Anyone who loves boobs, butts, incest, weird cross-generational sexual tension, the death and/or bodily harm of any of the following: friends, mentors, enemies, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, lovers, brothers SLASH lovers, the inalienable right to breastfeed grown children in mixed company, hot human-dragon matriarchs, violent creatures of icy temperature/disposition, and the universal hatred of winter in general, be sure to tune in to HBO tomorrow for the premiere of Game of Thrones: Season 4. If for some unfathomable reason you haven’t been keeping up with this series, I offer the following summation of Seasons 1-3 to offset your ignorance:

Season 1

We open (note: this is not how Season 1 opens) on a beautiful young teenager taking a bath (Naked! Get used to it.) in super hot water (This is called a clue, or for more advanced viewers who may have majored in comparative literature, foreshadowing!). There are dragon eggs/babies somewhere. Expect adolescent dragons in Season 4. This is important.

There is a nice family in a castle to which you will become very attached. They all die, except for the daughters and one son. He is paralyzed after being pushed to his non-death by a pair of siblings who are somehow related to this nice family and also are doing it, together, in secret. Incest has never looked this good, people.

Season 2

The Dad dies. Sean Bean dies. This is the same person. This is all you need to know about Season 2 (this may have happened at the end of Season 1). Also, everyone is hot in Season 2. Everyone is also hot in Season 1. This makes everything altogether more interesting.

Jon Snow, who knows nothing and is most definitely Ned Stark’s (aka The Dad’s) bastard, is basically banished to this place called the Wall, which is this huge wall where it’s always snowing. All you need to know is anything called the Wall/the North sucks, and anything called Jon Snow knows nothing.

PS – There is an evil boy child named Joffrey who has power that’s gone to his head, and no one seems to mention how weird it is that this prepubescent nightmare gives his snide commands with a cracking voice and probably zero pit hair. First: grow up, and then start ordering around your elders/betters. Ugh. You will hate Joffrey.

Season 3

Have I not mentioned Tyrion Lannister? Tyrion Lannister, played by the brilliant Peter Dinklage (uncultured people will know him as the kinda mean children’s book author from Elf, the cherished Christmas comedy starring Will Ferrell) is the smartest, funniest, most-skilled-at-survival character in GoT (this is what cool people call Game of Thrones in shorthand). He is, ah, a bit loose in the sexual sense, however makes up for it by having a heart of gold, being a total wino, and spouting witty remarks that sound better when he says them, so don’t try to quote him. You will never look/be as suave as Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, so stop trying.

Warning: There is something called The Red Wedding that happens at the end of Season 3. In a ground-breaking interactive scene pioneered by the amazing folks at HBO HQ, everyone on the show that you love dies, including all the fans of GoT who have been literally sucked into their television sets and are guests at this wedding (I don’t remember whose wedding it is — this is irrelevant information that will only fill your head with unimportant details). The mom dies, the son and his cute wife die, and you also die.

If anything above is of interest to you, catch Season 4 of Game of Thrones Sunday at 9:00 pm EST on HBO. If you perhaps do not have cable but DO have an older brother who accidentally left his HBOGO account logged in the last time he visited from California, be sure to watch on Monday, which if I remember correctly from my legally obtained HBOGO subscription, is when episodes post online.

Having paid special attention to this guide, you will have no trouble getting up to speed with all the happenings in Westeros (Westeros, I should have mentioned, and that’s on me, is where this entire show takes place, sort of).

Happy thoroughly-informed and prepped watching, everybody!

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