A Recap of Thrones: Recapping Season Five

by Holly Hill (@HollisHillis)

It’s that time again. The birds are chirping in the mornings, the days are starting to get longer, and HBO starts to release ten episodes of Game of Thrones for our viewing pleasure. Every year we blink, the season ends, and we are left wondering, “WHY DID THAT CHARACTER I LOVE HAVE TO DIE?” and “WHY DO I WATCH THIS SHOW?” So what better way to make the Game of Thrones season last a bit longer, than to relive the episodes the day after they air?

Check back in the next few days for the first recap of season six, episode one, but first let’s start with a quick recap of season five. It will be a good reminder of where all of our favorite and least favorite characters have ended up.

Let’s recap:

Danny rode away from a 1990’s Compton-like Mereen on her fiercest dragon, Drogon. Drogon dropped her off in the middle of nowhere, just like that kid did with Air Bud, and she was then picked up by a herd of Dothrakis.

Jorah, and ‘that guy Danny is sleeping with’ went off to try and find her, but Jorah has Grayscale which ensures that he isn’t going to make it very far this season.

Knowing that Tyrion can’t really join in on the fight, he was left behind with Grey Worm and Missandei which was about to guarantee an incredibly boring sixth season for him, except then Vary’s showed up at the last minute (whew, that was close). The two most well read and clever minds of the generation will be ruling Mereen together, which should make for an interesting plot line.

Over in Braavos, Arya’s story line is CRAWLING along at a snail’s pace, while she is trained as an assassin for the many faced God. Last we saw, she broke the rules and took some awesome personal revenge, but got punished with blindness for misbehavin’. Let’s hope she actually gets to do something interesting this season.

Meanwhile back in Westeros, Dorne was hosting Cersei and Jamie’s daughter Myrcella who was betrothed to Doran Martel’s son Trystane. Jaime and Bronn were on their way to take the two love birds back to Westeros for a visit , but before the boat left the harbor, Jaime watches his daughter die of poison by that really annoying group of ‘sand snake’ women. Will they turn back and get revenge? Or sail on to Westeros with Trystane as prisoner?

Over at the Red Keep, Tommen plays with Ser Pounce and attempts to sort of kind of not really rule, while Cersei walks naked through the streets because of the High Sparrow/The Faith to atone for her sins. She is picked up at the end by The Mountain Zombie.

Badass vixen, Margaery Tyrell and her brother Loras are locked up by the Sparrow, which probably won’t end well now that Cerci is on the path of revenge.

Up in the north, Stannis burned his daughter alive, and his wife hung herself. He goes to fight Ramsay at Winterfell anyway, and unsurprisingly loses spectacularly.

Brienne has abandoned Sansa (remember she missed her candle in the window by like .2 seconds…SO ANNOYING) and finds Stannis. Last we see, she swings a sword down on him, but we don’t see if it strikes him. He MIGHT still be alive.

Sansa meanwhile, was abandoned at Winterfell to marry/get assaulted by Ramsay all season. Last we saw she jumped off the outer wall of Winterfell with Theon, and the two are presumably on the run to some sort of safety.

The Red Woman aka Melisandre abandoned Stannis after realizing she burned a child alive for no reason, and we HOPE she took off for the wall because the TRUE lord of light (Jon Snow who CANNOT BE DEAD, PLEASE JEEEBUSS) is there. She may need to do some reviving.

Davvos also is at the wall and will be extremely pissed off when he finds out Melisandre ordered the burning of his favorite Shireen.

Up at The Wall, Jon sent Sam and Gilly to Old Town so Sam could train as a Maester. Let’s all hope we don’t have to follow that storyline this season. The reanimated white walkers are headed down to fight the living, and Jon was stabbed 20 times “for the watch”. Where was his direwolf Ghost when all this happened? No one knows. Maybe Jon warged into him? Maybe the Red Lady will save Jon’s life somehow?

All we know/hope is that Jon cannot possibly be dead.

And lastly we will be picking up on Bran Stark’s storyline again this year. We last saw him in a cave with a weirwood tree, seeing the future/past/present or something weird like that. No word on what Rickon Stark is up to (who?), but we can all be assured that Hodor will continue Hodoring.

Things to remember:

• Theon has a sister, Yara, and there’s an entire section of Westeros that the Greyjoy’s are trying to rule still
• The White Walkers/Zombies/Dead guys are COMING. The real question to ask is why. What are they fleeing? What are they hoping to accomplish?
• Petyr Baelish is off doing something sneaky
• The Boltons are gaining power
• Two other dragons are in captivity (Tyrion stepping in for Quentyn Martell’s storyline book readers?)
• FLASHBACKS are also rumored to be happening this season, from back in Ned Stark days, so keep that in mind too

Now we are all caught up. For the first time, book fans are just as much in the dark as show watchers. Stay tuned for the first recap of season six, episode one. It should be an excellent season.