season 6 premiere sets things up nicely and packs in a BIG twist: Here's what the critics sagte 

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​After that long wait - mainly over finding out whether Jon Snow is in fact dead or not - 

Going by critics\' opinions, \'The Red Woman\' was a solid and confident opener for season six - with that one big twist - that sets up the chess pieces nicely for what\'s to come. Check out the spoiler-free reviews below:

have, traditionally, been more engaged in table-setting for the next nine episodes than in plot twists; those have, throughout the show\'s history, come once we\'re fully immersed in Westerosi politics.

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"This is not to say that there was nothing of interest in the 

premiere, but the long-awaited episode did more work tying up loose narrative threads than it did giving us new provocations.

, a show with little interest in or aptitude for self-editing. The aspects that worked were no better-written or more artfully shot than those that fell slightly flat; they simply had a sense of urgency that was, even by the standards of a show whose premieres are slow going, absent elsewhere."

[...] it could still make for good television down the road. We book readers must simply resign ourselves to the vast differences between TV show and book at this point. The gap will only widen.

season premieres, \'The Red Woman\' largely set the stage for what\'s to come. I can\'t wait to see what happens next week!"

"It\'s off to a typically solid start. As book readers, this season is obviously something of a test, but the show\'s approach to moving forward - at least for now - focuses on simplifying characters\' stories and returning to their basic character traits and motivations.

"At least for this collection of characters - many, including a returning Bran, a new crop of Greyjoys, and others scattered about Westeros, are unrepresented - the show has done the work necessary to develop meaningful character arcs, and here mostly asserts that those arcs are getting set to evolve in the seasons to come.

"We are now well past the halfway point of this story, and \'The Red Woman\' is one of the first times that it\'s 

like it. Even without a major battle, and without what one would consider significant forward momentum, the show presents an answer to "Now What" that feels climactic: the end is nigh."

"One of the most striking aspects of \'The Red Woman\', the premiere episode of

eason 6, is that it\'s funny. That levity is welcome, in an episode that\'s not immune to the show\'s legendary darkness, but does feel somehow lighter than where we left off in season 5.

"The bodies still pile up in a sprawling episode full of ongoing storylines, but there\'s a definite sense that there\'s hope for some of these hopeless sorts. In sharp contrast to the first season, the world of Westeros and beyond is now one where the supernatural feels like a natural extension of the universe.

"Fifteen years ago, the most wondrous thing that would happen on an HBO series would be a Tony Soprano dream sequence. Now, a prestige drama audience is showing up every week for a TV show about dragons. There\'s real magic in that."

"For a show that\'s always been about the balance of power, and the means people will go to in order to mass more power for themselves, we\'re at a very interesting moment, where no one\'s control is anywhere close to absolute.

"We\'ve been heading this way for a while, though. Most of the traditional heroes are long dead, while the villains have suffered in so many ways that none seems capable of wiping out their opposition. Everyone is so off balance individually that the world as a whole is oddly in balance - at least until the next big move. 

"We\'ll get to the big moves soon, since that\'s the way 

seasons tend to play out once the initial exposition\'s taken care of. \'The Red Woman\' suggested a bunch of players who could upend the board very soon."

this year with \'The Red Woman\'. Not a high watermark for the show, but a solid opener that managed to touch upon just about every character in the ensemble (a markedly easier task these days now that the herd is so thin) and establish their starting points on this year\'s chess board.

"Dornish happenings aside (though some of the Dorne stuff here felt like a fast course-correction of sorts), \'The Red Woman\' proved that

can easily stand on its own two bloody, mangled feet - apart from the source code."

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