8: Game of Thrones by Kimberlee Rossi-Fuchs

In some ways, the fifth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones was the series’ most troubled to date. As Benioff and Weiss moved past the more exciting source material of George R.R. Martin’s first three novels and onto the denser (and often bloated and plodding) fourth and fifth books, the season was often plagued by pacing problems, spending too much time with characters who were merely treading narrative water until their next “big moment” and either rushing past others or neglecting them entirely (Bran who?). Thrones ever-present sex and violence quotient was often ratcheted up to the point that it began to veer into parody (as in the prison scene between the Sand Snakes and Bronn, which served no narrative purpose other than to make the weekly titty quota) or worse, into torture porn, as many viewers felt the staging of Sansa’s wedding night was a completely gratuitous and misogynist use of rape as a plot device.

Yet despite these issues, Benioff and Weiss also managed to give us some of the series’ greatest moments this year, including the vicious comeuppance of Cersei’s walk of shame and the visual spectacle of Daenerys’ escape from Mereen on dragonback. “Hardhome,” the season’s eighth episode, is an undisputed series classic, finally delivering on the long promised arrival of winter. With a stunning set piece featuring a seemingly unstoppable legion of the undead, “Hardhome” shocked both newbies and book readers alike (as the events playing out on the screen were only mentioned in passing on the page) and, by revealing just how imposing the enemy bearing down on Westeros truly is, completely raised the stakes for the battle to come. Indeed, what Thrones benefitted the most from in season five was finally catching up to and surpassing Martin’s source material. We finally got to witness the seemingly destined meeting of Tyrion and Daenerys (which still hasn’t occurred by the end of book five) and skipped beyond the pages to learn the ultimate fate of contender for the Iron Throne, Stannis (alas, poor Shireen). Most importantly, the season finale totally leveled the playing field between the television fans and the readers, ending with the Night’s Watch mutiny on Jon Snow and, as he bleeds out onto the ice, a huge cliffhanger that has both groups of fans clamoring to see what’s coming next this spring.

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