Game of Thrones Season 6 is over, and enough time has passed for an honest appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses. It was a wild year full of ups, downs, and all-arounds, but there’s no season of television so complicated that bloggers can’t break it into chunks and arrange the episodes in order from worst to best.
WiC writer Corey Smith already ranked every episode of the show here, but his opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of everyone who works on the site. Here’s Season 6 as I see it:
10. “No One”
There’s a pretty wide consensus that “No One” was the weakest episode of the year, and with good reason. As with most Game of Thrones episodes, it has a lot going on. Unfortunately, it ends in Braavos, where it brings Arya’s two-season-long sojourn with the Faceless Men to an underwhelming end.
But before we get to that, let’s highlight what worked. For example, the stuff in King’s Landing was well-done, particularly the scene in the Throne Room where Tommen announces that trial by combat is outlawed. This is another example of the High Sparrow outmaneuvering Cersei, and vital setup for her pyromaniacal payback in “The Winds of Winter.” It’s transitional, but juicy.
The same is true of the Hound’s one-man revenge quest against the rogue members of the Brotherhood Without Banners, although I could have done without the latter’s vulgar fireside antics. It’s also fun to see Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr back in action.
But the best parts of “No One” take place at Riverrun, where pretty much every scene is a winner, even filler ones like the playful reunion between Bronn and Pod. The Scene-of-the-Episode Award goes to the magnetic conversation between Jaime Lannister and Edmure Tully, where the Kingslayer lives up to his reputation and threatens to catapult Edmure’s newborn baby over the walls of Riverrun if he doesn’t help the Lannisters retake the castle. Earlier, we got a look at the noble, self-sacrificing Jaime when he talks with Brienne. But here we see that his ruthless side is still very much intact. All told, “No One” is the best Jaime episode since Season 3’s “Kissed By Fire,” where he told Brienne the truth about the Mad King’s death.
Jaime and Brienne share the saddest wave in the world, a great moment for both of them.
Okay, on to the bad stuff. Before we get to Braavos, I have to mention the limp comedy scene between Tyrion, Missandei, and Grey Worm. It’s hard to know what writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss were thinking here. It would be one thing if the jokes here were funny, or if the dialogue furthered the plot. But the scene just drags until the Masters attack Meereen and Daenerys returns to the city, and then we’re out for the week. It’s an odd sequence.
But the real problem with “No One” is the resolution of Arya’s story in Braavos, which is riddled with holes. One episode back, the Waif stabbed Arya in the gut and left her for dead. At the beginning of “No One,” non-medical professional Lady Crane nurses her back to health…with soup. And bed rest. After she’d fallen into Braavos’ filthy canals. On a show where the mighty Khal Drogo died of an infected cut on his pec, and where Arya herself witnessed a man die of a gut wound similar to her own, this was asking the audience to suspend its disbelief beyond the breaking point.
And that was before Arya started to do parkour all over Braavos while fleeing from the Waif. The latter’s death was satisfying—Benioff and Weiss paid off Arya’s former blindness nicely—but it didn’t excuse what came before. Then came the final scene, where Arya confronts Jaqen H’ghar about the hit he put out on her. Then she just kind of…leaves, without comment from her mentor. Jaqen had always been a mysterious character, but here, his muddled motives hurt the scene’s dramatic thrust.
Despite its virtues, “No One” is a patchy episode of Game of Thrones, and the low point of Season 6. But it only gets better from here.
9. “Blood of My Blood”
It’s not that “Blood of My Blood” is bad. Actually, there are some crackerjack scenes in here. It’s more that the episode lacks the fireworks of the ones immediately before it. It’s hard to follow up Daenerys’ khal barbecue and Hodor’s tragic death with this mellow material, but “Blood of My Blood” still puts up a good fight.
The episode’s best scene comes right at the beginning, as Bran and Meera frantically flee from the wights. As Meera, Ellie Kendrick deserves a lot of credit for selling the desperation of the situation.
And then Uncle Benjen returns and mows the wights down with a flaming mace. That’s all well and fun, but the real treat of this sequence are the flashbacks (and flash-forwards) we get with Bran, who’s stuck deep down a greensight hole. It would have been easy for the production to string together clips we’d already seen, but it went out of its way to hire an actor to play Aerys Targaryen and shoot him railing his signature line. That’s dedication.
BURN THEM ALL!
Other than that, we get a couple of dramas in the intermediate stages of development. In Braavos, Arya has a textured conversation with Lady Crane and decides this whole professional assassin thing isn’t for her. It’s a moment of clarity that’s been a long time coming, and sets up an exciting confrontation that unfortunately doesn’t reach its full potential (see above). And in the Reach, Sam confronts his father, who proves as awful as advertised during a magnetic family dinner scene. It’s particularly harrowing to watch Randyll Tarly reduce his son to a quivering mess with a glare and a word. Sam’s emotional liberation is also satisfying, but his story isn’t meaty enough to hold up an entire episode.
If “Blood of My Blood” has a centerpiece, it’s the confrontation on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, where the High Sparrow introduces Tommen and Margaery as Mr. and Mrs. Religious Fanaticism 2016. The sequence is rich. It works from a political angle (the High Sparrow embarrassing the Tyrells by rendering their armies pointless in front of everyone), an emotional angle (Jaime and Cersei having a passionate reunion after he’s sent to Riverrun), and an entertainment angle (Jaime riding his horse right up the stairs).
The problem is that the sequence is, by design, an anticlimax. Jaime and Mace Tyrell lead an army to the Sept…and then they don’t use it. The smallfolk gather in anticipation of Margaery’s Walk of Shame…and then it doesn’t happen. It’s a subtle sort of victory for the High Sparrow, and after a string of bombastic moments, it leaves the audience a bit let down.
The episode tries to compensate with its final scene, where Daenerys rallies her Dothraki soldiers from atop Drogon. Ridiculously good special effects notwithstanding, it’s too similar to speeches Dany has given before to serve as a proper climax.
But maybe we’re at fault for always expecting something bombastic out of this show—after all, the early seasons were much quieter on average. “Blood of My Blood” still has plenty of what makes Game of Thrones great.
8. “The Broken Man”
The Broken Man has something a lot of mid-season Game of Thrones episodes lack: a solid narrative through line. Although we stop by quite a few locales during the hour, it’s the Hound that ties it all together.
The episode starts with a rare cold open, where we learn that the Hound survived his brush with death in Season 4’s “The Children.” Then, in the middle, we see him settle into a life as a humble laborer before returning to his old ways at the end. “The Broken Man” asks, “Is a life without violence possible in this world?” And it answers, “No.” It’s an important message that reverberates throughout the hour, as Jon and Sansa prepare for war and Jaime fails to reach an accord with the Blackfish. We have the Hound to thank for that thematic unity.
The transitional stuff is largely solid, too. As in “No One,” we get some textured in-between scenes in King’s Landing, as Margaery implores Olenna to flee the city, all without blowing her cover as a newly converted religious zealot. Margaery is practiced at hiding her emotions, but they leak out when she bids goodbye to her grandmother. Their parting is touching, particularly knowing what happens in the finale.
Our quick stopover in Volantis is also worthwhile. While at a brothel, Yara Greyjoy gives Theon a pep talk that’s part sisterly affection, part hardass drill sergeant. Her speech, which amounts to commanding Theon to get over his post-traumatic stress or kill himself, is cruel. But as played by Gemma Whelan and Alfie Allen, it somehow works, and makes me wish the show hadn’t sidelined her for the past few seasons.
On the negative side of things, this episode features Arya’s bloody encounter with the Waif, which sets up the nonsense in “No One.” To be fair, we didn’t know how silly the resolution of this plotline would be at the time, but the episode is still guilty by association.
But in the interest of ending on a positive note, “The Broken Man” introduces us to Lyanna Mormont. For that it will have my eternal thanks.
7. “The Red Woman”
Moment for moment, “The Red Woman” is rockier than “The Broken Man.” For example, “The Broken Man” doesn’t have anything as scattershot as the scene where the Sand Snakes kill Trystane on his boat. There are just…so many unanswered questions with this bit. Is Trystane coming or going from King’s Landing? How did the Sand Snakes get on board? Why would Doran ever allow them to leave Dorne after their attempt on Myrcella’s life?
Then there’s Doran’s own death, which represents a clean break with the character fans knew from George R.R. Martin’s novels. True, the show has no obligation to replicate the books in every detail. But if it was going to turn Doran from a master strategist into a guy who couldn’t see a coup coming from a mile away, why include him at all?
What gives “The Red Woman” the edge on this list are a pair of excellent scenes. First, there’s Sansa and Theon fleeing from the Boltons. It’s an exciting sequence aided by beautiful photography and Ramin Djawadi’s propulsive score. It also represents a step forward for both of these characters. By this point, we’d gotten used to thinking of Sansa and Theon as passive. Seeing them take charge, even in desperation, is a thrill.
The battle between the Bolton men, Brienne, Pod, and Theon is also suburb. And afterwards, we get the first of several crowd-pleasing moments from Season 6 when Sansa takes Brienne into her service. Finally, the forces of good are aligning.
The second great scene comes at the end, when Melisandre removes her necklace and reveals her true age. Director Jeremy Podeswa takes his time setting the mood and making sure we feel Melisandre’s self-doubt. The final dolly-out shot is a terrific example of how to use special effects well: that’s obviously not Carice van Houten’s body, but we recognize her eyes, dulled but still alive with purpose. This moment recontextualizes Melisandre’s character and sets her up for new stories. It’s a fantastic character beat.
So far as interstitial scenes go, highlights include Jaime rededicating himself to Cersei in the wake of their daughter’s death, a visit to Arya at rock bottom, and Alliser Thorne’s explanation for why he killed Jon Snow. We don’t agree with Thorne, but we respect that he owns up to his part in the assassination in front of the other Night’s Watchmen. The writers deserve credit for not turning him into a complete cartoon of a villain.
Next: Welcome back to the world
6. “Oathbreaker”
“Oathbreaker” has a lot of in-between scenes, more than most episodes. Some of them are enjoyable (Cersei crashing a Small Council meeting, Tommen meeting with the High Sparrow), some of them are harmless (Sam and Gilly on a boat, Daenerys arriving in Vaes Dothrak), and one is kinda painful (Tyrion trying to make conversation with Missandei and Grey Worm—I don’t know what tone Benioff and Weiss were going for here, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a mashup of boring and uncomfortable).
Luckily, “Oathbreaker” has some meatier stuff to go with all the sides, starting with Jon Snow. The best scene is the first, where Jon reacts to his resurrection. As an actor, Kit Harington has grown a lot over the course of the series, and as he looked down as his stab wound-riddled body, his eyes wide with shock and his breath short and ragged, I thought, “Yes, this is how someone who came back from the dead would act.” I’m still a little miffed he wasn’t given an Emmy for his trouble.
Having brought Jon Snow back to life, the show then had to make him a free agent. The final scene of “Oathbreaker”—where Jon quits the Night’s Watch—is nearly as important as the opening one. And once again, the cast and crew pull it off.
As in “The Red Woman,” Alliser Thorne makes a good showing. He killed Jon and accepts that he will be punished, but doesn’t plead for his life or rationalize his actions. “I fought,” he tells Jon from the gallows. “I lost. Now I rest. But you, Lord Snow, you’ll be fighting their battles forever.” Thorne’s dignity in the face of death makes his execution more than an exercise in righteous justice. It becomes a knotty scene about the weight of leadership, as Jon must kill not a lineup of mustache-twirling villains but his own brothers—men with good qualities who made mistakes—and a young boy caught up in something too big for him to fully understand. The scene succeeds not because Jon quits the Night’s Watch, but because it makes us understand why.
The other high point of the episode is the battle at the Tower of Joy. In a way, this scene is incomplete. Neither we nor Bran will learn what happened after Ned entered that tower until the finale. But who cares? Swordfights are awesome.
See?
I also love the clean, elegant way the show handles Arya’s return to the Faceless Man fold. Over the course of a couple of minutes, we see Arya greatly expand her skillset as she picks up points in quarterstaff-brawling, poison-making, and blind-fighting. The training montage is a time-tested cinematic technique, and “Oathbreaker” gives us a really good one.
Next: Patricide, and other fun ways to spend your time
5. “Home”
“Home” features several sequences worthy of consideration for the Scene-of-the-Episode Award. In King’s Landing, the show burns light and dark. There’s a grimly funny scene where a peasant spins slanderous stories about Cersei’s Walk of Shame (the Mountain thanks him personally), a tense standoff between Jaime and the High Sparrow, and an affecting moment where Cersei bonds with her last living child. Elsewhere, we get an action extravaganza as the wildlings invade Castle Black and fight the mutinous Night’s Watchmen. It’s a fun sequence that maintain’s the episode considerable narrative momentum, not to mention bringing Wun Wun the giant back into our lives.
The good times continue beyond the Wall, where we reunite with Bran. The show proves that leaving him out of Season 5 was the right decision when we skip all the Jedi-Padawan training sessions and get right to the flashbacks. Bran’s trip to the Winterfell of his father’s childhood is fascinating, and transforms him from an occasionally boring character into someone we look forward to visiting each week.
And we haven’t even mentioned Balon Greyjoy’s death and Jaqen H’ghar’s attempt to tempt Arya away from the assassin’s life. “Home” is overflowing with solid moments.
But even with stiff competition, the contest for top honors comes down to two contenders: Jon Snow’s resurrection and Tyrion’s visit to the dragons. Both are masterfully directed by Jeremy Podeswa, who’s excellent at setting a mood that drips with quiet intensity. (See also: the Melisandre scene at the end of “The Red Woman.”) Of the two, I prefer the Tyrion scene, if only because the outcome isn’t as predictable. We all knew going in that Jon Snow was going to come back from the dead—no matter Podeswa’s gifts, the resurrection sequence still has an air of inevitability. But I was genuinely surprised when, after Tyrion removes the chain from one dragon’s neck, the other bends down for his turn.
The scene is a high watermark for the show’s special effects department—the dragons had never looks so believable—a highlight reel-worthy bit of acting from Peter Dinklage, and a milestone in our understanding of Rhaegal and Viserion. They’re not just killing machines—these guys are characters. That could have big implications down the line.
“Home” stumbles slightly at Winterfell, where Ramsay stabs his father and feeds his step-mother and half-brother to dogs. It’s not that the scene is too violent, although there’s an argument to be made there. (Did we really need to hear Lady Walda and baby be eaten alive?) The bigger problem is that it all happens so quickly. Ramsay is dangerous—it’s not hard to believe that he could kill his father—but it’s hard to accept that he could get the drop on someone as crafty as Roose Bolton that easily. It feels as though, in its rush to make Ramsay the villain de jour, the show undervalued the one it already had.
But so much else happens during “Home” that I can overlook a misstep or two.
4. “Book of the Stranger”
A lot happens in “Book of the Stranger” and a lot of it is really damn good.
The good times start rolling immediately, when Sansa and Jon reunite after six seasons of hardship. We’re right there with them as they stare at each other across the courtyard of Castle Black, letting the weight of everything they’ve experienced since Season 1 slide off their shoulders. And when they embrace, we realize how long we’re been waiting for this. It’s the single happiest moment of the show to date.
But to their credit, Benioff and Weiss don’t pretend that everything is automatically sunshine and rainbows now. Neither Sansa nor Jon are as naive as they used to be, and as Sansa leans on Jon to battle the Boltons—first during their catch-up session and later at dinner—we see a new dynamic forming. Yes, they’re long-separated siblings euphoric to be together again. But they’re also business partners. To some extent, they’re rivals. There may be a touch of romance in there, too. It’s the start of a beautiful, complicated relationship.
If the Sansa-Jon scenes give us all the character beats we need, the Daenerys scenes give us shock and awe. Yes, there’s some déjà vu involved. Her massacre of the khals recalls her sack of Astapor, and her naked walk through the fire is a deliberate callback to the end of “Fire and Blood.” But these are still crowd-pleasing scenes that Emilia Clarke demolishes. By the time the episode is over, we’re thinking of bowing to her, too.
But as good as these bits are, my personal favorite scenes are the ones in Meereen, something I didn’t think I would ever write before watching this episode.
Tyrion strikes a deal with the Masters to keep slavery in effect for another seven years, so long as it is eventually phased out. It’s a morally murky agreement, and Benioff and Weiss have the confidence to examine it from different angles without condemning any of them. As former slaves, Missandei and Grey Worm are horrified, and it’s easy to see their point of view. But Tyrion also has a point that seven more years of slavery may be preferable to open war. By letting equally valid perspectives bounce off each other, “Book of the Stranger” achieves a satisfying richness.
All this and there’s still more! When it comes to cathartic brother-sister reunions, Jon and Sansa take the cake. But the reunions between Theon and Yara on the Iron Islands and Maragery and Loras beneath the Sept of Baelor are also very affecting. And if that’s not enough, this episode brings us comedy gold in the form of Tormurd’s open lust for Brienne. Hopefully that ship comes back around the riverbend in Season 7.
Man, even the High Sparrow’s monologue about his days as a cobbler is well-done. And that scene where Ramsay kills Osha has a dangerous edge to it. “Book of the Stranger” is terrific.
Next: The one where Hodor...y'know
3. “The Door”
The final scene of “The Door” is among the most powerful on the show. Hodor isn’t a character fans usually give much thought—when you have a one-word vocabulary, your potential as a dramatic figure is kinda limited. But he was always there, carrying Bran over mile after mile of open countryside without complaint. He was warm and friendly and dependable, and we took it for granted that he would always be around.
“The Door” kills Hodor, but not before recontextualizing everything we thought we knew about him. He wasn’t always mentally disabled—Bran accidentally crippled his friend during a trip back in time. While he was having a vision of a Winterfell long gone, White Walkers overran the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave. Bran needed to warg into present-day Hodor to protect himself and his friends, so he projected his consciousness through space and time. In the present, Hodor bravely held the door to the cave shut so Bran and Meera could escape the rampaging wights, while in the past, a young Hodor had an unwilling vision of his own death. In one time period, Hodor dies, and in another, he’s born, and it all happens at once.
That’s all very convoluted, and the show deserves credit for making it easily understandable onscreen. In this moment, the show turns Hodor from a likable curiosity into a tragic figure, a victim who was doomed from the start, but who protected the people he cared about nonetheless. And just as it deepens Hodor’s character, it snatches him away. It’s an emotional gut punch of a sequence.
Hodor’s final moments easily take Scene-of-the-Episode honors. But even if they were cut completely, “The Door” would still have a lot to offer. The hour kicks off with a long-time-coming conversation between Sansa and Littlefinger. Here, the show proves that it didn’t throw in Sansa’s rape a season earlier for shock value—it was playing a longer game. “I can still feel it,” Sansa tells Littlefinger, stone-faced. “I don’t mean ‘in my tender heart, it still pains me so.’ I can still feel what he did, in my body, standing here, right now.” It’s a powerful moment where Sansa gets to tell her own story, and makes damn sure that everyone understands that violence has consequences.
Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys tugs on our heartstrings when she bids goodbye to Jorah for the third time in as many seasons. But this time, she forgives him first, even if she never says it, and leaves a bittersweetness in the air. Beyond the Wall, Game of Thrones builds its mythology when Bran discovers how White Walkers were created. And in Braavos, Arya takes in a performance of “The Bloody Hand,” a stage drama that is at once a parody of the show itself, a comment on how history is written by the victors, and an emotional trigger for a burgeoning assassin who, deep down, is still a young girl ripped to shreds by her father’s death. In a normal episode, any of these scenes could have been the highlight of the hour. In “The Door,” they’re excellent runner-ups.
The only scene that flops is the Kingsmoot on the Iron Islands. Yara Greyjoy is a likable character, but her stump speech to her subjects is underthought. Meanwhile, new baddie Euron Greyjoy comes off as more crass than menacing. You get the sense the writers were rushing through this bit, but the rest is Game of Thrones gold.
2. “Battle of the Bastards”
In the age of peak TV, it’s difficult for a show to leave a mark. How can any show, no matter how skillfully crafted, hope to match the intensity of the final few episodes of AMC’s Breaking Bad, for example, or the complexity of HBO’s The Wire? If showrunners want their work to be remembered, they have to go big. “Battle of the Bastards” goes huge, and stands out even at a time when an abundance of quality programming threatens to overwhelm audiences.
The episode offers things you can’t get elsewhere on TV. No other show has the resources to follow a character through the thick of battle in a long, unbroken shot as horses crash into each other around him. No other show can afford to render dragons so convincing you’d swear you could reach out and touch them as they swoop through the sky. “Battle of the Bastards” has great ambitions and the manpower to realize them.
But for all the spectacle, writers Benioff and Weiss and director Miguel Sapochnik put the story first. The most powerful sequence in “Battle of the Bastards” is a comparatively simple one: the moment when Jon Snow’s own men nearly trample him to death as they retreat from Ramsay Bolton’s army. As Jon fights to stay alive, the scope of the episode narrows. It becomes about one man’s desire to live through this hell on earth, even if what awaits him is more of the same. The episode’s ambition isn’t limited to depicting the chaos of a medieval battle. It successfully marries a personal story of rebirth with an epic story about warring clans. It’s an enormous accomplishment.
Ramsay’s death scene is one for the books, too. Love him or hate him (probably hate him), Ramsay Bolton was an effectively menacing villain. “Battle of the Bastards” shows him at his twisted best, playing sick mind games with Jon just as he played them with Theon and Sansa. The difference is that Jon didn’t have any experience with that sort of enemy, and it nearly cost him everything.
In the end, Sansa gets the last word when she feeds Ramsay to his own hungry hounds. As when Arya kills Meryn Trant in Season 5, we’re happy Sansa gets her revenge, but also a little afraid of her capacity for brutality. Still, it’s a big moment for her, as is her last-minute appearance with Littlefinger’s army, which pulls Jon’s butt out of the fire right before all is lost. “Battle of the Bastards” is as much Sansa’s story as Jon’s.
Lest we forget, this episode also features the Battle of Meereen, where Daenerys defends her city from the slavers. The whole thing looks spectacular, and there’s some quality dialogue between Tyrion and Dany, but it can’t help but pale a little in comparison to the fight for Winterfell. That’s part of the charm of the episode: it goes so big that even something as spectacular as the Battle of Meereen feels diminished.
1. “The Winds of Winter”
Finales are tricky beasts. People expect a lot out of them, and showrunners can sometimes trip over themselves trying to deliver a show-stopping moment. (Think about the most recent season finale of The Walking Dead, for example.) Game of Thrones has it a little easier, since the fireworks traditionally go off in Episode 9. Episode 10 can deal with the aftermath.
The Winds of Winter, on the other hand, pushes the narrative forward in exciting ways, starting with the 20-odd-minute opening sequence where Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor. It’s the most momentous stretch of the episode, and putting it at the top of the hour is a brilliant structural move on the part of writers Benioff and Weiss. “You didn’t think we would ever top the Battle of the Bastards?” they ask. “Let’s cut that doubt to shreds as soon as possible.”
On one level, the opening sequence is a spectacle on par with any battle the show has produced. The editors achieve a hypnotic rhythm that crescendos with the final explosion, helped along ably by Ramin Djawadi’s eerie score. It’s nail-biting television. It also represents the end to several plotlines that had been running for seasons, and not just the one with the Sparrows. This is the last we see of Margaery Tyrell, whose long game was violently cut short by Cersei’s short one, and King Tommen Baratheon, who commits suicide rather than live in a world where his mother did what she did. And with nothing left to lose, Cersei herself steps over the line separating normal villainy from supervillainy, and the board has been reset for Season 7.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFK0yG8xG5I
Resets dominate “The Winds of Winter.” Arya, after two seasons in Braavos, returns to her home turf and immediately crosses a big name off her list. Winterfell, long either burned out or occupied by enemy forces, is ruled by Starks and Stark sympathizers once more. And Daenerys, after six seasons of ups and downs on Essos, finally sets out for Westeros. In a way, “The Winds of Winter” is a reaction to “Mother’s Mercy,” the Season 5 finale. There, all of our players are on the downslide—Arya is blinded, Daenerys is captured, Cersei is shamed, and Jon is killed. Here, they’re on the rise. For fans who have stuck with these characters through the low points of their journeys, that’s incredibly satisfying.
It’s a moment of reprieve for our characters, but it also promises dark times ahead. So long as the Sparrows were around, viewers could root for Cersei to take them down. But now that she’s destroyed them, along with Margaery and many innocent bystanders, she emerges as a threat to characters we love. Likewise, we’re glad to see justice come to Walder Frey. But Arya’s joy in his murder reminds us that she’s deeply troubled. And at Winterfell, the Northerners make Jon their new king. But we remember how badly that gig turned out for Robb. By the looks of it, so do Sansa and Littlefinger, and we should be concerned.
So “The Winds of Winter” sounds many notes. It delivers the resolutions we want, and does so in spectacular fashion. But it layers in warnings, too. It tears apart the fabric of the show and weaves it into something new. And most importantly, it has salivating to find out what happens in Season 7. It’s a wonderfully rich episode of Game of Thrones, and an example of peak TV at its finest.