Joel Fry-days: Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 1 – “The Wars to Come” (2015)

*Major spoilers for the end of season 4*

After a brief foray in season 4, we’ve jumped ahead to season 5, where the majority of Joel Fry/Hizdahr’s screentime is. The premiere episode resets the board after the shakeups of the previous season finale, dealing with the fallout from some of the big twists and introducing some of the new stories we’ll be following.

At the end of last season, Varys helped Tyrion flee Westeros before his scheduled execution (but not before Tyrion killed both Shae and his father.) They arrive in Pentos, where Varys is ready to make plans and Tyrion is ready to drink himself to death. In the wake of Tywin’s murder, many of the remaining players in King’s Landing are trying to figure out what that means for them, and Cersei and Margaery are both circling each other. Stannis has set up shop at the Wall, and he comes to Jon with a request: convince the wildlings to bend the knee and fight for him. Daenerys is still in Meereen, where an Unsullied soldier has just been killed by the Sons of the Harpy, a radical group opposed to her rule.

Highlights:

• Once again, Cersei and Jaime find themselves standing over the body of a deceased close relative. This scene, fortunately, is far less horrifying than the one from “Breaker of Chains.” Cersei is furious with Jaime for helping Tyrion escape, telling him, “Tyrion may be a monster, but at least he killed our father on purpose. You killed him by mistake, by stupidity.”
• We get the first glimpses of the Sparrows, a fanatical religious sect that will play a major role this season.
• Personally, I prefer Tyrion’s storylines in Westeros to his ones in Essos, but Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill do well with Tyrion and Vary’s interactions here—I especially like Tyrion’s dismissal of Varys’s plans, saying, “The future is shit, just like the past,” and Varys informing Tyrion, “You have many admirable qualities. Self-pity is not one of them.”
• Jon Snow and Stannis are two interesting characters to put in a scene together, because they’re both pretty black-and-white in very different ways. While Stannis is fastidiously pedantic to the doom of others, Jon is quite firm in his ideals and loyalties. When Stannis insinuates that Jon is too close with the wildlings (despite relying on that to convince them to join his army,) Jon doesn’t back down or equivocate—“They were born on the wrong side of the Wall, doesn’t make them monsters,” he replies simply.
• I forgot how much I like Podrick as Brienne’s squire! In this episode, Brienne’s confidence is shaken after failing in her mission to help Arya last season. While Podrick points out that Sansa is still out there, Brienne just tries to push him away, lamenting how her ambitions have soured.
• By this point in the Meereen storyline, Grey Worm and Missandei have started their very tentative, reserved flirtation, which I love—both characters consistently leave me wanting more for them. Here, Missandei is intrigued/confused by the revelation that the murdered Unsullied soldier was found in a brothel, and she shyly tries to ask Grey Worm about it. While I suppose I understand why an allosexual would think this way, it is a little frustrating that a lot of Missandei’s questions about pursuing a relationship with Grey Worm revolve around what he (as a eunuch) is capable of doing/feeling sexually. It often feels like she thinks romantic feelings are contingent on sexual feelings, even though it’s pretty clear to the viewers by now that Grey Worm likes Missandei.
• Unsurprisingly, Dany is ready to go scorched-earth on the Sons of the Harpy—she says, “[The murdered Unsullied] did not risk his life fighting for his freedom so cowards in masks could take it away, and I did not take up residence in this pyramid so I could watch the city below decline into chaos.”

Even though we didn’t see Hizdahr in season 4 again after episode 6, he got a later namedrop when Daenerys had some use for him offscreen, and that’s where we pick up with him here. He and Daario have just returned from Yunkai, where Hizdahr acted as Dany’s emissary, trying to convince the Masters to relinquish power peacefully to avoid her bloodier brand of justice.

As with “The Laws of Gods and Men,” Hizdahr only has one scene of note, again an audience with Dany. This time, he reports on his “resounding success” in Yunkai, then broaches the subject of the concessions the Masters have asked for. Naturally, Daenerys isn’t prepared to give them anything they want.

Hizdahr remains something of a slippery character—not openly shifty or nefarious, but he has a knack for pushing the wants of the former Master class while staying deeply aware of how easily Dany could have him killed. Joel Fry does some nice work with his vocal delivery here. Hizdahr often speaks in light, lilting tones, attempting to keep the atmosphere pleasant even as he proposes things he knows Dany won’t like. As their back-and-forth continues and it becomes clear that she isn’t swayed by his assertion that “politics is the art of compromise,” he starts to sound a little more forceful as he tries to keep a handle on things.