Okay, Game of Thrones starts tonight, so hopefully you're prepared with popcorn popped, lights dimmed, and cable cancelled in favor of HBO Now.
There's just one problem: does anybody remember what the fuck happened last season? A bunch of guys died, someone got married kind of, and there were some snow monsters, right? Wasn't there also something about a guy with eight fingers and an onion? And the dragons seemed to grow up like super-fast, so is time moving faster in the desert levels? The only thing you probably remember clearly is how amazing Diana Rigg looks in that fancy hat.
Let's review. Get all caught up after the jump — or don't, if you haven't yet watched up until the end of Season 4. There are no book-spoilers in this post, but there are lots of spoilers about the first four seasons of the show.
Okay, so King's Landing is going to be in a bit of a pickle when we rejoin our friends, won't it? At the end of last season, Tyrion killed his father. (Although I really blame Davos Seaworth for Tywin's death — just two episodes earlier, he gave a speech about how Tywin won't live forever, at which point it was pretty clear that he wouldn't be living past the season finale.) That leaves Circe pretty much alone: Joffrey's dead, her dad's dead, Tyrion's on the run, and Jamie let him escape.
Where to now, Tyrion? He and Varys slipped away on a boat. Can you guess where they're headed? Where might Varys go with such a valuable fugitive?
Speaking of hiding people, Sansa is finally not boring anymore and got a fabulous makeover at the Eyrie. (Mind your step, dear, the floor could use some patching.) She and Baelish, who arguably has precipitated most of the current political unrest, are hiding in the impregnable fortress, consolidating power and probably doing their best to avoid Mord. (He's the Eyrie's lurching turnkey, remember? Tyrion gave him some gold in Season 1.) What are Baelish's plans for Sansa ... and perhaps more intriguingly, could she have planned for herself?
Arya, meanwhile, is on a boat to Braavos, having cashed in her mysterious coin. What could possibly await her in Braavos, the Free City? All we've seen of it so far on the show are the banks. Could a quiet, dignified career as a certified public accountant be in her future? (Hint: no.)
Daenerys is in Westeros too, but she's far far far away, in Mereen. Things are not so great there: she just kicked the love-smitten spy Jorah Mormont out of town, she's had to confine two of her dragons, and she's instituted a whole bunch of anti-slavery reforms that might not go over too well. Perhaps even more dire: most of the Daenerys stuff in the books gets pretty boring for a while around this point, so she may not have much to do on the show. If you were the queen of a city with some time to kill, how frequently would you be having boredom-sex? Like, once a day? Or every couple hours. Or what?
On the other side of the map, John Snow has Stannis and Melisandre keeping him company up at the wall. Sam's still hanging around, the loveable nerd, as well as timid Gilly and her baby. Mance and his officers have been defeated, but there's still the question of what to do with all of them, and their giants, and their mammoths. Also, who's in charge of the Wall right now?
Oh, and we haven't even touched on Dorne! After Oberyn was killed by Gregor Clegane (is he still alive or dead or a Frankenstein's monster or what?) his extensive family is probably going to be a little put-out. That's complicated, since Cersei's daughter Myrcella is a "guest" in Dorne, betrothed to Prince Trystane, son of Prince Doran. (Don't worry, we haven't met those dudes yet, they're only mentioned in passing.) What's going to happen to poor Myrcella now?
And don't forget: we also have Pod and Brienne running around, looking for Sansa; Bran and Hodor crawling around underground like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Margaery plotting in King's Landing; and the tender romance blossoming between Ramsay Snow/Bolton and what's left of Theon. What do you suppose the Greyjoys have been up to lately?
If you have any theories, write them in the comments, and remember to describe gratuitous sex to break up the exposition.
