Game of Thrones is back! In this exciting “musical episode,” Queen Bey denounces Ser Carter’s cheating ways, and goes on a rampage with her trusty club (named “Slugger”), smashing up chariots and horseless carriages and—shoot. I’m confused. That was the other thing on HBO this weekend.

Let’s try this again… Game of Thrones is back! It’s the long-awaited return of everyone's favorite characters: Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, Catelyn Stark, Jon Snow, Robb Stark, Khal Drogo, Tywin Lannister, Talisa Maegyr, Joffrey Baratheon, Sandor Clegane, Stannis Baratheon, and many more!

OH WAIT all those characters are dead :(

Let’s take a look at the map of Westeros and see who’s still kicking. Spoilery spoils ahead!

Episode one of the sixth season was… kind of a snooze, right? After all of Season Five's excitement, particularly in its final episodes, maybe it was inevitable that Season Six begins in a relative lull, as the characters get re-situated and the various plot threads slowly ramp up to more hot action, which is hopefully coming down the pike. What’s significant now, though, is that Game of Thrones: The TV Show has officially lapped A Song of Ice and Fire: The Needlessly Long Book Series, with author George R.R. Martin still to deliver the final two tomes that wrap up his increasingly convoluted story. This means the show is entirely out on its own, although reportedly Martin has closely advised show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss about how he intends to wrap up this very, very, very lengthy saga. (Spoiler: Ewoks!)

So let’s take a look at what happened this week—not much, but one or two important things all the same. The general theme of this episode seems to revolve around the corpses of people that died in Season Five, and the still-alive people in Season Six looking upon them.

First corpse! Bastard-turned-lord-commander Jon Snow, who is 100 percent definitely still NOT alive, for real, no seriously he is really very dead I swear. However, everything suggests this is not a permanent state of being. Unlike with the other two corpses (more on those in a sec), nobody says anything along the lines of: “Drat, he’s completely dead, his corporeal body is entirely lifeless, and he’s never ever ever coming back.” Instead, the general mood seems to be: “He’s dead, drag. But this is only a temporary setback! Bring us mutton!" Meanwhile, Jon's direwolf Ghost has not been harmed, which seems like a very significant oversight on the part of Jon Snow's assassins. Davos Seaworth and Jon's closest allies are now trapped in a storeroom with the corpse (just like in Goonies!) and Dolorous Edd is evidently hatching a plan of some sort.

Second corpse! The kennel girl Myranda, on whom psychopath Ramsey Snow/Bolton seems a little sweet. Well, until he orders her body to be fed to the hounds. Doesn’t he know that there’s a nice lady in red up at the wall who can bring people back to life?—nope, dogs gotta eat. Ramsey's wife, Sansa Stark, and his plaything, Reek (the artist formerly known as Theon Greyjoy), jumped off the top of a very tall wall at the end of Season Five. We were dying to know how the show runners solved this nail-biting cliffhanger! And they... just ignored it. (I'm guessing an off-camera bouncy castle of some sort.) And by another miraculous turn of fate, Brienne of Tarth finds them at the exact same time as Ramsey’s men do, saving Sansa and Theon from grim fates—in Theon’s case, double castration? I would actually like to know what part Ramsey would’ve cut off next. A buttcheek? (Side note: I hope we see more of the Boltons' maester. He seems like a solid dude.)

Third corpse! The innocent and pure Myrcella Baratheon, whose mom, Cersei, is really not having a good week, although her new kicky 'do looks divine. By this point, Cersei seems resigned to watching each of her children die; after all, a witch told her it would happen. (Tommen, your days are numbered! Flashback Witch said so.) Cersei seems disturbed by the notion of putting her daughter in a crypt for maggots to eat—again, someone should really let her know about the Lord of Light’s resurrecting capabilities. Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister, Cersei’s brotherlover (and Myrcella’s uncle-dad!), doesn’t seem quite so willing to submit to prophecy (a recurring theme on this show). “Fuck prophecy,” says potty-mouth Jaime. “Fuck fate. Fuck everyone who isn’t us.” Here, Jaime exhibits the emotional maturity of a 14-year-old, which might say something about his relationship with his sister. It does seem these star-crossed lovers (or monstrous criminals of nature, depending on who you ask) have some sort of revenge plot brewing. Elsewhere in King’s Landing, Queen Margaery languishes in the dungeon, and seems to be receptive to what the High Sparrow is throwing down—but again, this is wheel spinning, without any real developments.

That’s it for the old corpses, but Game of Thrones being what it is, some new corpses are not far off. Like the one of Doran Martell, the prince of Dorne, whose gout is neatly cured by Ellaria (she helps him with a few other symptoms too, like being alive). His boat-loving son Trystane is pretty screwed, too, and seems to have forgotten the time-true adage: Never turn your back on a Sand Snake unless you have eyes in the back of your head. Trystane, alas, does not have eyes in the back of his head, although he now possesses a fetching spear in that general vicinity.

Meanwhile, Tyrion and Varys are picking up the pieces in Meereen, a city that seems relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things now that Daenerys isn’t in it. Women crouch in fear of their babies being eaten by foreign dwarfs, revolution is fomenting, and innocent boats are being torched. Tyrion’s insightful conclusion? “It’s a problem.” For her part, Daenerys is back with a Dothraki horde, although these Dothraki don’t seem to like her as much as the one she used to be married to. They’re going to send her to the Dothraki widow house, where all widowed Khaleesi are sent. I assume these aged ex-Khaleesi spend their days playing bingo and doing macramé. It actually sounds quite pleasant. Luckily, eagle-eye Jorah just HAPPENS to stumble upon Daenerys' earring in the middle of a gigantic grassy field that is miles away from anywhere, so he and Daario are now poised to stage some sort of rescue mission. More wheel spinning!

Arya is now totally without sight and has become a beggar on the streets of Braavos, a city that evidently doesn’t bat an eye when a young blind girl is beaten to a pulp by a stranger with a long stick. Can we fast-forward to the part where Arya becomes Zatoichi? We know this is going to happen, so spare us the inevitable montages. OR call up the Lord of Light and bring Braavosi swordsman Syrio Forel back from the dead to help her with her training! I still miss that curly-haired dude.

Back at Castle Black, Davos proclaims his love of mutton in what seems to be an unusual negotiating tactic, and the red woman Melisandre undergoes her nightly beauty regimen. (When the little HBO pre-show advisory warning popped up before this episode, I bet this wasn’t the kind of “nudity" you were hoping for.) I don’t think Melisandre’s true appearance came as a surprise to anyone—although it was an interesting reversal of the reveal in Season One, in which Grand Maester Pycelle is shown to be a lot more strapping and vigorous than he appears. That particular plot point didn’t really seem to lead anywhere, though. Will this one?

By my reckoning, only two significant things actually happened in this episode: Brienne and Sansa are finally together, and Dorne has undergone a violent regime shift. The rest is place-setting, something Game of Thrones has relied far too heavily on in recent seasons. We’ve been waiting way too long for Martin's baggy story to take coherent narrative shape—and the world-changing battle between dragons and white walkers seems a foregone conclusion now. So let’s get to it, Benioff and Weiss!