Jon Snow was dead. Stone cold dead on a slab of wood in Castle Black, surrounded by a few loyalists and a very grumpy direwolf. When Game of Thrones series 6 episode 1 finally aired on April 24, 2016, the world wasn't just watching a show; we were participating in a global wake. People were literally mourning a fictional character. It sounds silly now, but the tension was suffocating.
"The Red Woman" had a massive job to do. It had to pick up the pieces of a fractured narrative after the Season 5 finale left everyone in a state of absolute shock. We had Sansa and Theon freezing in the northern rivers, Cersei mourning Myrcella in King's Landing, and Daenerys being marched off by a Dothraki khalasar that didn't care about her titles. But honestly? Everything felt secondary to that body in the snow.
The Body on the Table and the Ghost in the Room
The episode starts exactly where it had to. No time jumps. No "three months later" nonsense. We see Jon's body from above, looking like a discarded doll. All the fan theories about him warging into Ghost or being immediately kissed back to life by Melisandre were put on ice. Literally.
Ser Davos Seaworth, played with that weary, moral weight by Liam Cunningham, is the one who finds him. It’s a quiet moment. No screaming. Just the realization that the Watch has committed the ultimate betrayal. Alliser Thorne doesn't even hide it. He stands before the men of the Night's Watch and basically says, "Yeah, I killed him. For the Watch." It’s brutal because, in his twisted mind, he thinks he’s the hero of the story.
That’s what George R.R. Martin and the showrunners (Benioff and Weiss) always did best. They made the villains believe they were the protagonists.
What Really Happened With Melisandre
The title of the episode is "The Red Woman," and for forty minutes, you think it refers to her role in bringing Jon back. But it doesn't. Not yet. Melisandre is having a crisis of faith. Her "Prince That Was Promised" (Stannis Baratheon) is dead. Her backup plan (Jon Snow) is dead. She is staring into the flames and seeing... nothing.
The final scene of Game of Thrones series 6 episode 1 is arguably one of the most famous reveals in television history. She stands before a mirror, disrobes, and removes her ruby necklace. And then, the glamour fades. We don't see the beautiful Carice van Houten. We see a woman who is centuries old. Creaky, fragile, and utterly exhausted.
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It changed everything. It told us that Melisandre wasn't just a zealot; she was a survivor who had been playing a long game for a long, long time. If she couldn't save Jon, it wasn't because she was a fraud. It was because she was tired. The visual effects team used a body double (an elderly woman) and then digitally mapped van Houten’s face onto her to create that haunting look. It worked. It felt grounded in a way the show’s later seasons sometimes struggled with.
Brienne’s Redemption and the Sansa Escape
While everyone was obsessed with the Wall, Sansa Stark was finally getting a win. Sort of.
She and Theon (or Reek, depending on how much of his soul you think was left) are running through the woods outside Winterfell. The Bolton hounds are literally barking at their heels. It’s grim. It’s cold. You can almost feel the frostbite through the screen. Just when it looks like they’re going to be dragged back to Ramsay’s kennel, Brienne of Tarth arrives.
This was the payoff we needed. Brienne had spent years failing to protect the Stark girls. She missed Sansa at the inn. She missed the candle in the window. But here, she finally gets to draw Oathkeeper. The fight is messy. It’s not a choreographed dance. It’s heavy steel hitting leather and bone in the mud.
When Sansa accepts Brienne’s service, reciting the words Catelyn Stark once used, it’s the first bit of hope we’d had in seasons. It felt like the Starks were finally starting to claw their way back. Honestly, if you didn't get a little misty-eyed during that oath, you might be a White Walker.
The Dorne Problem: A Rough Patch in Excellence
We have to be honest here. Not everything in Game of Thrones series 6 episode 1 was gold. The Dorne storyline was... well, it was a mess.
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Fans of the books (A Song of Ice and Fire) were already annoyed at how the show handled the Sandsnakes. In this episode, they basically decided to burn the whole thing down. Ellaria Sand and her daughters murder Prince Doran and Trystane Martell in a swift coup.
It felt rushed. It felt like the writers realized the Dorne plot wasn't working and decided to kill everyone off so they could move on. It lacked the political nuance we expected from the show. Alexander Siddig is a fantastic actor, and seeing Doran Martell go out like a chump felt like a waste of potential. It’s one of those rare moments where the show chose shock value over structural integrity.
Meanwhile, Across the Narrow Sea
Daenerys Targaryen is back to square one. Or at least it feels that way. She’s a prisoner of Khal Moro.
The dialogue here is interesting because it calls back to Season 1. The Dothraki are talking about her as if she’s just another prize, oblivious to who she is. When she finally reveals her identity—that she is the widow of Khal Drogo—the tone shifts. But not in the way she wants.
She isn't set free. She’s told she has to go to Vaes Dothrak to live out her days with the Dosh Khaleen (the widows of deceased Khals). It was a reminder that even with three dragons, Dany was still subject to the brutal cultural laws of the world she lived in. It set up her entire Season 6 arc of reclaiming her power through fire.
Why This Episode Matters Now
Looking back at Game of Thrones series 6 episode 1 from a 2026 perspective, it’s clear this was the "pivot" episode. This was the moment the show moved past George R.R. Martin’s published books. The training wheels were off.
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The episode proved that the show could survive without its lead (Jon) being active, and it doubled down on the idea that magic in Westeros is a heavy, draining burden. Melisandre’s true form wasn't just a "gotcha" moment. It was a metaphor for the entire series: underneath the gold crowns and beautiful faces, everything is old, decaying, and fighting against the inevitable cold.
Practical Takeaways for a Rewatch
If you’re planning on diving back into the series or just want to appreciate the craft of this specific hour, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the lighting in the final scene. Notice how the room gets darker as Melisandre removes her jewelry. The darkness isn't just about the lack of light; it’s about her losing her "inner fire."
- Pay attention to Alliser Thorne’s speech. He doesn't frame the mutiny as a power grab. He frames it as a sacrifice. It’s a masterclass in how to write a "gray" antagonist.
- Contrast the Sansa/Brienne scene with the Dorne scene. One is a slow-burn emotional payoff; the other is a rapid-fire plot correction. It shows the two different ways the showrunners handled narrative pressure.
- Look at the dirt. This sounds weird, but Season 6 had a significantly higher budget than previous years. The texture of the costumes at Castle Black and the grime on the characters' faces look more "real" than ever before.
The episode didn't give us the big resurrection we wanted in the first ten minutes. It made us wait. It made us sit with the grief and the cold. That’s why it worked. It respected the weight of death in a world where death is the only certainty.
To truly understand the trajectory of the final seasons, you have to start here. This is where the themes of identity and faith are stripped bare. Melisandre looking into that mirror is all of us—confronting the reality that the "magic" we believe in might just be a very old, very tired illusion.
Go back and watch that final transition again. The way she crawls into bed, defeated, is some of the best non-verbal acting in the entire run of the show. It reminds us that even in a world of dragons and ice zombies, the most compelling thing is still the human heart in conflict with itself.