Game Of Thrones: The Wars To Come

It's interesting to see just how slow Game Of Thrones is when you're not binge watching it all in one go. There are people who will inevitably wait until the show is finished and just marathon it from start to finish in one sitting, and that's frankly the best way to watch any serialized show like this, so good on them. For the rest of us who have already succumbed to the Thrones addiction however the thought of waiting 10 months until another batch of episodes comes along is almost unbearable, especially when a good couple of these will be donated to recapping the status quo rather than advancing it. That's mostly why The Wars To Come is a slightly unsatisfying season opener for season 5, it flashes between the multitude of characters we all know and love (or love to hate) reminding us of where they are now with brutal efficiency but the segments are so brief they do little to advance the plot forward, it's purely set up at this point. 

Obviously after such an eventful season they needed to put the chess pieces back on the board: Joffrey dying, Daenerys taking Mereen, Tyrions trial, Jon Snow attacking Crasters Keep....season 4 spoiled us with event after event continuously throughout it's run, it was arguably an end to several storylines that had been simmering away in the background ever since the pilot and several major characters were offed. It was exciting. Now season 5 has to deal with the fallout of all that so I can understand them applying the breaks for a while. Tywin hitting the bucket was a big deal, he was one of the show's best and most powerful villains so naturally we need to see Cersei's reaction to that. Tyrion just murdered his girlfriend AND his father in one night, we need to see the repercussions of that. The Wall has been taken over by Stannis, got to show that etc.... before they can set-up where we're going next we have to look at the now. That's frustrating as a Thrones fan because we're severely malnourished and we crave for our Thrones fix i.e we want things to move along, to get straight to 'the meat' if you will. Aside from the very end this episode was rather uneventful, but the various one on one character interactions were pretty great and it was a solid episode of Thrones. I guess you could say it wasn't the one we deserve but it's one that we needed?

Lannister family disputes, they're a dime a dozen nowadays.

So where are we now then? Cersei and Jaime are mourning over Tywin, Tyrion is a depressive alcoholic in Pentos with Varys, Daenerys is under threat from group known as the Sons of the Harpy, Littlefinger is taking Sansa somewhere, Brienne is without purpose/miserable and Jon unsuccessfully convinces Mance to bend the knee. At 10 episodes a season Game Of Thrones is straining to fit it's myriad of protagonists together and give them something meaningful to do, The Wars To Come is the first episode I can think of (remember I binge watched seasons 1-3) that has this problem. Again we desperately want something big to happen after an explosive fourth season but we might have to wait a couple of episodes for things to pick up. 

Rather than write a paragraph focused on one specific element of the show I've decided to change format a little, make it a bit more readable. From now on I'll give an overview of the episode as a whole and then give a list of assorted ramblings: 

- "There are faster ways to kill yourself". "Not for a coward." We feel bad for Tyrion as he's the classic underdog archetype, the guy who has everything against him that you hope will succeed. Is it wrong that I like drunk depressed Tyrion better than regular Tyrion? Wit was on full display this episode, so far the Tyrion and Varys pairing has been pure gold. Sure we've seen them together before but now Varys' optimism acts as the perfect foil to Tyrions pessimism. The truth is we watch Game Of Thrones to see these kind of opposite personalities interact, the show's wealth of well written characters offer up endless combinations of juicy interactions, this being one of them. Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill are outstanding, every second spent with them is a delight to watch. 

What's up with Mesilandre and her obsessive need to burn people? 

- Poor Jon Snow, still having to make the tough decisions. Arguably the best part of the episode (the longest and most in-depth segment), Mance's refusal to bend the knee and suffer a fiery grave was seen as inevitable to everyone from the beginning. It's a shame we didn't see more of Mance, him and Ygritte were the only wildlings we ever really got to see in detail and now they're both dead. Ideally we should have had a couple more scenes with Mance in season 4 before the attack, our run-ins with wildling culture have been far too brief. Despite limited screen time Ciaran Hinds excelled in every scene he was in and his refusal to give in to Stannis, to have 'the freedom to make a mistake' was perfectly put in his speech with Jon, who also had a few good points. I especially love that he was genuinely afraid of dying, it's little details like this that we just don't get in the majority of other shows. As for Jon's decision to prematurely kill Mance, this offers an interesting wrinkle to his involvement with Stannis and I'm interested to see how the Wall storyline pans out for once now that it isn't focused solely on Jon and Sam. 

- I thought the Cersei flashback was a bit odd, partly because we've never seen a flashback in GOT before! It definitely added to Cersei's motivations but why we couldn't we have had an expository scene like every other character talking about their past on this show (see Brienne this episode)? What made this memory so special, why disrupt a supposed established rule of no flashbacks? Anyways the scene that followed in the red keep was juicy, Jaime must have one hell of a guilty conscience.

- I'm glad we're getting more male nudity on the show, the showrunners are clearly biased towards boobs but why not a couple more dicks here and there? Yeah they're not my thing but equal representation is important no? As a show full of amazing female characters the overabundance of shameless nudity biased towards the likings of one particular gender is startling to get unsettling. But then again most of the violence depicted is men on men so is that sexist as well, shouldn't more female characters get stabbed? Hmmm...

Depressed drunk Tyrion is the best!

- What's Littlefinger up to? Guess we'll have to wait and see....

- I like that Daenerys is trying really hard to 'earn' her position as ruler, but to quote Varys "that takes work". We've seen time and time again on this show that being morally right doesn't mean sh*t, the bad guys continuously win because they refuse to adhere to any sort of moral code and the hero's inability to compromise on their morals is their undoing. Daenerys' refusal to compromise by opening the fighting pits is making me worried, she could very quickly be heading into Ned Stark territory if she isn't careful. I love that there isn't any right answer to ruling correctly, she's constantly faced with shitty options like this. GOT is constantly trying to convey that ruling isn't all that's it cracked up to be, this isn't a case of (to quote Cersei from season 1) "When you play the game of thrones you either win or you die", you can still win AND still die afterwards, they're not mutually exclusive. We all know from the trailers that Dany is being set up for a fall, and when sh*t does hit the fan it's going to be a rough watch. 

- The CGI of the harpy falling was great if a bit unnecessary. They could have easily cut that part out and gone straight to the brothel scene. I can see the urge to put a big money shot in the opener but still. Guess it's just them throwing their money around at this point? 

So yeah, not bad by any means but nothing spectacular either. At the end of the day any Game Of Thrones is good Game Of Thrones, and an average episode of Game Of Thrones is still better than 99% of TV out there, it's just frustrating as a fan to wait such a long time and not be immediately satiated. Maybe episode 2 will pick things up more? GOT ranking: 7/10