Game of Thrones Episode 610—”The Winds of Winter”—Preview

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve finally arrived at the season finale of Game of Thrones Season 6. It’s been an eventful time in Westeros, and I’m looking forward to unpacking it all after the fact, even if I’m not looking forward to waiting another year for new episodes.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve got one episode to go: “The Winds of Winter.” HBO hasn’t released an official synopsis, but it did include a short description when it submitted the episode for Emmy consideration:

"Season Finale. Cersei faces her trial."

We’ve been waiting a year to see Cersei Lannister stand before the Faith and face trial—exactly a year, in fact. In the Season 5 finale, the High Sparrow let her return to the Red Keep to await trial, but only if she made a walk of shame through King’s Landing. The event was humiliating for her, and it’s unlikely she’s forgotten about it. If we had to guess, we’d say she has revenge on her mind.

It’s hard to know exactly what happen, but things stand a good chance of getting ugly. Here’s a quick factual breakdown of the episode:

• Start Time: June 26, 2016, 9 p.m. EST
• TV Info: HBO
• Episode: Season 6, Episode 10, “The Winds of Winter”
• Writers: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
• Director: Miguel Sapochnik
• Run time: 68 minutes
• Live Stream: Stream 1 – Stream 2

Director Miguel Sapochnik, who now has both “Hardhome” and “Battle of the Bastards” under his belt, returns for the last time this year to helm “The Winds of Winter.” Also note the running time. At 68 minutes, “The Winds of Winter” isn’t just the longest Game of Thrones episode this season—it’s the longest episode in the show’s history. (Although, interestingly, HBO previously listed the episode as running 69 rather than 68 minutes—not sure where that extra minute went.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lh6r-j55V4

The trailer is elegantly edited, particularly the beginning part, where the High Sparrow speaks over images of Cersei, Margaery, Tommen, and Loras preparing for the trial. However, we note that the trailer is a good deal shorter than the one for “Battle of the Bastards,” despite that being the shorter episode. Also, the producers and actors haven’t been hyping the season finale as much as they were “Battle of the Bastards.” Does that mean anything? I have no idea, but now you know.

After “Battle of the Bastards,” which concerned itself with just two locations, “The Winds of Winter” will return to the familiar format and check in with several different sets of characters. In addition to the business in King’s Landing, we’ll follow up with the gang at Winterfell, Tyrion will counsel Daenerys about the great game, Jaime will stop by the Twins, and Bran will do…something or other.

HBO’s cache of official images spreads itself all over the place, although the highest concentration of unique images are of Jaime and his crew…

…followed by the group in King’s Landing.

Also, it looks like Davos is going to come for Melisandre after finding out what she did to Shireen in Season 5.

We’ll be back tomorrow during and after the episode to break it all down, one last time for the year.