WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
Alternative titles for this season (not sanctioned by anyone
other than me) include Game Of Thrones:
The Cersei Years or, of course, Shit Gets Real.
While the nudity and adult content is less gratuitous than it has
sometimes erred to be, this series is the murderiest, violentest, religionest, graphicest
and twistedest set of episodes yet. As with
each passing year of its by-now snowballing popularity, 2015’s trips to
Westeros are lavished in increasing budgets which, rather than detracting from
the sociological richness and deep characterisation, enhance the two former elements
by bringing them further to life with rich and extensive imagery. For fans of the show, this season has it all. And for fans who know that, like winter,
season eight is coming, it’s important to feast on this real peak of Thrones
before everyone runs out of puff.
While the action of its predecessors saw characters take a
lot longer to get around Westeros alone, season five is the start of much more
rapid and extensive movement. Arya goes
to Braavos and Tyrion and Varys go to Pentos and finally reach Meereen, while Jaime
journeys to Dorne (with Bronn), Sansa ends up at Winterfell, preceding Stannis’s
own arrival there, and Jon Snow drags half the Night’s Watch to Hardhome. Let’s focus on Arya for a bit, as a chance
encounter with a coin in season two seems
to result in her undertaking the worst work experience ever. Determined to track down Jaqen H’gar, she
petitions the House Of Black And White to let her join their organisation,
wilfully sweeping its floors after purging (nearly) all of her material
possessions. And what a place. I still can’t really work it out. It seems to function as a sort of multi-faith
prayer room (like the ones you see signs for at airports) but with a pool of
poisonous water you can be given to drink if you want your dead body washed in
an adjacent room, before, I think, your face is hung up in a big underground
cavern for use in future assassinations.
Praying and killing: together at last. Progressing through the training, Arya ends up in an even worse role, if
that’s possible, carting unrefrigerated shellfish around a hot port city,
before murdering the wrong person. But,
in fact, Meryn Trant is completely the right person, allowing Arya finally to
get some more names off her kill list.
The graphic gore of Trant’s death by stabbing feels like just desserts not
just for his awfulness since season one,
but also his unsettling sexual preferences: beating small girls. Arya clearly shows she’s one small girl who
won’t be beaten.
But it’s our big girl who comes a cropper. Not Brienne Of Tarth, though (whom we all love
and whom the producers of the show seem to love seeing get punched in the face
or stomach, mostly in season four), but Queen
Cersei. Sensing her hold of Tommen at
risk due to Margaery’s skilled manipulation of her intended, Cersei forms a dangerous
pact with the newly emerged High Sparrow.
But he proves to be one old man who simply won’t play her game (of thrones). While her delicious scheming sees both
Margaery and Loras locked away, the tables turn when Cersei herself is held to
account for her affair with Lancel Lannister (now unrecognisible). Enter Septa Unella (who crops up as a parent
in Sex Education), showing you don’t need
many lines to make a big impact. Never
is this more clearly demonstrated than in the season’s finale, Mother’s Mercy,
when Cersei is finally allowed out on remand, provided she walks all the way
home naked. The scenes of her journey
make uncomfortable and almost endless viewing, but Unella is there the whole
way, ringing her bell, dodging the peltings of detritus, and periodically
shouting “Shame. Shame.” In fact, this approach is a great process to
adopt in the workplace for anyone who needs feedback on their performance. No office should be without a bell and a
shame parade when somebody does something wrong.
Meanwhile, over in Dorne, we have the first introduction of
featured characters that I can’t help but find slightly pointless. With Oberyn’s head smashed in, his paramour
Ellaria Sand is set on revenge, despite Prince Doran’s counsel of restraint. Three of her fightingest daughters support
her claim, but their arrival all at once leaves insufficient time to establish
any individuality, leaving a banal taste as their motives to act or shove their
bare breasts through prison bars descend into an element of interchangeable caricature
rarely seen in Westeros. I could really
do without them.
Luckily, at the other end of the scale, there is Jon Snow
(at least until he is stabbed to death in the final episode). Carefully navigating the lawlessness of Caste
Black until a new Lord Commander is chosen, it’s our Jon himself who finds
himself at the head of the Night’s Watch, thanks to long-time good egg Maester
Aemon. He must then cope with Stannis’s
expectations of support for his kingship, and with Melisandre’s insistence he
clutch her bare breasts, all while slowly realising that every Wildling he
saves from the White Walkers is one that can fight against the dead in the
coming battle. How all the Wildlings got
to Hardhome isn’t covered, but Jon must head there with Tormund (whose comedy
we haven’t yet fully discovered) on Stannis’s spare ships to bring them
home. There then unravels, in this
eighth episode, what is perhaps my favourite sequence in the whole of Game Of
Thrones. Finally, we’re combining
dragon-featuring fantasy with an all-out zombie apocalypse. The tension is high throughout, from the
Wildlings’ initial suspicion of the crows, to the slowly-dawning realisation
that the Night King has turned up with his army to scout for new recruits. The sheer panic as the Wildlings run for the
walls of Hardhome is chilling, while the sudden silence that follows still
haunts me. As the skeletons invade, a
battle unfolds, with Jon, Dolorous Edd, Tormund and the last giant eventually
paddling to safety. But the Night King isn’t
bothered. Just look at the complacence
of his expression as he reanimates the battle’s victims on the waterfront just
by raising his hands and sort of shrugging nonchalantly while eyeballing Jon. I’ve watched the episode countless times, and
I still find myself struggling to breathe throughout. In addition, my muscles tense up in
angst. You could remove the sofa from
under me and I wouldn’t change position.
Best newcomer
It’s slim pickings here, so I’m going to go for The Waif,
Arya’s workplace rival in Braavos. She’s
basically a dick to Arya the whole time, so she’s only here as my aversion to
her is so strong that we have to recognise her effect on the viewer.
Most valuable character
Samwell Tarly is our hero this time around, even though his
most heroic turns were in season three. It’s he who stages an impromptu nomination of
Jon Snow in the race for Lord Commander, proving he’s the ultimate wingman in
both backing his best pal and trolling the awful Ser Alliser Thorne.
Best death
We need to make more of a fuss about Miranda, Ramsay’s
plaything and daughter of the kennel master at Winterfell. She’s an absolute piece of work, gleefully
joining in with Theon’s torture and accompanying her bastard beau when he runs
down girls in the forests. When she
intercepts prisoner-wife Sansa on the battlements of Winterfell, an arrow notched,
she conducts herself deliciously like the cat who’s got the cream. But, at last, Theon does the right thing and
tosses her over the edge. Her body hits
the ground unceremoniously and we yell at the telly for Sansa and Theon to escape
the clutches of the bastard of Winterfell.
Such fun.
Jaw-dropper moment
The Sons Of The Harpy have to be one of the campest terrorist
organisations ever seen. Not content
with shiny gold masks and colourful tunics, they move in this oily, sinister
way like their going to jazz-hand you to death.
Sure, they’re successful in killing off dear old Ser Barristan and wounding
Grey Worm, but their big uprising in The Dance Of Dragons sees a lot of them burned
to crisps by Drogon. But from the moment
Jorah Mormont’s spear gets one square in the chest, via the stabbing of Hizdahr
zo Loraq (nobody minds), to the sight of Missandei and Daenerys holding hands
in fear as they’re convinced they’ve met their end in the middle of the fighting
pit, this sequence rivals the Hardhome evacuation for sheer maintained tension
and insurmountable peril.
