And then there was one ... Season 6 Game of Thrones episode left, that is. Here's what's being said (spoiler warning) about Sunday night's war-filled "Battle of the Bastards," the penultimate episode in a series that usually plays it big when it comes to episode 9:
- At Esquire, Matt Miller dubs the episode "anti-Game of Thrones," something George RR Martin "never" would have written and something "purists of the books" might be panning over their morning coffee. He explains why, while allowing that it was a "satisfying" deviation.
- Indeed, Spencer Kornhaber at the Atlantic writes that the show "usually kills off characters who err in the manner that Jon [Snow] did tonight." The habitualness of that lent the episode a "sense of danger" that gave us this: "one of the squirmiest, most unsettling moments in Thrones history."
- Speaking of the dead, at Vanity Fair Joanna Robinson takes issue with the characters who have lost their lives this season—namely, that there haven't been any big ones (no, not even Hodor) despite the circumstances they faced. "Unbelievable survival seems to be the new world order," she writes, making for a season that has lacked believably high stakes." Next week could change that, though.