Game of Thrones (season 5)

Plot

In Meereen, the Sons of the Harpy have started to revolt against Daenerys Targaryen's regime. To regain peace and control, Daenerys complies with the request of re-opening the fighting pits while taking Hizdahr zo Loraq as her husband.

Tyrion Lannister and Varys arrive in Pentos and they begin their journey to Meereen. They pass through Volantis, where Tyrion is abducted by Jorah Mormont, who takes him to Meereen as a way to redeem himself to Daenerys but she takes Tyrion as her advisor. The Sons of the Harpy mount an attack on Daenerys, Drogon reappears and Daenerys flies away on his back, landing in the Dothraki sea.

At the Wall, newly elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon Snow forms an alliance with the Wildlings. They begin evacuating Wildlings at Hardhome, when the settlement comes under attack from White Walkers and their wight armies. Samwell Tarly and Gilly leave for Oldtown and Maester Aemon passes away, the majority of the Night's Watch become disillusioned with Jon's leadership and see him as a traitor. They lure Jon into a trap and stab him, leaving him to die.

Littlefinger puts Robin Arryn in the care of House Royce and leaves for Winterfell with Sansa Stark. In Winterfell, Sansa marries Ramsay Bolton to form an alliance between the Vale and the Boltons. Ramsay subjects Sansa to physical and psychological abuse. Reek reveals to Sansa that he did not kill Bran and Rickon, the two escape together.

At his camp in the North, Stannis acquiesces to Melisandre's demands to burn Shireen alive as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light. This leads to Selyse committing suicide and half of Stannis's forces deserting with all of the horses. Melisandre flees for Castle Black. The remaining Baratheon forces march on Winterfell, but are defeated by the Boltons. After the battle, a wounded Stannis is killed by Brienne of Tarth.

In King's Landing, Lancel Lannister becomes a member of the "Sparrows". Following the wedding of Margaery Tyrell and Tommen Baratheon, Cersei Lannister authorizes the revival of the Faith Militant, the military wing of the Faith of the Seven. The Sparrows begin imposing their puritanical views upon King's Landing by ridding it of all "sins". They proceed to imprison Loras Tyrell, as well as Margaery and Cersei herself for committing various sins.

In Dorne, the Sand Snakes, the bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell, along with Ellaria Sand, seek vengeance for his death. After a message arrives in King's Landing from Dorne, Jaime Lannister and Bronn travel to Dorne to rescue Myrcella Baratheon. Oberyn's brother, Doran Martell, discovers that Ellaria had sent the message and allows Jaime and Myrcella to leave for King's Landing, provided Myrcella's betrothed Trystane Martell goes with them. En route to King's Landing, Myrcella dies, having been poisoned by Ellaria.

Arya Stark arrives in Braavos and begins training with the Faceless Men, guided by Jaqen H'ghar and the Waif. However, after Meryn Trant's arrival in Braavos, Arya steals a face from the House of Black and White and kills him. Upon her return to the temple, Arya is struck blind.

Guest cast

The recurring actors listed here are those who appeared in season 5. They are listed by the region in which they first appear.

Crew

The writing staff for the fifth season includes executive producers and showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, producer Bryan Cogman, and Dave Hill, who was promoted to staff writer this season after previously working as an assistant to Benioff and Weiss. Author George R. R. Martin, who had written one episode for each of the first four seasons, did not write an episode for the fifth season as he was working to finish writing the sixth novel of the series, The Winds of Winter. The directing staff for the fifth season is Michael Slovis (episodes 1 and 2), Mark Mylod (episodes 3 and 4), Jeremy Podeswa (episodes 5 and 6), Miguel Sapochnik (episodes 7 and 8), and David Nutter (episodes 9 and 10). Nutter is the only returning director with the rest being first-time Game of Thrones directors.

Writing

This season features more original material than previous seasons. The deviations from Martin's novels are in part attributable to the way the television series has covered most of the novel series' published material and in part to the directors' opinions of the actors' abilities. For example, Sansa Stark arrives at Winterfell to marry Ramsay Bolton in "High Sparrow," a plotline that had been given to a minor character in the novels. In an interview, show writer David Benioff explains that Sophie Turner's development as an actress was one of the reasons that they decided to give her character more dramatic scenes, saying, "Even if [child actors] come in and do a great audition, it’s so hard to know if they’re going to quite literally grow into the parts. With Sansa and Arya in particular, their storylines have become quite dark. It was such a gamble and the fact that they’ve both become such great wonderful actresses is a bit of a miracle." Bryan Cogman added that it made more sense to give the Winterfell storyline to a proven actress who was already popular with viewers than to bring in a new character.

Other changes include the portrayal of Tommen as old enough to interact with Margaery and the Faith Militant as an adult, the speeding up or streamlining of several subplots, and the introduction of fewer new characters. According to Benioff and Weiss, "We felt we'd capsize the show if we put in every single character from the books." Critics particularly liked the decision to have Tyrion actually meet Daenerys at the end of "The Gift," which has yet to happen as of A Dance with Dragons. David Benioff cited the television adaptation's faster pace as part of the rationale behind this decision.

Filming

Filming for the fifth season began in July 2014 in Belfast and ended in December 2014. Locations in Northern Ireland included Titanic Studios, Belfast and the cliff edge of Binevenagh Mountain. The Winterfell sets were in the village of Moneyglass.

Some of the scenes that take place in the principality of Dorne were filmed in Spain, beginning in October 2014. Locations explored for the production included the Alcázar of Seville and the University of Osuna. On October 14, some scenes were filmed on the Roman bridge of Córdoba. Benioff and Weiss said that season 5 would include flashbacks, which they had previously avoided, and that Córdoba would represent the city of Volantis.

Cersei's "walk of atonement" from A Dance with Dragons was filmed in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in the Stradun street between the Dubrovnik Cathedral and the Sponza Palace in early October 2014. The production reportedly employed a body double for Lena Headey for part of the scene in which Cersei appears naked. Meereen scenes were once again shot in Diocletian's Palace in Split, and on Klis Fortress north of Split.

A town on the coast of the Bay of Kaštela in Croatia, the 16th century Kaštel Gomilica stood in for some parts of Braavos.

A very small portion of one episode was filmed in Calgary, Alberta, Canada: the scenes featuring Jon Snow's wolf Ghost (played by animal actor Quigly) who also appears in season 6.

Casting

The fifth season adds previously recurring actors Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand), Michiel Huisman (Daario Naharis), Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei), Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon), Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H'ghar) and Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton) to the series' main cast.

In the fifth season, the region of Dorne is introduced as a location. Alexander Siddig joins the cast as Doran Martell, the ruling Prince of Dorne, and elder brother of Oberyn Martell, while his son Trystane Martell is portrayed by Toby Sebastian. The role of Cersei's daughter Myrcella Baratheon, who is Doran's ward and betrothed to Trystane is played by Nell Tiger Free. The role was portrayed by Aimee Richardson in the first two seasons. DeObia Oparei portrays Areo Hotah, the captain of the Dornish palace guard. The three eldest bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell (collectively known as the "Sand Snakes") are portrayed by Keisha Castle-Hughes (Obara Sand), Jessica Henwick (Nymeria Sand), and Rosabell Laurenti Sellers (Tyene Sand).

In King's Landing, Jonathan Pryce joins the cast as the High Sparrow, the leader of the militant faithful in King’s Landing, while Hannah Waddingham portrays Septa Unella, one of the "Most Devout", the ruling council of the Faith of the Seven. Nell Williams was cast as a young Cersei Lannister seen in flashbacks, while Jodhi May was cast as Maggy the Frog, a fortune-teller.

Across the Narrow Sea, Enzo Cilenti joins as Yezzan, a Yunkish nobleman and slave trader, while Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was cast as Malko, a slaver, who does not appear in the novels. At Castle Black and beyond the Wall, new cast members include Michael Condron as Bowen Marsh, First Steward of the Night's Watch. J. J. Murphy, who was cast as Night's Watch officer Denys Mallister, died in August 2014 shortly after filming his first scenes; his role was not recast. One role that was recast for season 5 was Ross O'Hennessy as the Lord of Bones. O'Hennessy replaces Edward Dogliani who was last seen in the season 3 premiere "Valar Dohaeris". Charles Dance, whose character died in the previous season, returned for one episode to portray Tywin Lannister's corpse. Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark), Kristian Nairn (Hodor) and Ellie Kendrick (Meera Reed) are absent this season because their part in the story has reached the end of A Dance with Dragons.

Promotion

A half-hour documentary, Game of Thrones: A Day in the Life, aired on HBO on February 8, 2015. It covered one day of production of season 5 on three sets in Belfast, Dubrovnik and Osuna from the viewpoint of key crew members. The first official trailer for season 5 was released on January 30, 2015, and the season's second trailer was released on March 9, 2015. The world premiere of the first episode of the fifth season was held at the Tower of London on March 18, 2015.

Music

The soundtrack for the season was released digitally on June 9, 2015, and on CD on July 17, 2015.

Leaks

On April 11, prior to the airing of the season's first episode, screener copies of the first four episodes were leaked to several file-sharing sites. According to TorrentFreak, 18 million different IP addresses downloaded the leaked episodes, totaling 32 million downloads during the first week.

Critical reception

On Metacritic, the season (based on the first four episode) has a score of 91 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". On Rotten Tomatoes, the fifth season has a 95% approval rating from 52 critics with an average rating of 8.6 out of 10 and the season also received a 93% average episode score. One notable exception is the sixth episode, "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", which was heavily criticized due to the showrunners' decision to have a well-liked character suffer a sexual assault. It received a rating of 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, lower than any previous episode of the show. The eighth episode, "Hardhome", received significant praise and was immediately regarded as one of the best episodes in the series. According to Business Insider, "Despite the attacks, Game of Thrones remains a steady hit."

Season 5 featured more significant changes from the novels. Some of the changes were more well-received than others (the sexual assault scene was heavily criticized and caused great controversy). The various plotlines for the season also differed significantly in reception. The Dornish subplot received an overwhelmingly negative reception. In particular, the hyped Sand Snakes were maligned by critics and fans alike, as many found them cheesy and unlikeable. In contrast, Tyrion's storyline was highly praised. Many fans felt that his subplot progressed overly slowly in the novels, and his meeting with Daenerys was particularly lauded.

Ratings

The gross viewing figure per episode for the show, which include streaming, DVR recordings and repeat showings, averaged at 20 million this season.

^1 Live +7 ratings were not available, so Live +3 ratings have been used instead.

Business Insider noted a significant difference in the ratings between this season and previous seasons. The typical pattern involves "Solid premiere viewings followed by a slow but steady gain of momentum through to the finale. Historically, the finale episodes of each season have beaten the premiere for total number of viewers". However, this season showed a significant decline from 8 million viewers at the premiere to 5.4 million at the seventh episode, "The Gift". Business Insider cites two likely reasons for the lower ratings: backlash over the rape scene in "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", one of many deviations from the novels throughout the season that "have upset fans," and increased online streaming through HBO Now. It also acknowledged a possible effect of the first four episodes leaking online before the season premiere and the decision to air on Memorial Day weekend in the United States (a weekend that had been skipped in previous seasons). Business Insider reached out to HBO for comment, HBO responded that it is seeing an increase in overall viewer numbers this season taking into account streaming services, which are not included in Nielsen ratings. The dip in ratings did not extend to the eighth and ninth episodes, "Hardhome," and "The Dance of Dragons", which were both seen by over 7 million viewers. The season finale, "Mother's Mercy" was seen by 8.11 million people, setting a new record and making it the most watched episode of the series.

Accolades

For the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards, the series was nominated for Best Drama Series. For the 31st TCA Awards, the series was nominated for Program of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Drama. For the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, the series received 24 nominations, the most of any series. It won 12 awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, Peter Dinklage for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "Mother's Mercy", and David Nutter for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for "Mother's Mercy". Nominations included Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke both for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Diana Rigg for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, and Jeremy Podeswa for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken".

Broadcast

The season was simulcast to 170 countries by HBO and its broadcast partners. In some countries, it aired the day after its first release. Sky Atlantic, the network serving the United Kingdom and Ireland, aired the premiere the day after HBO, but joined the simulcast for the rest of the season.

Home media

The season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 15, 2016, in region 1 and March 14, 2016, in region 2.

Copyright infringement

The fifth season of Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV series in 2015.