Before Season 5 of Game of Thrones, every book reader I know was looking forward to the Dorne plotline. Sand Snakes! Areo Hotah! The intricate Dornish Master Plan! And then it was an unmitigated slog that even Bronn couldn’t save. So, in the first episode of Season 6, the writers did the right thing and mercy-killed the Dorne plotline, along with most of its central players. It hasn’t been seen since, to the show’s benefit.
Braavos is now in a similar position. It was so promising once! Not only was it the home of a mysterious group of assassins who can change their appearance at will, it was also going to be the place where Arya’s plotline finally switched from being one endless training montage into something real. She’d go to Braavos, do badass assassin stuff for a season or two, then return home with crazy powers that she would use to murder her enemies and avenge the wrongs done to her family.
Instead, Braavos, like Dorne and heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. Arya was stashed overseas like a Philadelphia 76ers second-round draft pick. Her plotline and the characters in it have seemingly no relation to the rest of the show, let alone its endgame. In Braavos, Arya spent Season 5 doing nothing, stabbing a guy in the eyes, then going blind, and has spent Season 6 being blind, learning to stick fight while blind, and getting the shit punched out of her by the Waif. Now it seems she’ll head home, having studied with a legendary group of assassins and ... learned to stick fight.