Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO(NEW YORK) — Like pieces on a chessboard, the massive cast of Game of Thrones spent the season-five premiere moving into positions that will allow them to either prove their power, or show that they can’t hack it.
Here’s a brief rundown of who did what:
- In King’s Landing, Cersei is furious that her dwarf brother Tyrion killed their dad Tywin, and then escaped, thanks to her twin brother Jaime’s help. Jaime tries to remind Cersei that as soon as the funeral is over, people will try to take away their power, but Cersei is too blinded by rage to focus on that. Cersei also encounters her cousin Lancel, who she’s not only had sex with, but whom she convinced to poison her husband, the late King Robert Baratheon, during that boar hunt in season one. Lancel has joined a religious cult called the Sparrows, which will figure prominently in this season’s plot.
- Across the sea in Pentos, Tyrion and Varys, having escaped from King’s Landing following Tywin’s murder, plot their next move. Tyrion spends his time in a drunken stupor, while Varys tries to convince him that he’s perfectly suited to help him enact his secret master plan: to help Daenerys win the Iron Throne.
- In Mereen, Daenerys is struggling to control the city, but a society called the Sons of the Harpy have murdered one of her Unsullied army. The other city she conquered, Yunkai, is doing better, but they’ve requested that she re-open their fighting pits, where slaves used to fight one another to the death — including Dany’s lover, Daario, a former slave turned mercenary.
- Dany refuses that request, but Daario tries to talk her into it, and needles her about not using her dragons to show her power. She complains that Drogon, the dragon that killed a child last season, has disappeared, and she can’t control the other two. “A dragon queen with no dragons is not a queen,” he replies. When the Mother of Dragons tries to visit her remaining two “children,” whom she chained up last season, they angrily lunge at her and breathe fire, and she runs for her life.
- At the Wall, self-proclaimed king Stannis Baratheon tells Jon Snow that he wants Mance Rayder and his army of wildlings to swear loyalty to him and fight by his side as he attempts to retake Winterfell from the evil Roose Bolton. In exchange, he promises them freedom and land. But if Mance doesn’t agree, Stannis says, he’ll burn him alive. He tells Jon to convince Mance to bend the knee to him, but Jon fails. Stannis then gives Mance one last chance, but Mance still refuses and is tied to the stake. However, he is spared the horror of a death by burning by Jon, who shoots him with an arrow and ends his misery before the flames can consume him.
- Littlefinger and Sansa Stark leave Sansa’s cousin Robin Arryn — the feeble son of her late aunt Lysa — at a local lord’s house and head off to a secret location: “a land,” Littlefinger tells Sansa, “so far from here even Cersei Lannister can’t get her hands on you.” Ironically, they ride right past an unsuspecting Brienne and Podrick, who have been searching for the Stark sisters to fulfill the oath Brienne made to keep them safe.
Also of note: the show opened with a flashback to Cersei’s childhood, where she and a friend visit a local witch and demand that she tell Cersei her future. The witch tells Cersei that she will be queen, but that she’ll be replaced by someone younger and prettier, and that she and the king she marries won’t have any children together, but that he’ll have 20 and she’ll have three. If you’ll recall, that’s exactly what happened: when she married Robert Baratheon, she became queen, but she never had sex with him. Instead, she and her twin brother Jaime had three kids together — Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella — and passed them off as Robert’s heirs. Meanwhile, Robert secretly fathered 20 bastard children.
Stay tuned for more nudity and killings next week; Game of Thrones airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on HBO.
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