Yeah, I know this is long overdue, especially in the case of The Walking Dead, but now that both seasons are over I decided to give my thoughts on both seasons in one post. I will go over my ups in the season as well as my downs. Now, let's start with Season 6 of The Walking Dead:
"The Walking Dead" Season 6 UPS
- The Second Half of the season. Never has The Walking Dead experienced such awesome pacing. Add to that the fact that each episode brought something great to the table and you had the finest half season in the history of the show.
- The Villains. While Season 5 brought us Gareth and the Hunters, the showrunners made the mistake of killing them off way too soon and thus a lot of time was wasted on the Grady Memorial Hospital Arc. After that, the only villains that were left were Father Gabriel, Pete, and Nicholas, and while they were fine villains, their arcs could have been wrapped up rather quickly. All in all, Season 5 was rather lacking in the villain department. Season 6, however, made up for that; Enter the Wolves, who proved to be quite the menacing group of psychos despite suffering from being wiped out early on like the Hunters. However, unlike the Hunters, their leader, the Alpha Wolf (or Owen,) was kept around to serve as a major threat to the story and he delivered. Plus, even though his "redemption" felt a little hazy, he also served as a major catalyst in the arcs of both Carol and Morgan, so he did leave quite an impact. Aside from him, this season also had the mega herd that attacked Alexandria as well as Ron Anderson, who while a total pain in the ass, served as a good counterbalance to Carl. Then, in the Second Half, we were introduced to the Saviors, who had us prepared for the arrival of their leader, the man himself: NEGAN!!! Although there a few issues with his introduction (which I'll get to later,) I thought Jeffrey Dean Morgan did a wonderful job portraying him and I look forward to seeing how he does in Season 7. The villains this season certainly did not disappoint.
- The new characters introduced this season. They were all fine additions to the show, with Heath, Denise, Dwight, Jesus, and, of course, Negan being standouts. I look forward to seeing many of them again in Season 7.
- Carol and Morgan's arcs. On one hand, you have Carol learning that you don't have to kill all the time to protect the ones you love, and Morgan vice versa. It seems that one has rubbed off on the other and I look forward to see how this plays out for them in Season 7.
- "No Way Out"...just..."No Way Out." This episode was hands down the best episode of the entire series. That's right, it beat "Too Far Gone," which is quite a feat. There were just so many great moments in this episode that I can't even imagine how any episode after can top this one.
DOWNS
- The First Half. Like Season 5, it started out with a bang before it suffered from severe arc fatigue. Also, "Start to Finish" was easily the show's weakest mid-season finale, so ultimately this was one of the show's low points. Thank God for the second half, though.
- The lack of major character deaths. Seriously, aside from Deanna, Nicholas, and the Andersons, who else died? Just a bunch of red shirts that they throwed in just to kill off. Even worse, they made the decision to kill off Denise, a fairly major comic character that they just introduced into the show. All in all, the lack of major deaths kinda tainted the view that no one is safe on this show. This couldn't be more clearer than...
- The Glenn moment, or as some people call it "Dumpstergate." Oh boy, where to begin with this? Well, I'll just say that it was complete bullshit that he managed to escape unscathed because one way or another, he would have been scratched or mauled by one of the zombies. This was made worse by the fact that it took three episodes until we had proper resolution. All in all, this was a dumb move on the showrunners' part, and sadly, it wasn't their last...
- The amount of fake outs and cliffhangers. How many times were they going to mess with us? Almost every episode had something where it looked like a major character was in trouble, whether it be "Dumpstergate," Rick getting trapped in the RV, Carol and Maggie getting captured by the Saviors, or Daryl getting shot by Dwight. After a while, it became annoying. The biggest offender of this was none other than...
- "Last Day on Earth." Remember how I considered "No Way Out" the best episode of the series? Well sadly, I feel this season also produced the worst episode of the series, which is a darn shame because it had everything in the making of being a fantastic episode, possibly even better than "No Way Out." Seriously, a 90-minute season finale introducing us to Negan should NOT have been a terrible episode, but sadly it was, and much of it was because of that horrible cliffhanger ending, which is only made worse by the fact that it was used in order to boost ratings. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You literally have to ruin what could have been a horrifying and shocking hour and a half of television just to boost RATINGS! Ugh.
And Now Time For...
Game of Thrones Season 6 UPS
- The amount of triumph. This was definitely a season where the heroes of this show (or at least the characters we enjoy) would win, and during this season, many of their victories were spectacular. Such a grand shift in the tone of this series.
- The Karmic Justice all the villains this season received. Roose being killed by his son in a manner similar to how he killed Robb, Walder Frey being killed by Arya in a manner similar to how he had her mother killed, Ramsay being killed by his hounds in a manner similar to how he had so many people killed, all these deaths and more made the catharsis factor go off the charts.
- The grand return of many characters. Bran came back and learned what his true destiny was. Yara Greyjoy came back and is beginning to become a major player in the game. Hodor came back and showed just how much of a hero he was (at the cost of his own life, sadly.) The Brotherhood Without Banners came back and are apparently going to wage war against the White Walkers. Even Benjen Stark came back after being gone for four whole seasons. The biggest one is definitely the return of Sandor Clegane, and although him joining the Brotherhood in their crusade means that a popular theory may have been put to rest (two if you think about it,) I don't think they would bring back the two Clegane brothers for no reason other than to be lackeys to others, so fingers crossed.
- The amount of progression that is going on as well as the amount of reveals. In terms of reveals, we have the origin of the White Walkers, how Hodor became Hodor, and, most importantly, that R+L=J. In terms of plot progression, well, let's see: Cersei is now the Queen of Westeros, Jon is the King in the North, Arya is heading back to Winterfell, and Dany is finally sailing for Westeros. Basically, the stage is set for the final chapter, and by the looks of it, it's going to be grand.
- The last two episodes. These two were definitely among the best in the series, with "The Winds of Winter" possibly being the best episode ever. From the death of Ramsay Bolton to the confirmation of R+L=J, there were so many great moments in these two episodes so expect them to be very high on the list of best episodes.
- Some pacing problems. The season started great despite a lackluster premiere and kept getting better, then by the sixth episode things started to slow down a bit until it got back up towards the end. All in all, it just felt a bit awkward.
- Some rather pointless character deaths. There have been several characters this season who were brought for a single scene or episode only to be killed off immediately after (and in the case of the Blackfish killed offscreen.) It just showed that they simply wanted to tie up loose ends and/or just didn't know what to do with the characters, which is a shame because I would've like to see some of them stick around for at least a little longer than they did.
- Some weak storylines, in particular Arya's, Sam's, Tyrion's, and the one in the Riverlands (I'm not going to acknowledge Dorne since we barely saw it this season.) There were some truly great storylines this season, but these ones were definitely the weak links. If they were cut a little short (or in the case of Sam and the Riverlands made longer or not shown at all,) they probably could have been better.
The Verdict: Game of Thrones Season 6, like The Walking Dead Season 6, was an improvement over Season 5, though it still had some problems. However, unlike The Walking Dead, those problems were not enough to detract from what it accomplished.
Well, that's it for this blog guys. Tune in for more on the way :)
