The Wars to Come

A lot of new character's purpose, story are moving forward and building up to the War to come.

The episode starts off well, but to me it doesn't really pick up enough speed. I find it a good, but not great start of the new season.

Now that I've reviewed four seasons, this episode and some of the later episodes of season 5 is where I watched Game of Thrones on television. Because, like I said before when I reviewed Season 1, I had to catch up with the entire show online. So, with that out of the way, time to review Season 5 starting with this one.

The Wars to Come continues where Season 4 left off with the two Stark girls heading off in different directions Arya and Sansa while Tyrion with the help of Varys arrive at Pentos after escaping from the Lannister family after being sentenced to death. Also, Jon Snow is continuing his duties at the Wall before two kings arrive, which finds himself caught.

The first episode of Season 5 is a great episode. The performances are still good, the storyline's nicely written, the new characters are well-introduced, and the pacing never drags. My only quibble is that it doesn't quite live up to the high standards set by Season 4.

Don't get me wrong. The writing's fine for the most part, but the reason I think Season 4 was the best because it raised the stakes to the events that would happen to some of the Lannister family members, the action sequences were engaging, the writing had gotten progressively stronger, and the character development was even more fleshed out.

But while this episode isn't excellent, it's a great start to season 5 and looking forward to see how things will turn out.

I'm not one to expect a death/shock/twist every episode and can appreciate a slower more narrative approach in an episode, but this felt like neither and was more of a reflection on what has happened so far.

This reflection is felt by many of the characters after the last couple of episodes last season...it's not so much the hurt but rather the unknown and how many of these characters do not know how to move forward.

The most interesting scenes were played out at The Wall - with some great dialogue on pride vs. survival (I may have over simplified it here but it was quite powerful stuff, especially in how that climax played out). Also great was the scenes with Varys and Tyrion - this could have been played out with sympathy or regrets or feeling sorry but was very well shown by the main two leads. One of GOT's biggest strengths is the relationships between characters and this one should be great to see develop over the season.

In summary, a decent start but you do get the feeling that more is to come in the season!

This story starts from where it left, Tyrion coming out of the Wooden box, Cersei and Jamie feeling differently about Tyrion and their father's death. Everything expected happens to Mance Rayder, as John plays a sitting duck in settling the truce. I don't seem to fancy Khaleesi and the charmer Daario Naharis' relationship. It only weaken's the Dragons' Mother's charismatic character. (Probably that's the writers' intent).

'Littlefinger' Baelish and Lord Varys get a little more important in this one.

Overall it's a great episode, the next one should be about Arya Stark.

My Rating - 9/10 -------------------------------

Game of thrones directors have unique way of filming and showing the content. They film episodes in tandem and in parallel, showing say 3 stories in one episode and another 3 stories in next episode. This makes the show riveting and fresh and very new scene is about another character. ------------------