Emily Nussbaum: “Season 6 … felt perversely relevant in this election year. It was dominated by debates about purity versus pragmatism; the struggles of female candidates in a male-run world; family dynasties with ugly histories; and assorted deals with various devils. George R. R. Martin surely didn’t intend his blockbuster series of fantasy books … to be an allegorical text for U.S. voters in 2016. But that’s what you get with modern water-cooler dramas, which so often work as an aesthetic Esperanto that lets us talk about politics without fighting about the news.”