YMMV / Game of Thrones S6E2: "Home"

• Awesome Music: The tune playing over the end credits just after Jon's resurrection is Djawadi epicness at its best.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The only people surprised by Jon Snow's resurrection were those who thought it was so obvious that the showrunners were going to take it a different way to subvert expectations. Ultimately they brought him back in the most predictable way possible.
• Creepy Cute: There's something very endearing about the second and third most dangerous reptiles of the known world cuddling each other after getting unshackled.
• Memetic Mutation: Oh so many comparing Jon Snow to Jesus Christ.
• Squick: The sound design really outdid themselves here, creating particularly "squelchy" sounds for not one but two heads getting violently smashed against walls, as well as really triggering off the viewers' imagination as Walda and her baby get mauled by Ramsay's dogs.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Olly, who had become The Scrappy for much of Season 5, is among those who are sent to the cells for The Mutiny.
• Win Back the Crowd: This episode was far better received than the first one, since it stopped spinning the wheels, saw the return of Put on a Bus characters like Bran and the Greyjoys, the flashbacks to the backstory, as well as ending the year-and-a-week-wait for Jon Snow's resurrection. Where last week's purge of the Martells was poorly executed, this week's Bolton massacre felt in keeping with the characters and was more properly foreshadowed and with fewer plotholes.
  • There were two major new subplots introduced in the fourth novel that shifted focus to the fringes of Westeros: Dorne and the Iron Islands. Both were pushed back to later in the TV series and were feared to be cut entirely if the show only lasted seven TV seasons. The Dorne subplot was drastically changed, leading some to fear how they would handle the Iron Islands subplot also returning this season. As it turned out, the Iron Islands material introduced in this episode is very faithful to the novels and includes many line for line quotes from them. The only major difference is that Balon's Disney Villain Death is caused by Euron himself rather than taking place offscreen, possibly being done by a Faceless Man he hired to Make It Look Like an Accident - but this was so they could give Balon and Euron a face-to-face confrontation, compared to the novels in which Balon complains about Euron before his return, then Euron complains about Balon after his death (the lines Euron gives are from the book, though he said them to other people).
  • Some reviewers outright suspect that the showrunners dumped all of the Dorne material in the first episode, and killed off many characters in it, because they realized it wasn't working and wanted to quickly wash their hands of it - knowing that the second episode was so strong that it would stand a good chance of quickly winning back the audience after last week. The Dorne material was 1 - a controversial and drastic change, and 2 - most reviewers watching it simply didn't like it - the showrunners can't be totally oblivious, they must have known this material might not be received well... so why else would they prominently put it in the season premiere, which would be under heavy scrutiny? If anything they would have at least tried to push back Doran Martell's death to a later episode - it wasn't even directly connected to other events in the premiere. So it seems likely they were actively relying on this episode to win back the crowd.
• The Woobie: Serving under Ramsay Bolton, Maester Wolkan has to have the most soul-crushing jobs of all Citadel alumni. Even something as cheerful as a textbook birth can be turned into Nightmare Fuel in an instant. All while he's forced to endure, assist and mind his choice of words at all times or he'll be next.
  • Poor Fat Walda. Even in a dreary place like the North under the Boltons' rule, she still had Roose that protected her. Shortly after his death, Ramsay has her and her newborn baby devoured by his hounds.

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