Read: George R. R. Martin Spent $3.5 Million to Make This Sci-Fi Art Utopia a Reality
Gym showers, funerals, border customs: These are some of the places where members of the cast of Game of Thrones have been grilled for plot points from the new season, according to interviews conducted prior to the red carpet premiere at Hollywood’s Chinese Theater last night. Now HBO has released an insane new trailer for Season 6, which premieres on April 24 (coincidentally—or uncoincidentally—the date on which Troy fell in 1184 BC). With glimpses of all our principle heroes and villains, hordes of extras, spilled blood, impalement, burning flayed bodies, and parapets, the trailer is as far from the usual pre-season teaser reel as the show itself is from Highlander: The Series. (If it weren’t, we’d all be watching this trailer instead.)
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So what did we just see? As if you didn’t know. The trailer begins where we left off last season, at Castle Black and a prone, temporarily dead Jon Snow with a nasty scar being watched over by his last allies, Davos Seaworth and Tormund Giantsbane (boy, this show would really sound silly if you’d never seen it, huh?). Then we flash across the Narrow Sea to Tyrion in Mereen, where he is being asked if he likes to play games by somebody who honestly seems like he’s setting The Imp up to say the name of the show. Jaime threatens the High Sparrow with a knife that looks like something you can buy at the Alamo’s gift shop. Following clips give us Melisandre, a defiant Khaleesi, poor Jorah in dire need of a house call from Dr. Zizmor, Davos being fucking awesome, and Ja’quen Hagar stiffly telling a humbled Arya that, “A girl has been given a second chance—there will not be a third.”
Then we get to the good stuff: A supremely pissed-off Sansa assures us she remembers all who wronged her and we flash to Ramsay Bolton, Walder Frey, and Littlefinger, all of whom are marked for death this season (that last one may be hard to manage though, given that Littlefinger is the only person on the show who appears to have read the books). Following clips shows us Lord Varys opposite Israeli actress Ania Bukstein, who appears to be playing another red priestess, Cersei imploring her son Tommen (ably played, as always, by Butters from South Park) to, “Show them what Lannisters are, what we do to our enemies.” By the end of the trailer we are reaching full-nerdo-throttle with a shot of the “real war between the living and the dead” with Night’s King reenacting an Iron Maiden LP sleeve, Brienne arriving at a Tully stronghold, Pod seemingly getting choked-out from behind, and copious shots of Jon and Ramsay’s big day in the country, before Tyrion sends us off with the reminder, “That’s what I do. I drink and know things.” And to think, in two weeks, we will have the same amount of knowledge. Get hype!
J. W. McCormack is a writer whose work has appeared in Bookforum, the Brooklyn Rail,Tin House, the New Inquiry, n+1, Publisher’s Weekly, and Conjunctions.
Game of Thrones premieres on April 24 on HBO.
