysa now seems to be outstaying her welcome in Meeren if that hissing and stone throwing during tonight’s conclusion is anything to go by.
And finally Drogon’s back. Much like that Tom cat you used to have who buggered off to some place else, he came back for a fleeting visit with his former Mother.
Two episodes in and we’ve had two separate glimpses of Daenerys’ majestic dragons. Hopefully there more frequent inclusion points for a lot of dragon action this year. We’ve all been very patient, but let’s face it, we want to see what these beasts can do. As with last week, tonight’s episode was another ‘let’s stop in with some people we’ve not seen yet’, only furthering a couple of plot lines that were started in the season première. After the powerhouse ending of season four it would appear that five is going to be more of a slow burn so hunker down folks this is going to be a long one, hopefully with a mighty pay-off.
[usr=4] Game Of Thrones airs on HBO in north America, and Sky Atlantic in the UK and Ireland.
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