Normally, a TV show begins to waiver in quality as it gets farther and farther from its start. The challenge of maintaining momentum five, six or seven years into production leaves many showrunners burnt out and their shows lifeless. Audiences grow tired of waiting and wondering as a show spins its wheels and padded runtimes leave fans wondering if any new episode will capture the magic felt when they first started watching. As it finishes its sixth season, “Game of Thrones” seems to have proven, once again, that it is not a normal TV show.
HBO’s medieval juggernaut faced an uphill battle at the beginning of this season. For one thing, season five left the fate of many characters uncertain, including the closest thing the series has to a main character, Jon Snow. More importantly, season six is the first season to go almost completely without an already published book to act as source material due to the sixth installment of George. R. R. Martin’s popular fantasy series, “A Song of Ice and Fire,” being delayed.
With the exception of a few plotlines, season six was entirely new material, and that can go one of two ways. Either the new off-the-book scenes fit right in with the show’s consistent pacing and narrative, or they run the risk of feeling disjointed. This feeling is well known to watchers of book-to-movie adaptations, as blockbuster hits like “The Hunger Games” or the “Hobbit” stretch stories thin or hack them to bits to achieve desired runtimes. It is impossible to say whether or not most of the events in season six remain faithful to George R. R. Martin’s vision until “The Winds of Winter” releases, but, with the exception of a quickly abandoned Dorne plotline, this season feels like a natural progression of the story.
The character motivations, major events and long-awaited reveals that fill season six all seem true to the Westeros drama fans have come to love. The only thing that seems different in this season is how fast the plot is moving. Unlike season five, which seemed to drag at times due to a lack of book content, this season races toward the inevitable end of the series, making it one of the most eventful and bloody seasons yet. This season saw huge shifts in power, multiple castle sieges, betrayals, explosions and pseudo time travel, all in 10 episodes.
Despite the speed with which season six moves, many characters, both major and minor, shine in the quieter moments the series rarely allows for. It is in these moments that the acting in “Game of Thrones” continues to impress through its large ensemble cast. The reuniting of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) after six seasons brought forth some much needed hope as Harington and Turner convinced the audience that two characters with almost no prior on-screen interactions are family.
On the other side of the coin, Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) is a joy to hate. Rheon plays Ramsay with a carefree nature through every heinous act, always with his playful smile. Ramsay is not the most complex villain in the series by any means, but with Rheon’s spot-on performance, he becomes someone every person watching cannot wait to see fall.
With so many characters dead in this season and the previous one, many side characters got their chances to steal some of the spotlight. Davos (Liam Cunningham) continued to play his role as a reasonable advisor with his usual charm but when situations forced the character into a more aggressive role, Cunningham was up to the task. In King’s Landing, Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) showed that a passive king can be just as dangerous as a violent one as he is manipulated by all of those around him. Chapman portrayed the character’s innocence and naivete very well, to the point where audiences wanted to shout at the screen as Tommen falls in and out of everyone’s hands. Back in the North, newcomer Lyanna Mormont steals every scene she’s in as 12-year-old actress Bella Ramsey delivers a performance that is one part adorable and two parts fierce.
While performances were stellar across the board, with far too many characters to mention, not all plotlines managed to hold up. Arya Stark’s (Maisie Williams) and Jaime Lannister’s (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) plotlines in particular felt dragged out and dull, especially when compared to the more compelling stories being told elsewhere. A cut to Braavos or the Riverlands usually meant a good 10 minutes of nothing really happening. Fortunately, both Jaime and Arya seem to be moving toward more interesting future stories thanks to this season’s eventful finale.
Normally, a “Game of Thrones” finale is nothing special. The show typically leaves its spectacle for its ninth episode and uses the 10th to tie up loose ends and set up the next season. With season six’s ninth episode, “Battle of the Bastards,” already providing what is probably the series’ best action sequence to date on top of a second dragon-filled battle in the same episode, it was safe to think episode 10 would be a snoozefest. It most certainly was not.
“The Winds of Winter,” with its “Godfather”-esque opening set to a beautiful and haunting score, may be the best “Game of Thrones” episode to date. The episode was directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who had previously directed “Battle of the Bastards” and last season’s hit episode “Hardhome.” The two-season-long conflict between Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) and Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) ended in beautiful spectacle while also setting up a great next season. King’s Landing was just the start, however, as many other plots raced forward with shocking moment after shocking moment until the finale. “Game of Thrones” final 10th episode ended, as always, leaving you wanting more.
A version of this article appears in print on July 7, 2016 on page 6 with the headline ‘Game of Thrones’ Continues Its Reign.
