The sun beats down on Dorne and Braavos, but winter is coming. Game of Thrones rarely shines a torch on the powerless, so who are the Sparrows?

Finally, Game of Thrones is back, complete with the familiar mix of villainy, dragons and illegal download scandals. For time-poor fans, filled with a mixture of anticipation at the show’s return and dread that picking up the threads of the story will be too Herculean a task, my message is: do not worry.

The script writers do enough to ease you back. Tuning in to the first two episodes feels like renewing an acquaintance with old friends, not sitting a too-hard examination. And intriguingly, for the first time this fifth series gives us flashbacks – glimpses of the backstory never before brought to the screen. Perhaps this was an inevitability for a series that bulges with characters and plotlines but that still takes a much sleeker form than the novels.

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Visually, Game of Thrones is more stunning than ever. New locations bring us more colour and light. While winter is inevitably coming, you can almost feel the heat of the sunshine on Dorne, the family home of Oberyn Martell – Tyrion Lannister’s champion who eye-poppingly died in trial-by-combat – and on Braavos, to where Arya Stark has travelled.

King’s Landing is as sumptuous and seething as we’ve come to expect. The deaths of Tywin Lannister and the cruel King Joffrey have left the hissing Cersei mourning both her father and her eldest son. The tragedy has given her freedom from being directed against her will but also the anger that accompanies vicious grief. The tension between her and Margaery Tyrell who, having watched her husband Joffrey die at their wedding, will now marry the new king, Cersai’s youngest son, vibrates ominously. The interplay between these characters, well acted by Lena Headey and Natalie Dormer, is deliciously dangerous.

The Khaleesi, Daenerys Targaryen, has always baked in warmth, even fire. But she has done so in complete isolation from all the other major characters: the plotters, the plotted against and the vast majority who are both. The moment when she joins the rest of the action is coming but in the meantime she encounters resistance all around, from large dragons who will not be mothered, and from freed slaves and angry slavers who will not easily be ruled.

And while fire is breathed – and fire brings death – this song must always have ice. The frozen world of the wall and what lies to the north is as grim as ever. Having saved the day in the war with the wildling army, Stannis Baratheon prepares for his next battle in pursuit of his ambition to sit on the Iron Throne. Jon Snow is both on the rise and in demand.

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Life is increasingly harsh, too, for the peasants of Westeros. Game of Thrones has never much concerned itself with shining a torch on the powerless. Their hunger and suffering in a land ravaged by war is of little concern to the story’s most powerful characters, whose antics bring so much pain to the people. Vital matters such as the scant preparation made for the winter to come have not played out on screen. But in this series, the circumstances of the afflicted many are made visible by the arrival of a religious order known as the Sparrows. Do not let their humble name fool you about the way they will pursue their beliefs.

Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish continues to be the intriguer at the centre of the action. Now Lord Protector of the Vale, governing in the stead of the underage Robin, he profits from having married and murdered. Sansa Stark, a woman with no luck when it comes to men, is another ace in this hand, now travelling with him in the guise of being his ward. Actor Aiden Gillen, who did such a fine job as the mayor of Baltimore in The Wire, continues to play Baelish with perfect understatement.

Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth in a world that does not permit women to be knights, weaves in and out of the action, accompanied by her “squire”, Podrick, (Daniel Portman). Fortunately, the acting is strong enough that this storyline of a “knight” spurned on her crusade does not tip over into the ridiculous.

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Season five is based on material in George RR Martin’s fourth and fifth novels, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Martin is still labouring on the sixth book and, famously, he works slowly. One fears the Games of Thrones series will be increasingly marooned, marking time waiting for Martin.

Until then, there is a densely populated fictional world of characters to follow, most of them defying simple characterisation as goodies or baddies. However, we will barrack for courageous Jon Snow and wish for the best when Tyrion – played by the wonderful Peter Dinklage – and the Khaleesi finally meet.

One thing Game of Thrones has taught us all is to guard against too much emotional investment. Whether it was investing hope in the good Ned Stark or wishing for a wedding of joy and not one of blood, part of its genius is an ability to shatter your dreamed-for outcomes and keep you begging for more at the same time. Enjoy, carefully.