Written by: Kevin Berge
In order to shock this season, the series has decided off screen to kill the entirety of its main cast. Somehow the show's ratings only rose. (Image Courtesy of: celebritiesworldwide.com)
Quick Take: Game of Thrones Season 6 has a completely different feeling and tone to its previous seasons with a fast pace and more loosely driven stories that wavered in carrying as much weight as its predecessors until its excellent conclusion. With strong performances and some of the best direction the series has seen, it was a season that rivals the best Game of Thrones has to offer.
Previous Reviews: Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4 | Season 5
***This review is spoiler heavy, focused on the whole sixth season and its events. While the whole story will not be covered, it would be best to read this review only after seeing the entirety of this latest season including the recently aired season finale.***
Game of Thrones has been building up this season for a long time. I say that not referencing the events of this season but the tone and pacing. For years, HBO's Game of Thrones has followed George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series with only minor changes to the formula.
However, the TV series was always moving too fast for GRRM to finish the books before show would finish. Martin published A Game of Thrones in 1996, and he is still not finished writing The Winds of Winter, only the sixth of the seven books in the series. In order for Martin to finish the series before the TV series ends, he would have to finish The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Springs in two years.
This year's sixth season was almost entirely written with unreleased material in mind. Certainly Martin still has a voice in the mix for the series and had some say in how this season and the next two likely final seasons will be written and developed. However, this was truly the year where David Benoiff and D.B. Weiss took over the series full force.
This was clear from the outset as the series moved full force at a pace that the series had never used before. Gone were the long building episodes and long competing monologues. This season no longer walked but ran, feeling more like a movie than its predecessors.
This fundamental change brought with it both positives and negatives. Week to week episodes of Game of Thrones were stronger though at times the long term pay offs felt less earned. We also lost one of the series' most unique aspects with much fewer double meaning back and forth dialogue sections, the kind that sold the characters of the series earlier on.
Early on this season, I was fully on board for this fast pacing. The surprises came flying in early and often with reveals that usually would have taken all season to build up. However, middle episodes of the season meandered a bit more than you'd expect, making the early reveals feel a bit too sudden.
Luckily, the home stretch of this season again ramped up the tension and action to make this once more a fantastic season of Game Of Thrones with some truly shocking and series defining developments at the tail end. While that middle lag was felt, the endings made this season feel bigger than any previous season.
***This review is spoiler heavy, focused on the whole sixth season and its events. While the whole story will not be covered, it would be best to read this review only after seeing the entirety of this latest season including the recently aired season finale.***
Game of Thrones has been building up this season for a long time. I say that not referencing the events of this season but the tone and pacing. For years, HBO's Game of Thrones has followed George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series with only minor changes to the formula.
However, the TV series was always moving too fast for GRRM to finish the books before show would finish. Martin published A Game of Thrones in 1996, and he is still not finished writing The Winds of Winter, only the sixth of the seven books in the series. In order for Martin to finish the series before the TV series ends, he would have to finish The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Springs in two years.
This year's sixth season was almost entirely written with unreleased material in mind. Certainly Martin still has a voice in the mix for the series and had some say in how this season and the next two likely final seasons will be written and developed. However, this was truly the year where David Benoiff and D.B. Weiss took over the series full force.
This was clear from the outset as the series moved full force at a pace that the series had never used before. Gone were the long building episodes and long competing monologues. This season no longer walked but ran, feeling more like a movie than its predecessors.
This fundamental change brought with it both positives and negatives. Week to week episodes of Game of Thrones were stronger though at times the long term pay offs felt less earned. We also lost one of the series' most unique aspects with much fewer double meaning back and forth dialogue sections, the kind that sold the characters of the series earlier on.
Early on this season, I was fully on board for this fast pacing. The surprises came flying in early and often with reveals that usually would have taken all season to build up. However, middle episodes of the season meandered a bit more than you'd expect, making the early reveals feel a bit too sudden.
Luckily, the home stretch of this season again ramped up the tension and action to make this once more a fantastic season of Game Of Thrones with some truly shocking and series defining developments at the tail end. While that middle lag was felt, the endings made this season feel bigger than any previous season.
Isn't it a bit unfair to slap together the two best characters in the series in the same storyline? Not that I'm complaining. (Image Courtesy of: ign.com)
This season's cast were again as strong as ever though the shifting in the stories has led to certain actors/characters coming more into prominence over others. Peter Dinklage has been the starring man of the series and was again strong, but he felt like a filler, side character this season, stuck in Mereen.
Emilia Clarke got to escape the monotony of Mereen with Daenerys finding her fire again this season, and Clarke shined as she echoed earlier seasons but with more assured confidence. Maisie Williams suffered the most from the faster pace even though her performance was her best yet as Arya's story in Braavos was wildly and weirdly paced with an almost campy finish, luckily saved by her one last striking move on her return to Westeros.
Kit Harington has snuck up and become perhaps the most important star on the series these past few years, and he has risen to the challenge as Jon Snow came back from the dead and showed a myriad of complex emotions about the experience. He also got to play off Sophie Turner quite a bit this season who finally felt at home in the shoes of a confident Sansa Stark who is echoing the performance of Liam Cunningham as Littlefinger (again tragically underused).
Iwan Rheon played this season's main villain with Ramsay Bolton coming into full focus finally, and he was brilliant as the series' most sadistic player yet. Meanwhile, King's Landing was in sore need of a compelling villain as Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau did their best to make the most of stories with Cersei and Jamie that felt unnecessary until the final episode's madness (which will likely put them both front and center next season) even if Jonathan Price has been delightfully over the top as the High Sparrow.
With so much less adaptable material to work with this season, the writers deserve significant credit for their work with this season to keep the tone of the series as its pacing changed. Benoiff and Weiss wrote seven of the episodes including the best episodes of the season in "The Door", "Battle of the Bastards", and "The Winds of Winter" while series veteran writers Dave Hill and Bryan Cogman wrote one and two episodes respectively.
The direction varied this season with the faster pace. Jeremy Podeswa, Daniel Sackheim, Jack Bender, Mark Mylod, and Miguel Sapochnik directed two episodes each of this season, and they mostly did strong work. Mylod's work with "No One" was more than a bit questionable though as it lost a bit of the series' main tone.
Jack Bender deserves quite a bit of credit for his work with "The Door" particularly the final scene of that episode. Jack Podeswa and Daniel Sackheim had the toughest job of introducing the new, faster GoTs and did a great job with that especially Sackheim's work on "Book of the Stranger" which has some beautifully shot scenes.
Still, it is Miguel Sapochnik who should be getting award recognition. His work on "Battle of The Bastards" is the best direction the series has ever seen. The war scenes in the episode were better laid out than most film action with a powerful tracking shot, a claustrophobic shot of men piling on top of another, and the brilliant closing moments of the episode with Sansa Stark smiling as Ramsay is eaten by his own hounds.
Amazingly, he still managed to keep some of his best shots for the final episode of the season "The Winds of Winter" which at times looked like a painting in motion. The two episodes are among the best Game of Thrones has ever offered, and they along with "Hardhome" last season should make Sapochnik the most acclaimed of all the directors to work on Game of Thrones.
Emilia Clarke got to escape the monotony of Mereen with Daenerys finding her fire again this season, and Clarke shined as she echoed earlier seasons but with more assured confidence. Maisie Williams suffered the most from the faster pace even though her performance was her best yet as Arya's story in Braavos was wildly and weirdly paced with an almost campy finish, luckily saved by her one last striking move on her return to Westeros.
Kit Harington has snuck up and become perhaps the most important star on the series these past few years, and he has risen to the challenge as Jon Snow came back from the dead and showed a myriad of complex emotions about the experience. He also got to play off Sophie Turner quite a bit this season who finally felt at home in the shoes of a confident Sansa Stark who is echoing the performance of Liam Cunningham as Littlefinger (again tragically underused).
Iwan Rheon played this season's main villain with Ramsay Bolton coming into full focus finally, and he was brilliant as the series' most sadistic player yet. Meanwhile, King's Landing was in sore need of a compelling villain as Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau did their best to make the most of stories with Cersei and Jamie that felt unnecessary until the final episode's madness (which will likely put them both front and center next season) even if Jonathan Price has been delightfully over the top as the High Sparrow.
With so much less adaptable material to work with this season, the writers deserve significant credit for their work with this season to keep the tone of the series as its pacing changed. Benoiff and Weiss wrote seven of the episodes including the best episodes of the season in "The Door", "Battle of the Bastards", and "The Winds of Winter" while series veteran writers Dave Hill and Bryan Cogman wrote one and two episodes respectively.
The direction varied this season with the faster pace. Jeremy Podeswa, Daniel Sackheim, Jack Bender, Mark Mylod, and Miguel Sapochnik directed two episodes each of this season, and they mostly did strong work. Mylod's work with "No One" was more than a bit questionable though as it lost a bit of the series' main tone.
Jack Bender deserves quite a bit of credit for his work with "The Door" particularly the final scene of that episode. Jack Podeswa and Daniel Sackheim had the toughest job of introducing the new, faster GoTs and did a great job with that especially Sackheim's work on "Book of the Stranger" which has some beautifully shot scenes.
Still, it is Miguel Sapochnik who should be getting award recognition. His work on "Battle of The Bastards" is the best direction the series has ever seen. The war scenes in the episode were better laid out than most film action with a powerful tracking shot, a claustrophobic shot of men piling on top of another, and the brilliant closing moments of the episode with Sansa Stark smiling as Ramsay is eaten by his own hounds.
Amazingly, he still managed to keep some of his best shots for the final episode of the season "The Winds of Winter" which at times looked like a painting in motion. The two episodes are among the best Game of Thrones has ever offered, and they along with "Hardhome" last season should make Sapochnik the most acclaimed of all the directors to work on Game of Thrones.
Ah, Ramsay Bolton, who knew someone could make me forget just how much I hated Joffrey? (Image Courtesy of: hbo.com)
On top of Game of Thrones moving faster, this season also felt radically different in the way it eased the major moments. You could almost say this was a lighthearted season. You could even almost call this a season of fan service. For the first time, we truly saw the characters succeeding in their efforts rather than facing repeated failure.
While this may feel off to viewers have felt the suffering for so long, it is likely that this feeling was always the intended direction. For five seasons (and books), the heroes of the series have seen their honor thrown in their face as so many have died, and the villains have become the lesser of the evils in the story.
However, all good stories are about give and take. You can only make certain characters so despicable before all that's left is to see them suffer. This series has done some despicable things to build up to moments like we got in this season particularly with the Starks finally got some measure of victory.
Jon and Sansa found each other and made Ramsay pay even though their relationship continues to fray, and it certainly seems likely Arya and Bran will find their ways home as well with both fundamentally changed. Daenerys found her army, laid waste to her competition, and found allies in Theon and Yara Greyjoy to begin her sail to Westeros.
While Cersei's tale was far from pleasant and plainly lagged a bit, her final actions and crowning on the Iron Throne was a moment long built toward as well with Jamie surprisingly the one who has become sympathetic even through all of Cersei's suffering last season.
It has been all about these characters finally accepting their intended destinies, taking up the mantles for those now lost while making the villains pay for their despicable actions. These last few seasons will likely see more and more of these fan service moments of final deserved judgment though it is unlikely that everything will end happily.
With only two seasons left (reportedly with only 13 episodes left between them), this season began the homestretch of the series, finally allowing fans to see the full scope of George R. R. Martin's vision for the fantasy epic series with Benoiff and Weiss writing and presenting his ideas in their own way. Fascinatingly, that vision has played extremely on gender division this season which is likely an article all its own that will be written by someone far smarter than I am.
This season in particular was a season of reveals and moving pieces as the characters finally moved into position to set up the final fight for the Iron Throne and against the Night's King. It moved occasionally too fast, but it also developed at a more steady pace than ever before with more surprise twists and turns than ever before.
While this may feel off to viewers have felt the suffering for so long, it is likely that this feeling was always the intended direction. For five seasons (and books), the heroes of the series have seen their honor thrown in their face as so many have died, and the villains have become the lesser of the evils in the story.
However, all good stories are about give and take. You can only make certain characters so despicable before all that's left is to see them suffer. This series has done some despicable things to build up to moments like we got in this season particularly with the Starks finally got some measure of victory.
Jon and Sansa found each other and made Ramsay pay even though their relationship continues to fray, and it certainly seems likely Arya and Bran will find their ways home as well with both fundamentally changed. Daenerys found her army, laid waste to her competition, and found allies in Theon and Yara Greyjoy to begin her sail to Westeros.
While Cersei's tale was far from pleasant and plainly lagged a bit, her final actions and crowning on the Iron Throne was a moment long built toward as well with Jamie surprisingly the one who has become sympathetic even through all of Cersei's suffering last season.
It has been all about these characters finally accepting their intended destinies, taking up the mantles for those now lost while making the villains pay for their despicable actions. These last few seasons will likely see more and more of these fan service moments of final deserved judgment though it is unlikely that everything will end happily.
With only two seasons left (reportedly with only 13 episodes left between them), this season began the homestretch of the series, finally allowing fans to see the full scope of George R. R. Martin's vision for the fantasy epic series with Benoiff and Weiss writing and presenting his ideas in their own way. Fascinatingly, that vision has played extremely on gender division this season which is likely an article all its own that will be written by someone far smarter than I am.
This season in particular was a season of reveals and moving pieces as the characters finally moved into position to set up the final fight for the Iron Throne and against the Night's King. It moved occasionally too fast, but it also developed at a more steady pace than ever before with more surprise twists and turns than ever before.