Game Of Thrones Season 6: 10 Ups And 2 Downs From 'The Red Woman'

1. Typical Season Premiere

The season premiere of Game of Thrones is always a difficult episode, because after a lengthy break it has to do so much re-establishing with its characters and settings. Because of that, it's always concerned with placing lots of different pieces on the board, and is never the best episode of any given season.

In that regard, The Red Woman works. As a Game of Thrones season premiere, it does pretty much everything it needs to, and it does so very well. It reintroduces a number of characters, builds the stakes, and it's tense and full of twists and turns.

However, in the context of an actual episode, and especially the promise of them doing something different, coming out of the gate swinging rather than the general formula. Although there's lots of good stuff in this episode, there isn't much beyond a typical premiere of the show, and in that sense it's a little disappointing they didn't really try something new.

In particular it felt so overstuffed that a lot of the scenes didn't really get the room they perhaps required to breathe a little, and I'd point to the Jorah and Daario scene, and the one with Margaery, as those that could've been saved for next week. They didn't add much to the story, they were more just there for the sake of catching up with them. Take those out, and expand on a couple of other moments - a little more at the Wall, for example - and they could've done something that felt bigger than we're used to from a season premiere.

What did you think of The Red Woman? Share your thoughts down in the comments.