Game of Thrones has finally silenced everyone who complained the TV show wasn't faithful to the books

SPOILER ALERT: Major plot points from Season Six, Episode One are discussed below

SPOILER ALERT: Major plot points from Season Six, Episode One are discussed below

Game of Thrones, the world’s most chattered about television show, smashed back onto British screens last night like an angry 400lb Franken-monster: brash, colossal and taking no prisoners. Several readers may get this reference to hulking destroyer The Mountain who is lurking somewhere in King’s Landing resembling, I imagine, a cross between Giant Haystacks and one of those Comfort fabric softener rag-dolls. Other readers will be furious that I’m mentioning plot points at all, because no show inspires such fierce self-policing of ‘spoilers’ like Game of Thrones.

For people who do yearn to read about season six, episode one: 'The Red Woman', I offer my services in the earnest manner of Brienne of Tarth kneeling for another feasibly doomed pledge. Much like Brienne, I mean incredibly well, even if no one would have missed me too much in 2013 if I’d been eaten by bear.

Last night, we saw Sansa take Brienne on as her protector. I live in hope that this results in Ramsay Bolton being captured, peeled and carved slowly into small, barbecue-sized goujons.

Ramsay’s demonic bit-on-the-side, Myranda, has been found dead and Ramsay is now even more awash with cruel vengeance than previously thought possible. I hate him. He makes me miss the relative jocundity of King Joffrey killing sex workers with a cross-bow. Pleasingly, we saw in this opening episode that Ramsay’s father Rouse is now fully aware that his son is as much use as a nougat fireguard when it comes to leadership.

It’s safe to say that on its sixth season this slick, rollicking, gloriously expensive and lovingly hewn television show still feels very precious. Simply put: no-one else in TV-land is stepping on Thrones’ heels right now. The Walking Dead feels, even its most ardent fans say, like it’s starting to run in circles, while Outlander, although adored, seems only to have niche appeal.

Game of Thrones, after so much ground covered, seems determined to deliver more greatness. From last night’s chilling opening scenes where Ser Davos finds Jon Snow bloody and lifeless in the snow, through to Daenerys in the clutches of the rape-fixated Dothraki tribe, across to Cersei by the harbour taking delivery of her second child’s body, this is TV that demands attention. Season Six, it must be stressed, feels very much like HBO’s baby.

Yes, George RR Martin’s foundations are there, for which everyone is grateful, but from the stabbing of King Dornish onwards, we are in post-book territory. How Martin will structure a new novel now that the vast HBO juggernaut with its deadlines, army of writers and bottomless cheque-book has gobbled his baby up is anyone’s guess. I know I enjoyed this episode more than ever as the usual suspects in my house who scream “But this wasn’t in the book!” every five minutes were eventually silenced.

Nevertheless, fans have spent months mulling the veracity of Jon Snow’s death, so here we were tantalised further by Melisandre casting a witchy hand over his still-pretty corpse. Viewers know Melisandre’s got it in her to conjure up all sort of otherworldly capering. We’ve seen her lie on the floor and pull a weird ghostly object out of her vagina, after all. It felt similar to something one might have seen outside the Tuxedo Princess floating nightclub in 90s Newcastle, but with a more menacing undercurrent.

We know The Red Witch is the real deal - but it’s like her heart’s just not been in this witch business since she talked Stannis into setting fire to his daughter. In the episode’s closing triumphant moments, she removed the necklace that’s been keeping her tits as pert as Pekingese snouts for 200 years and went to bed. We don’t know why.

Was she retiring or regrouping? Is she regretful or reoriented in her faith? Where can I buy one of these necklaces? Are there any smoke assassins in her fallopian tubes and, if so, can one of them kill that pompous brute Alliser Thorne? And Ramsay Bolton? And Samwell Tarly’s whiny girlfriend, and that big cocky White Walker, who looks like a goth who was locked in a chest-freezer? And that aggravating Sparrow nun who keeps hitting people with a ladle and shouting “Confess”? And anyone who threw poo at Cersei when she did the walk of shame? And everyone involved in those willfully pretentious scenes where Arya is training as a faceless assassin, which feel like a BBC4-subtitled Sundance nominee? Oh, how I miss Hot Pie and Gendry.

Still, episode one was a storming start to a very promising season. We all remember what happened at Hardhome. There’s no doubt that winter is coming.