Winter: Still Coming
We were pretty spoiled by Game of Thrones in its fourth season, as so many plotlines and story arcs came to an (almost always violent) end. Episode two gave us the theoretical tragedy of The Purple Wedding, and the final three hours of the season featured some of the biggest duels and deaths the show has ever had. Where Season 5 will end up is still a mystery, now more than ever thanks to the breaks from Martin’s outline. But the early hours are marked by the show moving into a new phase of its lifecycle, and with that comes a lot of prep work for the road towards a series finale.
The season premiere’s title, “The Wars to Come,” says all you need to know about where the focus is right now. The first four hours are heavy with omens and promises about the conflicts that lie ahead, but the immediate future is filled with people figuring out how they’ll survive to see any of those premonitions come to pass.
It’s a smaller, slower start than we’ve seen from Game of Thrones since it first began, with fewer excuses for big action setpieces. Make no mistake – big, game-changing things are brewing all over the place, but early Season 5 is very much about getting us reacquainted with our favourite characters, and seeing what the new world of Game of Thrones looks like.
Good thing they’re both still as entertaining as ever to be around.
