Winter may be winding down in real life, but in The Realm, Winter is Coming.
The epic HBO mega-hit Game of Thrones is set to return for its fifth season next month (April 12th – circle your calendars) and rather than trying to cram all of last season into one big, long, convoluted recap, breaking things down into each of the major houses and covering things that way seems like an easier task and a better use of the next four Tuesdays.
Let’s kick things off with the most consistently entertaining family in all of Westeros, The Lannisters.
Things escalated quickly and became rather tense in Clan Lannister last season, as King Joffrey was poisoned to death at his wedding reception. Cersei and Tywin blamed Tyrion, tossing him in the cells and railroading him in a sham trial. The cunning imp demands a “trial by combat” and Prince Oberyn Martell agrees to be his champion, pitted against “The Mountain,” Gregor Clegane.
Having wounded “The Mountain,” Prince Oberyn gets cocky, get his head crushed and Tyrion is sentenced to death for regicide by his father. Unwilling to let his brother be murdered, Jaime released Tyrion from his cell. He returns to his chambers, strangles his former lover, Shae, who had testified against him, and then confronts his father as he sits on the chamber pot, shooting him with King Joffrey’s crossbow. Varys smuggles Tyrion onto a ship and the two escape the city.
Following the death of King Joffrey, his younger brother Tommen is crowned king and bethrothed to his brother’s widow, Margaery Tyrell. As it turns out, Margaery’s grandmother, Lady Olenna Tyrell, is the one that offed the sociopathic ruler in an effort to protect her grandchild from his abuses. When she attends Tyrion’s trial, Margaery is visibly uncomfortable with “The Imp” potentially losing his life for something her grandmother did.
On top of accusing Tyrion of murder and starring in the parade of witnesses giving false testimony against him at his sham trial, Cersei also demanded that her brother/lover Jaime finds and kills Tyrion’s wife, Sansa Stark. Rather than give in to his crazy sister/lover’s demands, Jaime charges Brienne with finding and protecting Sansa, sending Tyrion’s squire, Podrick, to accompany her.
What Can We Expect This Season?
Well, the Lannisters are always in the thick of things and this season will surely be no different.
With the patriarch of the family dead and his son and killer on the run, you can bet tensions will be high and Cersei will be going mental. She had threatened to tell everyone the naughty family secret about her and Jaime if Tywin didn’t release her from marrying Loras Tyrell, brother of Margaery, but Tywin didn’t cave. Of course, he then ended up on the business end of a bolt from a crossbow, so who knows where things stand with her.
Tyrion, sporting a terrific beard, is holed up in Essos with Varys in the trailer above, and though he should probably lay low for a while like Brick Tamland after the News Team Rumble, chances are he’ll find a way to get mixed up into some kind of trouble before the season is up.
Jaime is kind of in a weird spot – he’s had a long-term relationship and fathered some children with his sister, clearly has some kind of a connection with Brienne, though she’s out tracking a Stark, and helped his brother escape, which led to his father being murdered. He had volunteered to step down from the King’s Guard if Tywin agreed to spare Tyrion, but that never came to pass, so much of this season could be about establishing his place in the familial hierarchy.
The trailer doesn’t give away much in terms of storylines and that’s good – one of the best elements of Game of Thrones is that it keeps you guessing and excited from week-to-week and this season should be no different.
Next Week: House Stark
