Cinematic Zodiac

Last night’s Game of Thrones season premier had more than six million views on HBO’s streaming services. Add to this the 10 million viewers who watched the premier through the traditional method of tuning their set top box to HBO and you have a whopping 16 million people watching the same episode of television in a compressed period of time. This number sounds large because it is: not only was it the most-watched Game of Thrones episode to date, it was the most-watched episod

The most recent season of Game of Thrones represented a fulcrum in the show’s trajectory. Season six will be remembered as the transition between the beginning and the end of the overarching story that is The Song of Ice and Fire. In the traditional three-act structure, season six was the end of act two, and season seven will begin act three. The final act of any narrative work of fiction is traditionally the diciest and most difficult to pull off successfully. A satisfying c

This is a hard review to write. Up to this point in the season, I’ve enjoyed what Game of Thrones has been putting down: after Jon Snow’s inevitable resurrection, which was really just the tail end of the bad hangover that was season five, the show’s sixth season has seen a return to form, complete with political maneuvering around King’s Landing and some great character moments coming out of the Northern alliances. But beginning with Arya leading Lena Dunham on a Terminator-

One of the more surprising themes of season 7 of Game of Thrones has been its cynical take on religion. Prior to the rise of the High Sparrow, the septas and septons functioned mainly as babysitters and schoolteachers who occasionally oversaw some funeral rites. Similarly, the dogmatism of the red priests was justified because their god is demonstrably real: Melisandre may be a fanatic who broaches no disagreement, but she can command otherworldly powers by virtue of her fait

“Blood of My Blood” is probably the weakest episode of season 6 since the premier, although its existence bodes well for the rest of the season. “The Red Woman” set up the action that unfolded over the next five episodes, including Jon Snow’s resurrection, Dany’s Dothraki takeover, and the forward momentum in Bran and Arya’s journeys. “Blood of My Blood” closes out some of plots that occupied the first half of the season while (hopefully) setting the stage for those that will

In “Oathbreaker,” after the vision in which Bran calls out to Ned and the man reacts, the Three-Eyed Raven gives a short speech about the past. “Maybe he heard the wind,” the old man says of Ned’s reaction. “The past is already written. The ink is dry.” At the time, this line was innocuous, and the back-and-forth seemed to be a distraction from what was inside the tower, as the show runners had just come as close as ever before (and, it turns out, as they ever would) to confi

As season 6 of Game of Thrones nears its halfway point, the distinction between those destined to lead and those qualified to lead is becoming the central theme. “Book of the Dead” contains numerous examples of this contrast, but none is clearer than the Danaerys/Tyrion dichotomy. Danaerys is capable of seizing power over large groups of people in a short period of time by virtue of her birthright and its accompanying magic powers: she commands flying super weapons and is abl

Apart from Homeland, Game of Thrones has the wildest swings between high and low quality scenes of any television show. Over the course of a season, and frequently in the same episode, there will be scenes that have audiences cheering out loud or retreating into their sofas in horror right after ones that send us reaching for our phones to check Facebook or Instagram. This bipolarity is partly a result of having so many dang characters and plots: no matter the intention, some

If season 6 of Game of Thrones had followed the pattern set by its predecessors, “Home” would have been the premiere and “The Red Woman” would have been the season 5 finale. There are a number of reasons that the show runners decided to end season 5 with “Mother’s Mercy,” but the only one that really matters is that they wanted to leave the audience with the image of Jon Snow’s temporarily lifeless body for ten months. Thus, “The Red Woman,” which did the work that Game of Th

HBO’s Game of Thrones has been putting audiences in uncomfortable positions for five complete seasons, and the sixth is poised to continue this streak. From the execution of seeming protagonist Ned Stark to the subsequent series of deadly weddings, Game of Thrones was long fueled by its supposed willingness to buck narrative trends that haunt lesser television shows: no longer could the audience rest safe in the knowledge that a character would make it out of a deadly situati