Game of Thrones: The Wars To Come

 

The most exciting show on television is back, and it's just as, well, confusing as ever. I don't mean that as a slight. Rather, I'd forgotten before last night's episode just how big the world of GOT is. Most shows can only drum up two to three main leads, and then put a bunch of ancillary characters around them. GOT is operating at a different level of time and space. This show is big.

Of course, one of the things that also happens on this show is that as the universe expands, it contracts. For instance, by Bran, we'll see you next season. Remember Rikkon and Osha and Shaggy Dog? That actor probably has a beard by now. Remember when the small council in King's landing was Littlefinger, Tyrion, Varus, Tywin and Maester Pycell with Joffrey prancing round the room? Anyhow, goodbye to all that.

The first episodes of the prior seasons have generally served as an after dinner palate cleanser before the dessert of the new season. The show hasn't really advanced plots beyond the speed of that tortoise racing Achilles. Rather, they've often spent time saying, "Hey, remember this show you were watching ten months ago, intently? Neither do we. Here's what was happening." Well, that idea has mostly gone out the window in the new season of thrones. Rather, they gave us a two minute intro that reminded us of what I'll charitably say are the key points of the show. This made for a pleasing hour of television. Although, as someone who didn't binge watch the prior season in preparation, I did have to use my brain a bit to reconstruct puzzle pieces, "oh yeah, Littlefinger has Sansa, or, what happened to Sandor Klegane?" Etc. Etc. Enough throat clearing.

The sprawling nature of the show can still leave your head spinning at the variety of locales and characters we have to check in with in a scant hour. The show opens with a young, and petulant, surprise, Cersei Lannister going to visit a witch as a pre-teen. After threatening the poor woman with death, surprise, Cersei has her fortune read and doesn't get all good news. Other than the first few moments when I was wondering if they'd changed Osha's character into someone else, I thought it was an odd choice. Until, you think about the events of the final episode, which culminated in the death of Tywin Lannister, masterfully played by Charles Dance, the driving force from the moment he appeared on the scene skinning a deer and lecturing his son. Where do the Lannister's turn now?

If last season made you feel bad for Jaime, then this season's opening on Cersei can almost make you feel bad for her. She's lost her prize son, seen her daughter sent away, her brother lover lose his hand, and her father's been killed by the brother she hated. That's a tough year. She's now in charge of the kingdom, worried about her second son losing his virginity and mind to the scheming vixen Margery Tyrell. If this season is about Cersei trying to consolidate power, it seems unlikely that she'll be successful, but you know she'll cling to it like an animal in heat.

The other minor flashback, to Lancel Lannister, cousin lover and poisoner of the king, comes home to roost as he shows up wearing old robes and a new haircut. His prior do made him look like a troubador from a Monty Python movie. He alone seems to carry the information of Robert's real reason for dying, and it seems to me that he is not long for this world.

From there the show takes us to the small box where Tyrion has been shipped across the narrow sea, where we learn that Varus has been backing Daenyrs for longer than most have suspected. Though if you were paying attention in season one Arya hears this piece of information when she's scampering around in the dungeon. And then he tries to talk Tyrion out of drinking himself to death and into helping Daenyrs into taking the Seven Kingdoms. Presumably, what Varus means for the imp is for him to gift some of his considerable acting talents to the rather limited Daenyrs since it's clear she's our current co-hero arc. I cant' wait to watch future episodes of the two of them staring into a mirror and practicing line work.

We finally get the chance to see what Daenyrs has been up to. Unfortunately, it turns out that she's up to the same thing she's been up to for 1.5 seasons, which is trying to conform an entire society to her understanding of justice while sitting with amazing posture. For those who were wondering it did take 12 minutes of actual showtime before we had a woman casually showing her breasts to a member of the unsullied as he traipsed down the street. I wonder what the over under was on that. From there he goes to a whore to get a cuddle and naturally has his throat slit by her while a man in a gold mask stands over him. As if being turned into a eunuch wasn't enough, he goes to a whorehouse for a cuddle and gets his throat slit and then dies with the image of a man in a sun God mask over him.

Update list of ways I wouldn't like to die

1) Eaten alive by a bear

2) Eaten alive by a shark

3) Having my throat cut while I'm going in for a cuddle while a man in a sun God mask stands over me.

North to the wall from there where Stannis is trying to amass a larger army by bringing on the wildlings and where the Red Woman is trying to see if Jon Snow is a virgin. Unfortunately, Stannis decides that he needs Mance Rader to swear fealty to him or burn. I think I know what I'd do. I've always said I make a better conversationalist than a torch.

The show then does, believe it or not, a couple of brief check ins. Yes, Littlefinger is still a cunning individual who knows he has the keys to the North in the form of Sansa. And here we are yet again with a war brewing. Littlefinger and Stannis both trying to uproot the ever charming Roose Bolton.

Meanwhile, the squire and knight are still on the road and still the most boring pairing we've seen. Can we bring back Sandor and Arya already? Sigh.

We sneak one last peek, though not at Emilia Clarke's demurely covered chest, at the events in Mereen, where a non-skeezy Dario parades around the room naked drinking wine, which is all we ask of all our leading men, before trying to persuade her to open the fighting pits and release her dragons. Presumably this is Daenyrs learning her lesson about ruling, but it's safe to say that it can only go on for five more seasons before we'll need something else to happen.

She sneaks away for a quick peak at her dragons only to realize that they've grown as unwieldly as the budget for this show, and she shuts the door faster than HBO on a scene that lasts more than a few moments with big dragons. Phew.

The episode ends, like all good episodes of television shows, with an ancillary character being burned at the stake. I think it's fair to say we all miss the Inquisition. In the scene, Mance, rather masterfully played, shows signs of pride and of fear as he's burned alive by crazy old Stannis. Jon Snow, co-hero number two, fires an arrow into his heart, (Just like Kit Cartride fired into all of ours with that shock of long black hair, amirite?) signalling an end to that war.

Of course, the episode is called the Wars to Come. And it seems that they will. We didn't check in with ice zombies or fire flinging children of the forest. Even so, you can already see the forces rising. It's just hard to tell which one of them is actually going to turn out to be good. And maybe rooting for good is a bit of a fool's errand on this show, but it's mine. I'm rooting for Maester Pycell, who would usher in a long reign of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Only time will tell if he outlives them all.