Game of Thrones Season Four

Season three had ended with the Red Wedding still burning in my head—that casual, sudden violence that made clear George R.R. Martin and HBO had no interest in comforting you. When they announced season four would start April 6, there was a real pull to it. Not because I needed the plot (the books existed), but because television is its own thing, and by then this show had become the show, the one everyone was watching, the cultural weight of it impossible to ignore. You’d wake up thinking about what might happen next. You’d text friends theories. Game of Thrones had become essential viewing, and of course I was going to be there when it aired.