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 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 fifth episode of season five Kill the Boy as this article contains spoilers.
Writers: David Benioff, D. B Wiess
Directors: Jeremy Podeswa
Cast: Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Gwendoline Christie, Alfie Allen, Iwan Rheon
Synopsis: Dany makes a difficult decision in Meereen. Jon recruits the help of an unexpected ally. Brienne searches for Sansa. Theon remains under Ramsay’s control.
It’s a question that plagues fatherless brides everywhere. If dad has passed on, or isn’t around, who will give me away on my Wedding day? Well Sansa need not fret any more as Ramsey has the ‘perfect’ solution, Reek will do it.
Tonight’s episode was all about Winterfell and Ramsey. We could see last week, that Ramsey’s mistress Myranda wasn’t pleased with Sansa and Ramsey’s nuptial plans, and tonight she made her displeasure clear. Ramsey didn’t do much to reassure her of his loyalty either, openly telling her that he of course thought Sansa was attractive, giving the excuse that this was expected now that he was no longer a bastard. Myranda, much like most women within the seven Kingdoms, is not a lady whom to cross however, as she orchestrated the reconciliation of Sansa and Theon, now known as Reek.
Poor Reek, he’s living in the kennels amongst the hounds. I’m not sure who was more horrified by her discovery, Reek or Sansa. Reek was clearly upset by the event and ran to his master Ramsey to confess all. Ramsey, thankfully for Reek, was not mad and seemed elated that the cat was out of the bag as he revelled in tormenting poor Sansa over dinner. He took great pride in unveiling his pet project to his future lady and also managed to get a dig in about how Theon murdered Sansa’s younger brothers. We of course know that this isn’t the case, but it’s unlikely Reek will share that information any time soon.
Then came Ramsey’s brilliant brainwave about who should give Sansa away, Sansa is clearly ‘thrilled’ at the prospect. She did get the chance to crack a smile soon after however, when Roose and Walda announced that they are pregnant. Ramsey saw his whole heritage flash before his eyes, but Roose reassured him that he is his son and that will not change. Ramsey really is a chip off of the Joffrey block and tonight’s show highlighted this greatly. It’ll be a while before we forget his fatist remarks about how can the doctor tell that Walda is pregnant. Worse still were his questions about how Roose could find ‘it’. Roose won’t be winning any father of the year awards any time soon after revealing to Ramsey that he’s a rape baby.
Our suspicions last week about poor Barristan were correct. This will cause a shock for those that have read the books as the character gets a much longer outing on paper. This season will have everybody guessing as the television series will start to deviate from George R.R Martin’s source material.
Grey Worm survived to unsully another day with Missandei keeping his bedside company. That kiss they shared surely points to that there is more to come from this pairing. Maybe we’ll find out the answer to that whole pillar and rocks question that intrigued the ladies so much last season.
Daenerys was having a hard time dealing with the death of her advisor and, in the heat of the moment, summoned all the leaders of powerful Meereen families. This included Hizdahr zo Loraq who has been an ally to Dany up until now. Just what he made of her after he watched her feed a fellow nobleman to her two captive dragons remains to be seen.
After having some time to cool down Daenerys has devised a new fix-all plan; she’ll reopen the fighting pits – for the free men only – and will marry a man of strong Meereen lineage. And it seems she’s already picked her future second husband, Hizdahr. What will Daario make of that? We had a lovely peaceful wedding a couple of shows ago, but with two weddings on the cards now there’s sure to be some more nuptial related carnage on the way.
Meanwhile in the North, Jon Snow was trying to broker a truce with the Free Folks (or Wildlings if you prefer). He’s offered protection within their walls for all in exchange for their help with the impending winter (will winter ever come? It’s been five seasons now!). This decision has not gone down well with any of Jon’s men, he might have a lot of beheading to do in the near future. Stannis has stayed long enough to witness all of this and has decided that now is the time to march on Winterfell, could that battle that Roose mentioned finally happen?
We got our first proper mention of the White Walkers today, we did wonder if they’d been forgotten about. Samwell, the only man to have killed a White Walker for years, is hard at work researching the history of the creatures in a bid to find a way to successfully annihilate them.
Hands up who thought Tyrion was a goner? That black screen as Tyrion was dragged under lasted a little too long for my liking and I was resigned to the credits at any second. Thankfully this wasn’t the case and we can confirm that Tyrion is alright thanks to Jorah. Sir Friendzone though looks to be in for a sticky future as one of the stone-men touched him and now he has a scaly mark.
So that was episode five. We are now exactly halfway through the season, how are we here so quickly? We’re still to get to anything really juicy, but we are definitely headed in the right direction. The decision to focus on just three areas/plots was a very clever one as it gives us more of an insight into proceedings. More importantly it stops the show from feeling disjointed and bitty, something that previous episodes have suffered from a lot this series.
It was a little disappointing that in an episode named Kill the Boy, no one actually died. You read a name like that, and knowing Game of Thrones, you think that’s it for Tommen. The name however, is in reference to the Grand Maester’s advice to Jon – ‘Kill the boy and let the man be born’.
[usr=4] Game Of Thrones airs on HBO in north America, and Sky Atlantic in the UK and Ireland.
