Fans of HBO's "Game of Thrones" have not seen Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) in two years, but this Sunday, he'll make his long-awaited return to Westeros (and beyond). What's Bran been up to all this time? He's been training under the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow) and using his new abilities to explore the past, present and future. This will lead to a special treat for viewers in the form of crucial flashbacks that may reveal potentially game-changing information.
After two years away from the limelight, Hempstead-Wright is finally back, and he believes the wait was well worth it. According to the little lord of Winterfell, fans are in for one of the best seasons of "Thrones" yet.
"Season 6 is superb," he said. "Things are really starting to tie up. Every other season has had this great kind of complex development of all these vast, sprawling storylines going all over the place. Now it feels like they've got right to the edges and are beginning to direct themselves toward a focal point, which will be an epic conclusion."
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have compared Bran's absence to that of Luke Skywalker's in between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." They wanted Bran to return to the screen with a fully developed new skill set that will have far-reaching implications for the realm.
"It started off with these disturbing dreams and finding he could control direwolves," Hempstead-Wright explained. "Then he discovered he could warg into humans. Then he started to have these weird visions. Now he's starting to make us of the visions and starting to discover he can interact with the past - he's like Doctor Who. It's Doctor Bran!"
So what can we expect from his visions this year?
"Bran is pretty damn close to being the Three-Eyed Raven now," he said. "Previously, he's seen tiny glimpses of future or past but never has he been very much in control of the situation. Now we're given looks into very important events in the past, present and future of this world and Bran is beginning to piece them together like a detective, almost as if he's watching the show. Equally, he's now discovering how crucial he could be in the Great War. It's quite Inception-y. His power is not just in telling us about the history, but also might have a serious impact on the future."
"Game of Thrones" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
Follow Brandon Katz at @Great_Katzby
