Last season (Season 5), I was getting more and more worried about Game of Thrones. Sure I loved it kept me gripped and on the edge of my seat – wanting the next episode to come as quickly as possible.

But that in a way was my worry. Most of that tension came from the sudden twists in the plot, from the fact that no one was safe and you just could not predict what was going to happen next.

However – take that away – for example, watch it a second time when you know what is coming and what is left? A lot of sex and violence – and sexual violence.

What did that make it? Would it feel a very different and lessened show as the years passed and we got a different perspective on it?

Well, this season was the reason – this season was the payoff.

How?

Well, we recently went to see the latest Star Wars film (The Force Awakens). It was entertaining enough – did a good job of what it is expected to do – it’s Star Wars, not Shakespeare.

But you don’t feel for the characters. OK you are tense when they are in danger but when the good guys beat the bad guys – as you know they will do – it doesn’t mean anything. They win because  they are the good guys – that’s all. In some respects, in a lot of modern films, the bad guys are often cooler!

This season’s Game of Thrones showed how to do it properly and gave meaning to all that violence. We have lived and suffered with the characters we love for a long time now. We have felt them suffer, we have felt their losses, we have shed tears over the many unjust deaths.

And we have learned to hate the perpetrators of evil – and this season without giving too much away has seen a few of the best get their comeuppance.  And we felt it! It mattered! We punched the air when they bit the dust and it mattered that the good guys won – it meant something.

The plot has played the long game properly! It has made the whole – so far – much more worthy in my opinion and one of the greats of the small screen.