Inside the Episode: “The Winds of Winter” (Video)

At the conclusion of every Game of Thrones episode, the production airs and then releases a spate of videos detailing the behind-the-scenes work that went into making it. These videos explore the thought process that went into the creation of particular scenes, and highlight what the writers and directors see as the key moments of the episode.

This week’s “Inside The Episode” video is extra long, which is fitting, since this was a supersized episode, the longest of any in Game of Thrones’ six seasons. Most of the time, these clips clock in around six minutes. This week it’s nearly 10 minutes.

Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss cover a lot of ground, too. Out of the many places we check in with this week, they hit four: King’s Landing and Cersei’s ascension, Winterfell and Jon’s ascension, Arya’s surprise reappearance at the Twins, and Dany finally leaving Essos, meaning that all of our characters will soon be on the same side of the Narrow Sea. Only Dorne and Oldtown don’t come into play.

We have two behind-the-scenes catchups with actors this week. Our first is with Maisie Williams, who discusses Arya’s continuing survival. It’s interesting to listen to her speak about her character’s arc, especially in light of Benioff’s warning in the main clip, talking about how we should not be cheering on this character, and that in fact her behavior is as cold and frightening as Cersei’s.

Meanwhile, in “the rest if the Stark Family” news, our second clip finds Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, and Liam Cunningham talking about the strange wheel around from Jon Snow trying to insist that Sansa should be the Lady of Winterfell to getting named King of the North.

This one is especially interesting, as I saw many asking why Jon did not behave like Theon did in front of Dany and insist that Sansa is the one fit to rule instead of him. But then again, as the main clip said, we should be concerned about all of this.