'Game of Thrones' Premiere Recap: A Return Ticket to Horrorworld

Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers for the Game of Thrones Season 5 premiere.

The Bible’s third testament, A Song of Ice and Fire, has now entered its fifth season as an HBO series. That is a lot of seasons for an extremely weird and sexual nightmare that threatens to ruin us all on a weekly basis. Who are we? Why are we here? Why has this insane exercise in heartache and gore-lubed gears of storytelling captivated us so?

The nudity, sure, but also the painstaking unpredictability. In a TV world with five act breaks and characters blessed with complete story arcs before sweeps-period deaths, Game of Thrones is terrifying in how it refuses to play by the rules. This show is chaos! Even more upsettingly, it’s a drag showcase for the Grim Reaper not seen since the Final Destination series. Everyone’s going to die; it’s just a matter of cringing until it finally happens. God, this show is great.

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Judging by Season 5’s opener “The Wars to Come,” this season may prove to be a bit of a rebuilding one for the series. If you remember the last two seasons (which is not a guarantee for any of us), EVERYTHING happened. Entire families of protagonists were slaughtered, kings dropped like flies, a giant threw a log at a castle, a dwarf choked a hooker, an immortal child goblin lobbed a fireball at a skeleton. Everything.

So this episode had two simple objectives in mind: 1) reminding us about who all is even still alive, and 2) sending these characters on new journeys. Its primary pleasures were in simply allowing us back into these characters’ lives for another hour-long vacation in horrorworld. Because things were not going great for anyone! Which was just the way we like it.

Let’s talk about this episode! Disclaimer: I have not read the books; I will never read the books. I will probably never even get everybody’s names straight. That doesn’t mean I don’t love this thing with all my heart. Encyclopedic nerdery is very overrated, guys. (That being said, I am not above getting lost in Wiki articles about Coldhands, Lady Stoneheart, or Jojen Paste. Don’t Yahoo Search those, probably.)

We started in some gross swamp with two little girls getting their dresses all muddy and looking for a witch shack. The reveal was a few minutes away, but we could tell from the blonde tendrils that the main girl was definitely Little Cersei! Anyway, she was just as mean as she is now, which was clear when she woke up a sleeping witch and forced her to predict the future. (Witches hate this.)

But — much how everything else in Westeros is topsy-turvy — in this world, witches suck blood?

Whatever her methods, the witch read Cersei’s future, and it involved becoming queen “for a time” and watching all her kids wear gold crowns as well as gold death shrouds! Her entire a–hole family was gonna die, basically.

Back in the present day, everyone was morning Tywin after he got shot with a crossbow while going to the bathroom. But Cersei was extra steamed because her brother Tyrion had done it and Jaime had allowed it to happen. This family was not doing great, in other words.

Hey, remember a long time ago when we learned that Cersei occasionally took breaks from sexin’ up her twin brother so that she could sex up her underage cousin? The cousin was back, and he’s now some kind of sexy druid who wants to convert Cersei to a new religion. Watch out, girl, that’s how John Travolta got sucked in.

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But don’t worry, not EVERYONE at King’s Landing was sexually frustrated.

Loras was celebrating not having to marry Cersei anymore by having nude sleepovers with this guy. It seemed pretty fun to me, but then guess who barged in and started looking at everyone’s butts?

Margaery! Your brother was busy! This was like another scene that happened on Empire last season, when Cookie sat on the bed where her son was trying to do sex to another dude. What is it with powerful women who want to interrupt everybody’s game?

Related: The ‘Game of Thrones’ Cast Talks Season 5 From the Set

Anyway, the main point of this scene was that Loras reminded Margaery that she was going to have to spend way more time with her frenemy Cersei if she expected to marry Cersei’s 11-year-old son, but then Margaery ate a grape and smiled like she had already mapped out Cersei’s assassination. Or maybe she was still thinking about the naked guy’s butt. Either way, great scene.

Elsewhere, Goth Sansa was not having a great time, either. Baelish was trying to give away that breast-feeding boy to another family, and Sansa just wanted to listen to the Cocteau Twins or whatever. She was over it. The suburbs, man.

Similarly, out in the countryside, Podrick was just trying to do all of Brienne’s chores, but she was so mad at him for some reason.

I guess Brienne felt like a total failure for not retrieving Arya in the season finale, and she sort of just wanted to walk the earth by herself for a while. But Podrick’s feelings were very, very hurt. I hope they fall in love. Also, it was funny when Podrick suggested they go look for Sansa now and Brienne was like, “STFU” and then Goth Sansa and Baelish rolled by in a carriage unbeknownst to them. “Isn’t it ironic?” — Alanis M.

Then a little person fell out of a box and puked everywhere.

Varys had transported Tyrion in a literal s–t-box across many oceans and freeways, and now they were in a secret resort in, I don’t know, Puerto Rico? But all Tyrion wanted to do was drown his sorrows in Crown Royal, and Varys wasn’t having it. See, he used to be just a spy who wanted power, but now Varys is turning into Che Guevara all of the sudden. His new plan was to bring peace and equality to the world by aligning with Daenerys, and he wanted Tyrion to come with. OK?

The problem was, Daenerys’s kingdom was not doing very well. For one thing, all of her hunkiest Unsullied were getting murdered in brothels by slasher-killers!

Add to that this dude, who was still hassling her so much about everything:

Apparently “the people” wanted her to reinstate gladiator games wherein poor people had to fight to the death for everyone else’s amusement. She was like, “Nope,” but then guess what? Her hunky, naked friend disagreed with her and claimed that he’d had a good time being a proto-Spartacus back in the day.

I guess slave-pit duels are this world’s version of CrossFit? Two desperate men enter; one chiseled hunk emerges. Anyway, this guy was yet another hater telling Dany how to do her job, and that was the last thing she needed.

But the absolute worst was when Daenerys realized one of her dragons ran away and the other two had been locked away for a super long time. So she tried to go make amends.

Oh, those dragons straight-up HATED her now. Which, I think I totally am on their side. That’s pretty rude to chain someone up in a dark dungeon for a long time without any snacks or entertainment. Cold-blooded, girl. They were definitely going to need some family counseling if she ever expects a breakthrough.

Finally, there was definitely stuff going down at Castle Black. Last time we were here, the joint was nearly torn apart by wildlings and giants and redheaded exes. But things were now back to normal, and Jon Snow was training this child and receiving unexpected visitors.

Yup, the Red Woman called Jon for a meeting and took the opportunity to hit on him and also brag about never having to wear a jacket. We get it, lady; you’re into fire and stuff. Relax.

So here’s what was up: Stannis really wanted more soldiers, and he felt like maybe recruiting all of the wildlings and giants would be a good call. Which, sure. They would probably help him reclaim Jon Snow’s hometown. But! Problem was, Jon Snow would have to convince Mance Rayder to agree to that, and we all know Mance Rayder is not very chill when it comes to helping his enemies.

So yeah, rather than cede power to Stannis, Mance decided he’d choose Option B, which was getting burnt at the stake. Credit where credit’s due; the man has his principles.

Anyway, even after one last chance, he didn’t agree to help Stannis, so Red Woman set him on fire. (It’s sort of her thing.) There were an array of reactions from the crowd:

Samwell and his girlfriend were not super into it.

Neither was reptile girl, but her mother seemed very horny about it?

Ginger Beardo was in the “against” camp, obviously, because Mance was his King. I feel like he will probably be pretty angry about this later.

But because Jon Snow is such a good guy, he snuck off to the side so that he could put an arrow in Mance before he’d burn to death. A small consolation, but still pretty moving. Even Mance seemed briefly relieved and grateful.

And that’s where the episode left us. Mance died, and everyone’s still figuring out what to do next. If we take a step back and look at how much plot unfolded in this episode, it was not very much! But that’s probably the wrong way to view an individual installment of this show.

The opener of any season is more about introducing conflicts that will set off chain reactions down the road, as well as recalibrating all the characters’ wants and needs. Heck, even the title “The Wars to Come” was a reminder that this show is forever a long game. All the most exciting things that happened in previous seasons had been set up super far in advance, so it’s a thrill to imagine what exactly this season might be setting up for the future. Because again, this is a rebuilding era, and the foundation remains solid. May this wonderful nightmare never end.

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.