<em>Game of Thrones</em>: The Head That Wears the Crown

Every week for the sixth season of Game of Thrones, Christopher Orr, Spencer Kornhaber, and Lenika Cruz discussed the new episodes of the HBO drama. Because no screeners were made available to critics in advance this year, we'll be posting our thoughts in installments. (David Sims is filling in for Christopher Orr for this week’s finale.)

David Sims: For six seasons, Game of Thrones has been promising the future: Daenerys the conqueror, glorious Stark revenge, Cersei’s cup of madness running over. Well, it took its time, but the future is finally here, in all its grim glory. “How about the fact that this is actually happening?” Tyrion asked Daenerys midway through this super-long finale episode, and I, for one, appreciated the reminder. After many false starts and narrative detours, there was a tremendous sense of momentum to “The Winds of Winter,” a feeling of ends being tied up and of story threads dovetailing in satisfying fashion, with plenty of murder and darkness mixed in, of course. I loved it.

Part of the appeal of George R.R. Martin’s series has been his efficient subversion of every fantasy trope and his unwillingness to navigate toward easy, heroic conclusions for his characters. That conundrum has seemingly tripped him up as he tries to write the end of his book saga, but make no mistake: is coming to an end, with the long-awaited sight of Dany’s fleet of warriors (Dothraki, Unsullied, and Westerosi among them) serving as epic punctuation to an episode filled with closure. For all the misery of “The Winds of Winter” (and