Forget all the teasers, interviews with EPs, speculation and even the George R.R. Martin books for now, the power and glory of HBO’s Game of Thrones has always been what’s on the screen – and that was surely the case tonight. Coming after last year’s fatality-filled finale, Sunday’s Season 6 premiere stealthily set the pieces on the board as the event horizon of the Emmy-winning and record-breaking blockbuster apparently looms and the battle for the Iron Throne ends.
Executive producers David Benioff and D.B Weiss recently have postulated that GoT could conclude in the next couple of seasons, but on Sunday’s “The Red Woman” episode, which the EPs penned, the multitude of characters, kingslayers, would-be kings and queens, warriors, religious leaders and of course dragons all were sloughing their way toward glory – or not, in some cases as this recap details.
First thing first, Jon Snow appears truly to be dead as his wolf Ghost’s howls echo through Castle Black in mourning.
Killed by his own mutinous men of the Night’s Watch in the Season 5 ender “Mother’s Mercy,” the fate of the Kit Harington-played illegitimate offspring of Ned Stark has preoccupied GoT fans from the second the camera pushed in while he lay bleeding out on the snow-covered ground. Tonight, there was no rising from the dead, nor magical revival or sleight of hand to bring him back to life.
The conclusion of ‘The Red Woman’ takes us back to Castle Black where tensions between the factions of the Night Watch are rising and blood is sure to flow soon. At the same time, revelations about the true age and powers of Stannis’ mystical ex-advisor Lady Melisandre (Carice van Houten) come to light in tonight’s premiere.
The seductive and still youthful Priestess of the Lord of Light, who is also called the Red Woman, strips down naked and somewhat defeated in her chambers and, once removing the jeweled amulet around her neck, is shown to be a very old woman – much more ancient and obviously more powerful than assumed, maybe even powerful enough to raise the dead?
As Dinklage’s Tyrion says, “You’re in the great game now.”
Article culled from Deadline.com
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