The internet loves ranking things. And the internet loves “Game
of Thrones” almost as much as it loves ranking things. You can find lists about
almost anything regarding the show, from favorite characters, to funniest
quotes, to bloodiest deaths. There are plenty of all three to go around. But
when you look at one’s list of best episodes, what can that tell you about
them? If their top ten is heavy on seasons one and five, you might infer that
they enjoy the political maneuvering and “gathering storm” of intrigue. If
Daenerys-heavy installments cluster at the bottom, maybe they’re not a fan of
our dear Khaleesi. If their top three are “Baelor”, “The Rains of Castamere”, and
“The Mountain and the Viper” then perhaps they just love to see unsuspecting
family members cry uncontrollably on the couch. No matter the takeaway, we love
to play the ranking game because it gives order and structure to things that
are mostly subjective. With that said, I am here today to rank every episodes
of “Game of Thrones”.
(Spoilers for EVERY EPISODE after the jump...)
It should go without saying that this contains spoilers from
all eight seasons. I have read the books and I will refrain from bringing up
any major plot points not used in the show, although I will make some smaller
references for comparison’s sake. I am also not a book purist, and welcome many
changes the show has made along the way. I will borrow Rob Cesternino’s line
about “Survivor” and say: “Game of Thrones” is like pizza, even when it’s bad
it’s still pretty good. Further, these opinions are my own and are not meant as
a definitive fact. It’s merely a way of strolling down memory lane, having a
few chuckles, and sparking conversation.
Littlefinger might disagree with me about structure,
preferring the ladder of chaos instead. But even ladders have a hierarchy of
rungs. So we’d best start from the bottom…
#73- A Man Without Honor (Episode 2x07)- As I just said,
this is not a bad episode by any means. It just doesn’t really have any highs
that can compete with everything else. The best part here is the continued
banter between Tywin and Arya and it shades Tywin with some deeper colors than
just “power-hungry rich guy”. But beyond that, everything else is just kind of
vanilla. Jon and Ygritte chase each other through the north (Jon’s season two
arc is one of my least favorite parts of the saga so I won’t have much good to
say about it), Pyat Pree and Xaro murder the other Qartheen leaders whose names
we don’t know, and Sansa learns she is starting to have her period. Alright.
The episode draws its title from
Jaime Lannister, who until now had only one scene in the first six episodes of
season two. He has a long chat with his cousin Alton, which is kind of nice but
goes on a tad too long and is promptly forgotten because he proceeds to bash
Alton’s head to a pulp. However, it does serve to set up two critical mistakes
for Team Stark: Catelyn freeing their most valuable hostage, and Robb’s
banner-men losing faith in him. The episode ends with Theon stringing up two
charred bodies that are supposed to be Bran and Rickon. But even if you don’t
know they’re fake, it sure FEELS fake, because if he’d really killed them they
would have had to show Theon at least finding the boys first.
#72- Winter is Coming (1x01)- The very first episode of the
show had the dubious task of not only explaining this world and its history to
new viewers but it also had to introduce a good chunk of its cast. As such,
it’s mostly just setup, which is fine, but setup episodes are not going to make
it very high on the list. There’s a lot of clunky exposition like Tyrion
explaining what a bastard is, and who is related to whom. By the end of the
hour, with the possible exception of Robb, we have a pretty fair idea of who
each of the Starks are, which is more difficult than you might think for a
pilot episode. The scenes in Pentos really pop off the screen, because the
tropical climate and nomadic Dothraki culture stand out against the dreary
backdrop of Winterfell. And it has one of the most memorable final scenes of
the series. All well and good, but the real story hasn’t even started yet.
#71- The Wolf and the Lion (1x05)- This is the first episode
of the show to hit the pause button on an ongoing storyline; in this case, Jon
and Daenerys. While that can be an asset in future seasons, it sort of hurt “The
Wolf and the Lion” in my mind, because that means we get a whole lot of Eddard
investigating around King’s Landing, and I found Eddard to be a likable but slightly
bland character. We are sprinkled with Tyrion and Catelyn fighting the hill
tribes of the Vale and meeting Lysa at the Eyrie, but season one does not have
the strongest material for King’s Landing and I sorely missed Jon and Daenerys
right as their storylines were taking off. We do get a pretty good climax with
Ned fighting Jaime and the first notable death: poor Jory Cassel.
#70- Fire and Blood (1x10)- Most of this finale is various
characters’ reactions to Ned’s execution. While it doesn’t really lead to
anything momentous, it does give each of the Starks a moment to rage before
cooler heads bring them back to reality. Jon is about to race off to join
Robb’s war before his sworn brothers – who, only a few episodes ago were beating
up on him like 1980s teen-movie bullies – prevent him from being labeled a
deserter. Sansa is about to shove Joffrey off a bridge before the Hound pulls
her back from something that would get her executed. Robb (in a wonderfully
acted and directed scene) vows to obliterate the Lannisters before his mother
talks him out of it for the sake of the girls. But beyond the “King in the
North!” chant, not a whole lot happens in Westeros. “Fire and Blood” will
mainly be remembered for the death of Khal Drogo and the birth of the dragons.
It’s just a solid sequence of events that takes out one piece on the chessboard
(or two, if you count the witch) and replaces it with three more.
#69- Valar
Morghulis (2x10)- Again, finales tend to not have the punch that others
do, though there are a few bright spots in Arya’s farewell to Jaqen, Luwin’s
dying words to Bran’s group, and Brienne totally destroying some Stark thugs to
the surprise of Jaime. Where this finale loses its footing is with some
anti-climactic endings to season-longs plots. First we have the end of the
Greyjoy occupation of Winterfell. Theon gives a rousing speech to his men,
which suggests they will fight the soldiers waiting outside, but Dagmer knocks
him in the head, “Looney Tunes”-style, and they just casually walk out of
Winterfell like office workers at five o’clock. Then we have Daenerys who
traipses through the House of the Undying (absurdly different from the book but
I understand that the budget can’t accommodate) to find Pyat Pree and her
dragons. The warlock appears to have Dany checkmated but then she says
“Dracarys” and the dragons breathe fire on him and he just sorta collapses. There’s
not much of a fight and you wonder why the dragons didn’t just burn him without
her prompting.
Finally we have the events up north. Qhorin Halfhand wants
Jon to infiltrate the wildlings and stages a fight with him to keep up the
ruse, which ends in Jon killing him. But they did a somewhat poor job getting
that across on screen so it looks like Halfhand attacks Jon for no reason. And
the final scene with the invading dead army looked stunning and was a great way
to end the season, but that’s almost negated because it’s dealt with off-screen
in the prologue to “Valar Dohaeris”. So while the finale does tie off the
stories before hiatus, the climaxes that seemed so promising ended up being
somewhat empty. Hey, kinda like Xaro’s vault! Maybe it was a metaphor all
along!
#68- Valar Dohaeris (3x01)- The first episode
of each season tends to be one of my least favorites as it’s usually focused on
recapping and setting up the plot instead of forward momentum, and this is no
different. After such a big cliffhanger the previous year with the advancing zombies,
an off-screen battle deflated much of the hype. As did the absence of such
characters like Arya, Bran, Theon, Jaime, and Brienne, though the episode would
have understandably felt too bloated if it accommodated every subplot. The
highlights came in the form of Davos and Daenerys. It finally felt like Davos
was taking some agency when he made his way back to Dragonstone to warn Stannis
of Melisandre and attempt to kill her, which doesn’t go as planned. And I
always welcome an appearance by our favorite pirate Salladhor Saan, who steals
every scene he’s in (which, sadly, has only been three). Over at
Slaver’s Bay, Dany treats with Kraznys to bargain for Unsullied, and her new
role as Queen Badass is a welcome return to form after the slow burn of Qarth. We
also get the triumphant return of Barristan Selmy, even if it’s treated with smaller
fanfare than it should.
The rest of the episode is underwhelming after a
long ten-month hiatus. The King’s Landing scenes move at a slow pace, although
it shows Margaery’s ability to win over the general populace, something that
was sorely lacking in the Joffrey Administration. And we have the introduction
of Mance Rayder, played by veteran actor Ciaran Hinds. Many people cite Hinds
as an odd choice for Mance, despite being a great actor in his own right. The
Mance in the book is a little bit younger and sings songs while playing a lute,
and Hinds doesn’t make much of an impression in the early going. He does get
better in “The Children” though. But that’s 19 episodes off.
#67- Dragonstone
(7x01)- This one’s a little talky as well, although there’s good talk
and bad talk. Littlefinger trying to rope in Sansa, or Cersei venting her
paranoia at Jaime are talks that I’ve grown tired of. On the other hand,
Clegane coming clean to the Brotherhood and finding new meaning to life was the
best part of this premiere, perhaps even more so than Arya’s surprisingly-easy
genocide. The Archmaester’s optimism in the face of an oncoming darkness also
gives perspective. Team Dany’s wordless entrance to the titular castle is given
the time and solemnity that comes with sixty episodes of buildup. I think we
can all agree that we could have shaved at least five seconds off of Sam’s
shit-bucket routine, and that it’s kind of weird that the Lannister soldiers
suddenly became woke after they’ve always been portrayed as d-bags.
#66- The Wars to
Come (5x01)- I’ll say it here: I’m clumping all these premieres
together. It’s fun to catch up with old friends but we’re really just pulling
out of the driveway. There’s usually a minor action scene to keep things
interesting while the power players set the agenda for the season. This time
around, that scene is the burning of Mance, which plays out about as well it
could have, given the major alteration they made. Oh, and this is Stannis’ best
season by far. He seems to excel when he’s actually lording over people besides
the poor schmucks stuck in Dragonstone. We get in yet another jab at poor,
pathetic Robin Arryn; and Tyrion and Varys provide some always-appreciated poop
humor, although we miss out on a return from Magister Illyrio. As a trade-off,
we get Lancel and Kevan back into the fold. You lose some, you win some.
#65- Two Swords
(4x01)- Our first season four episode on the list (and for you season
four fans, rest easy – you won’t see another one for a while) has three great
tent poles to lift it up: Tywin melting Ice into Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail, the
introduction of Prince Oberyn, and Arya and the Hound wrecking Polliver’s crew.
The swords are the focal point of the premiere, including the two that Grey
Worm and Daario balance on their hands, in a light-hearted scene that I also
enjoyed; and the loss of one Stark sword is bookended by the return of another
as Arya embraces her dark side in a brutal bar clash. Oberyn, meanwhile,
doesn’t quite have a sword but his dagger gets some action with a Lannister
goon. It’s one of the more memorable character introductions we get, for sure.
#64- The North
Remembers (2x01)- We check in with all of our existing
sub-plots but they tie many of them together with the red comet, a space rock
with a long red tail visible to the naked eye everywhere from Craster’s Keep to
Dragonstone to the Red Waste across the sea. It’s a brilliant way to connect
all of these threads together and each group has a different interpretation for
what the event means. Tyrion also arrives in King’s Landing and immediately
fits in with the crowd that runs there. You almost forget that he spent the
entire first season anywhere else. The City Watch finding all of the bastards
and killing them is a chilling end that sets the tone for season two.
A more difficult task is the introduction of Stannis and
Team Dragonstone. Unlike just about every other character we’ve met in the show
so far, these guys are not introduced to us through the eyes of an already
existing character. They’re just thrust into the story as a detached entity
that we are supposed to calibrate on our own. They run into Catelyn and Team
Renly soon enough but I think this does the job for the time being.
#63- The Kingsroad
(1x02)- Remember the good old days when Joffrey was that well-behaved
prince that won Sansa’s heart? Well that comes to a crashing end when he taunts
Arya and her friend, and gets one of our direwolves killed. The infamous
“butcher’s boy” incident was still sending shockwaves through “Game of Thrones”
as recently as the season four finale when it was cited by the Hound as a
reason he should be put out of his misery. It’s a good wrinkle for the story
before our caravan even arrives in King’s Landing.
The assassin in Bran’s bedroom adds intrigue and Catelyn
decides to head for KL to warn Ned of Lannister treachery. Catelyn is a
polarizing figure among GoT fandom and after she flees Renly’s camp they never
really did a lot with her, but her decision to personally deliver the news to
Ned is partly why she is one of my favorite characters in book/season one. She
took action and got dirty, and she never has another scene in Winterfell
because she’s always in the midst of Robb’s war campaign or delivering Tyrion
to the Eyrie. Tyrion and Jon have a classic conversation about why Tyrion reads
so much (“My brother has a sword, and I have my mind. And a mind needs books
like a sword needs a whetstone.”), but the Daenerys bits are mostly
forgettable.
#62- The Red Woman
(6x01)- Book-ended by two very creepy scenes (for two different
reasons), “The Red Woman” spends a lot of time dealing with loss. Davos and the
non-traitorous Night’s Watchmen have no time to mourn, as they barricade
themselves with Jon’s body and wait out a long game of chicken with Thorne.
Cersei mourns Myrcella by thinking about what will happen to her decaying body.
Ramsay thinks about Myranda’s body too: by offering it to the hounds. The
slaughter of Doran/Trystane/Hotah is a lame afterthought. But when I think
of this episode, I will think of the long pan in towards Jon’s lonesome corpse
as Ghost howls piercingly nearby, and of Melisandre’s absolutely wrenching
shuffle into bed as an old, depressed, exhausted witch whom people only
tolerate because of an illusion.
#61- The Prince of
Winterfell (2x08)- On the eve of battle, the two sides make last-minute
preparations. Tyrion tries to find the best way to defend the city, and, in the
middle of planning, gets a bomb dropped on him when Cersei claims to have found
his secret whore. But there’s a twist! She made a mistake and found Ros, not
Shae, and Tyrion doesn’t miss a beat and pretends that his world has crumbled.
It’s so satisfying to see Cersei so smug about this alleged victory even though
we know she was shooting blanks. Stannis doesn’t get as much screen-time but we
get some of his backstory and he gets to play Grammar Nazi with the illiterate
Davos. What’s the Westeros equivalent of Grammar Nazi? Is it Grammar Lannister?
Grammar Frey?
Elsewhere, Arya manipulates Jaqen into helping her escape (I
always like it when unflappable characters suddenly get flapped, and Jaqen
looked very flapped when she names him), and the Jaime/Brienne buddy comedy
begins much to the ire of Robb. The episode ends with the revelation that the
young Stark boys are still alive. I already mentioned how unlikely it was that
they’d be killed that way to begin with, but I guess if you were going to go
that route then it makes the most sense to reveal it at the end of the episode
instead of the beginning.
#60- Winterfell (8x01)- So. Many. Reunions. As one of six final episodes, it was light on action,
but we got most of the setup out of the way. Arya’s reunions were a joy and the
Sam scenes worked wonders. The Last Hearth provided a rare GOT jump-scare and
Cersei’s elephant obsession was a meme just waiting to happen. That said, the
dragon ride (and subsequent makeup session) was a little hokey for my tastes
and Yara’s rescue happened in the blink of an eye. I know that we kind of have
other things to worry about (why the hell did no one freak out when Bran
mentioned the undead Viserion!?) but that rescue mission could have had a
couple more obstacles – or at least a Theon/Euron confrontation.
#59- Lord Snow
(1x03)- Except for one quick scene in “Winter is Coming”, this is our
first taste of King’s Landing, but it’s less of a taste and more of a
Thanksgiving dinner. This marks the debut of Littlefinger, Varys, Renly,
Pycelle, Barristan, Lancel, Syrio Forel, plus Night’s Watch characters Mormont,
Aemon, Yoren, Thorne, Pyp, and Grenn. That’s a LOT to take in but it still
opens up the world to a host of new possibilities. The two that make the
biggest immediate impact are Littlefinger and Syrio, and Viserys gets the first
of several come-uppances with a well-positioned whip snap from Rakharo. Perhaps
the best segment comes in the form of Jon proving himself as a Night’s Watch
recruit and befriending Tyrion.
Oh, and one notable drawback? It has maybe the weakest
ending of all 73 episodes. Ned watches Arya practice with Syrio and…….hears the
sound of swords clanging from his war days. Okay.
#58- Dark Wings, Dark Words (3x02)- After
being the most interesting locations in the season premiere, Dragonstone and
Slaver’s Bay are dropped in favor of Arya, Bran, Theon, and Jaime/Brienne. This
episode is notable for introducing a ton of new characters: Lady Olenna, Orell,
the Reeds, the Brotherhood, Locke, and the man we will come to know as Ramsay. Bran’s
story this season is admittedly playing with scarce book material but it makes
the most out of the introduction of the Reeds. Arya’s scenes are fun, and Jaime
and Brienne continue to have good chemistry but the standout is the
introduction of The Queen of Thorns, and Diana Rigg sizzles as the scheming
grandmother who speaks her mind. Ultimately this is kind of on a similar level
as “Valar Dohaeris” but because it’s juggling more storylines it doesn’t drag
as much.
#57- The Climb (3x06)- “The Climb” is really
kind of average, on the whole. Melisandre arriving to take Gendry away is a
book departure but it does give her a chance to interact with Arya as well as
fellow Lord of Light worshipper Thoros. Her dismay at seeing Dondarrion revived
so many times helps give a new dimension to a character that up until now had
seemed so confident and assured, to the point of being a parody. The episode
highlight, though, is the titular climb to the top of the wall, which is
visually effective. By the time Jon and Ygritte reach the top, I finally felt
that their relationship had peaked (pun absolutely intended), and the overlay
of Littlefinger’s speech was a nice way to unite some of the sub-plots together.
Lord Baelish has a pretty quiet season three but he proved he is a force to be
reckoned with in this game, as he bests Varys by having his informant, Ros,
killed by Joffrey.
The rest of the episode is pretty standard fare. Scenes with
Bolton and with the Freys help plant more seeds for the Red Wedding. There is
some marriage drama in King’s Landing and a finger-flaying at the Dreadfort,
but at least we get a fun interaction between Tywin and Olenna – in which
Olenna seems to win. Not a bad episode by any means, but one that doesn’t have
enough highs to compete with the others.
#56- Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things (1x04)- It was
around this time, and these events, in the book that made me officially give
the story my seal of approval. The episode title ties some of the various plots
around the theme of outcasts – the cripples (Bran), bastards (Jon, Gendry), and
broken things (Tyrion, Sam, the Hound, and Viserys, all to some extent) are the
showcase here. Jon is able to rally the other Night’s Watch recruits around
Sam, and Tyrion shows his humanity, much to the skepticism of Robb, by giving
Bran the blueprints to a new horse saddle. Unfortunately, he’s captured by
Catelyn at the Inn, in what could be considered the overt sparking event in the
War of the Five Kings and perhaps the moment where the story truly begins. It’s
here that we also receive two wholly original scenes that attempt to make
Viserys and Alliser Thorne more three-dimensional, which is one thing that the
series can really do better than anyone else.
If you’re afraid of the rate at
which I’m going through season one, don’t worry. Three of them are in the top twenty.
#55- Mhysa (3x10)- Finales generally suffer
the same fate as premieres: hitting the final notes for all our characters
before the long break, and setting up next year’s stories. And surprisingly, a
lot of the best stuff from “Mhysa” comes from the supporting players: the
conversation between Bolton and Frey in the aftermath of the massacre is part
chilling, part humorous, and part intriguing because we pretty much haven’t seen
either of them in any scene of substance without one of the main characters present.
It comes after Bran tells a fun little ghost story about those who break the
sacred “Guest Rites” rule. We return to Pyke and check in with Balon and Yara
as they get Theon’s dick in a box. Patrick Malahide doesn’t get much to do as
Balon but his performance feels so strong. Oh, and who can’t love Ramsay Snow taunting Theon with a
sausage?
The Red Wedding aftermath is handled perfectly. Opening with
Arya seeing Robb’s body being desecrated by the direwolf head instantly returns
us to the pain of the previous week, and Tyrion’s dismay at the dirty scheme at
least reassures us that there is SOMEONE in King’s Landing whom we can still
count on. Did you see how well he and Sansa were getting along? Unfortunately
it lasted exactly as long as it takes a raven fly from The Twins to the capitol. Sadly, we end on a misstep. I don’t mind Dany’s scene with
the freed slaves as her entourage looks on, but the shot of her staring into
the sky as we pan upward above the bad CGI-created crowd was so ridiculously
cheesy for a show that only one week earlier had brutally killed a chunk of its
cast. Not a way to get people excited for season four but the episode still
seemed to do its job of putting everyone at ease after the Red Wedding, and
showing that the good guys can fight back.
#54- The Gift
(5x07)- Although there are some pretty critical moments in “The Gift”,
I still can only sum it up as: just fine. Tyrion and Daenerys finally meet, and
Cersei is blind-sided by Lancel and the High Sparrow and thrown into a jail
cell. Both major moments, and yet I didn’t really think much of them. I think
both came an episode too early, which doesn’t seem that significant but there
was certainly a little bit more in the Cersei/Sparrow cold war that they could have
played with.
The Bronn/Tyene interaction was just downright pointless,
and took away from another sub-plot that could have used more airtime. Undoubtedly
the highlight belongs to Sam and Maester Aemon. In a show where just about
everyone is killed in a brutal and tragic fashion, Aemon slipped quietly at a
ripe old age, comforted by people who cared for him. It was good of them to
include references to “Egg”, considering it’s probably unlikely they will adapt
“Dunk and Egg” on screen, and to give Aemon a little more character before he
dies. I’m not sure that Gilly needed saving from two douchebags in order for
her to finally make a move on Sam. But still…oh my.
#53- Unbowed,
Unbent, Unbroken (5x06)- This episode will be remembered for the Sansa
rape controversy. Ramsay did some pretty nasty things to his bride in the book,
and I have generally approved of Sansa’s merged storyline with the Boltons this
season, but it still felt like a step too far. It’s meant to get us to hate
Ramsay and sympathize with Sansa but we’ve already hitched onto both of those
trains. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to see her maneuver herself out of that
situation? It’s a shame this is all that most people will talk about because
there is some genuinely good material here. Tyrion and Jorah continue being an
awesome duo as they manipulate Mr. Eko. And Arya’s trip into the hall of faces
is one of the most beautifully creepy scenes the show has ever done. The
soundtrack there is gorgeous, as is the fairy tale atmosphere of the godswood
wedding.
Beyond the ending, the main problem is the structure. The
hall of faces is a great crescendo but comes too early in the episode, and Theon
finally speaking his name again should have been saved for later when he
finally rebels, and Ramsay gives no discernable reaction to his “pet” regaining
his autonomy. The Dornish scenes were weak and rushed. And I don’t know
how to feel about Margaery’s arrest coming from simply being aware of Loras’
homosexuality. Without getting into book spoilers, the original version is
slightly more interesting. It’s a delight to see Olenna back though.
#52- The Ghost of
Harrenhal (2x05)- They somehow turned Tyrion and Lancel into one of the
most rewarding pairs to put on screen. It’s almost guaranteed comedy when that
happens. We get our first look at Arya as Tywin’s cupbearer and the chemistry
between them, and between Arya and Jaqen, is instantly crackling. The one main
problem this episode has is the opening. Renly is killed by Melisandre’s
monster in the first few minutes. It’s something that feels like it should be
at the end, not the beginning. They give the episode-four-ender to Mel birthing
the shadow demon which is understandably a good knockout punch but I’d be in
favor of shifting the order so episode four ends with Renly dying, and
Brienne’s and Catelyn’s escape.
#51- Blood of My
Blood (6x06)- Other than the long-awaited return of Benjen, “Blood of
My Blood” is full of scenes where I end up saying, “Eh…I guess?” We were all
set up for an interesting confrontation at the sept (gods bless Mace Tyrell),
until the High Sparrow brought out Tommen, claiming a union between the crown
and the faith, which I guess is kinda different from what it was before? Dany
retrieves Drogon and gives a fiery speech to win the Dothraki to her cause,
even though they were already rallied to her cause as evidenced by the fact
that they were, you know, following her across the desert. Sam and Gilly’s
interlude at Horn Hill is a decent little distraction and James Faulkner is
immediately menacing as Randyll, yet it all just leads to Sam stealing the sword.
It’s not bad, per se, but it would have been more appreciated if it had better
material to surround itself with. Bran’s lack of interest in Hodor and Summer
is a little worrisome. Benjen’s twirly-whirly fire ball thing is pretty cool.
#50- The Last of the Starks (8x04)- This one is very much like “Eastwatch” in that it covers so
much ground and feels like it should have been split in two. After two episodes
spent preparing, reuniting, and trying to enjoy the finer things in life, the
long post-battle celebration feels like wheel-spinning again. They do an okay,
but not amazing, job of showing Dany’s growing worries about Jon’s potential to
rally the kingdom to his side. Promoting Gendry was a good move and I would
have liked to see more maneuvers like that. The party is mostly filled with
good moments but falls on its ass when Jaime and Brienne finally board the
U.S.S. Fan Service. They absolutely did not need to go to bed together,
especially in light of the fact that Jaime’s ultimate destiny involves
sacrificing himself to be with Cersei one last time. This story should have
concluded when he knighted Brienne. As a counter-balance, the Bronn scene was
surprisingly tense and Jerome Flynn did a great job of making us believe that
he really could have bolted them right then and there. But it merely resolves
itself quietly by the finale, so it ends up just being reason to get Bronn in on the final season
(which, hey, no complaints here).
The Missandei execution, setting
aside any weird logistics of the characters getting too close to those
scorpions, was well-done and looked great (though anything compared to “The
Long Night” was going to look great). Her final word of “Dracarys” was the thing
that set the Unsullied free all the way back in Astapor, which not only makes
it a command to her queen but also a final pronouncement of her own freedom
even as she is a captive about to be executed. But there was another death in
this episode, one not as dramatic as Missandei’s: Rhaegal. I don’t mind that
Dragon #2 was killed off, I just hate that it was sudden, quick, and without
much of a fight. The shock factor lasts for several seconds, but the feeling of
being cheated lasts the rest of your life. Had we known Euron was going to
stalk out Dragonstone, and had there been at least some semblance of a fight,
it would go down easier. The dragons are the centerpiece of the show, and we
have been following them from episode 1 – and one of them does not deserve to
be sniped like that.
#49- The Old Gods
and the New (2x06)- Hey, remember when Joffrey had feces thrown at him?
I do too. Good times. It also has the high septon being literally ripped apart
by a vengeful mob, and the equally graphic Ser Rodrik execution. I am a sucker
for when minor characters like that are given a time to shine amongst the
numerous talented main players (see also: Yoren’s final stand). Arya has her 2nd Harrenhal kill in
Amory Lorch who gets a dart to the neck right as he knocks on Tywin’s door to
rat her out. Lord Baelish makes a pilgrimage to Harrenhal to chat with
Tywin and it’s a very tense scene as Arya is trying to hide her face from the
man who could identify her. The cool thing is we never really get a definitive
answer if he recognizes her or not. That’s one of the great things about
Littlefinger; he could have pegged her as Arya the moment he walked in the room
but he never lets on. His love of Catelyn and his protectiveness of her
daughters give him incentive for keeping the secret.
#48- Sons of the
Harpy (5x04)- If the future of the Meereen storyline already rests on
the shoulders of Tyrion and Varys, then I can see why Barristan was chosen for
an early death. I wish we got more time with Barry the Bold, but there are
worse ways he could have been taken out. The Faith Militant, meanwhile, was
rushed into the Gestapo role a bit too quickly for my liking but I chalk that
up to a long and complicated storyline that was squeezed into a compressed
season. Their tactics lack the subtlety that you usually see in “Game of
Thrones”. As does Melisandre’s very HBO-ish seduction of Jon. She doesn’t need
to bare her breasts to be seductive. Sometimes keeping things hidden is more
effective. “Sons of the Harpy” ranks this high because of Jaime and Bronn’s
Dornish adventure and the Stannis/Shireen moment. It’s a wobbly installment but
mostly wobbles on the good side.
#47- The Night
Lands (2x02)- This episode gives us our first, and best, appearance of
Salladhor Saan! Lucian Msamati just kills it every time and he rivals Bronn for
some of the best lines. Another great addition here is Balon and Yara Greyjoy.
I never much cared for these characters when I read “A Clash of Kings” but the
sets for Pyke look terrific and Patrick Malahide stole my attention whenever he
spoke. I wish we could have spent more time there. The rest of the episode is
pretty standard. Tyrion exiles Janos Slynt to the wall for the bastard
massacre, and Jon discovers Craster is sacrificing his babies to the White Walkers.
This one is neck-and-neck with “What is Dead May Never Die” but I may have to
give the edge to 2x03 because of stronger King’s Landing material.
#46- What is Dead
May Never Die (2x03)- I really like the pit-stop at Camp Renly because
the mentality of the characters in his corner of the kingdom, for as brief as
it lasts, is so much different than any of the others. Renly - who has one of
the best costumes by the way - is portrayed as the cool young king that the cool
young hipsters like. They’re referred to as the Knights of Summer because they
are young and itching to fight, having never experienced true winter. So
there’s this carefree atmosphere to it all, even as we know dark things are on
the horizon. Margaery wastes no time telling us that she is more complex
and interesting than her book counterpart when she tells Renly she’s cool with
him banging Loras so long as she can be the queen.
Tyrion plays a game with fellow Small Council members by
telling each of them a different story about who he wants to marry Myrcella off
to. When Cersei angrily comes to him with one particular version, he knows
Pycelle is the spy he needs to take care of. The three stories are spliced
together to look like one continuous scene and it’s practically seamless. Great
direction. Finally, Arya’s group is attacked by the Mountain’s men, which
results in their capture and the heroic death of Yoren. It comes just moments
after Yoren tells Arya how he was sent to the Wall and how he has learned to
sleep at night despite the horrible things he’s seen. I mentioned how I love
when these C-level characters get their one moment to steal the show, and Yoren
is no exception.
#45- You Win or
You Die (1x07)- The bells chime for Robert Baratheon as our king is
killed not by a sword, not by molten gold, not even by a vagina monster, but by
a feral boar in the woods. From the moment he signs his last decree it’s a
tense road to the final minute as the state of the kingdom and our favorite characters
are in doubt. Ned’s public stance against Joffrey lulls us into a false state
of hope because in one swift motion the City Watch turns on his men, and
Littlefinger holds a knife to his throat, which was one of the big “Oh
shiiiiiiit” moments I distinctly remember from the book.
Then there’s the introduction of Tywin as he skins a dead
stag while talking war games. Charles Dance is one of the best castings the
show has ever done, so kudos to that. Daenerys and Jorah thwart an
assassination plot from a wine-seller and Drogo gives a fiery speech to his
fellow Dothraki about crossing the sea and killing those who want to harm his
khaleesi. But let’s not bury the lead: “You Win or You Die” has the notorious
sexposition scene with Littlefinger and his whores. There’s going to be sex on
HBO. Okay, fine. But do we need to have two girls pleasuring each other and
moaning while Baelish narrates his most important character backstory just minutes
before he turns the political tide of Westeros? Luckily they never really do it
to this degree again; but man, that was weird as hell.
#44- The Bear and the Maiden Fair (3x07)- This
is a George R.R. Martin-written episode and, surprisingly, the best part of it
wasn’t even written by him. The bear fight at Harrenhal was originally in
episode eight but was moved up at some point in post-production. It’s tough to
show the danger of the situation without putting the actors in harm’s way but
overall I think they did a pretty good job. And damn, how great would it have
been if they’d tossed Locke into the pit? The other highlight is Dany’s parlay
with the emissary from Yunkai. In Astapor she used brute strength to achieve
her goal but now she can implement Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “speak softly but
carry a big stick”-style of diplomacy. And what big sticks the unsullied and
the dragons are! (By the way, give yourself a pat on the back if you correctly
predicted I would use “Game of Thrones” to illustrate early-20th-century
American foreign relations).
This is also infamously known as the episode where Ramsay
performs the biggest cock-block ever in history…or perhaps cock-chop is the
better word. Oh, and Tormund humps his backpack. George definitely wrote this
one.
#43- Oathbreaker
(6x03)- Excuse me while I catch my breath from seeing the Tower of Joy.
Arthur Dayne could have been a letdown but I thought it was pretty great, and
the actor they got for Young Ned was spot-on. That and Jon’s execution of the
mutineers were the high points. The deaths of Thorne and the others did not
feel as gratuitous as the other murders of early season six, but neither were
they a cause for celebration. There’s some humor spread throughout, like
Tormund’s dick joke, Tyrion’s lame conversation, and Pycelle’s fart. Wait, did
I say that? Yes, I just said PYCELLE FART. The Rickon and Osha reveal was surprising,
but we didn’t get to delve too deep into it. The reason this episode doesn’t
rank higher is that the brakes got applied a little too hard on the scenes with
Tommen, Varys, and Dany.
The Lord Commander vote is a little too quick and tidy but
Sam sort of makes up for it by roasting Janos Slynt in his speech. Brienne’s
chase/fight with the guards fulfills an action quota, but is pretty empty. The
sub-plot from which we get our episode’s title is aptly done, and giving
the master role to Jaqen instead of another unfamiliar face is a bit of
fan-service that I think the show has earned. The whole mess in Meereen is probably
necessary to show the dissatisfaction of the city to Dany’s rule, although I
personally don’t find it that interesting. Mossador is barely a character and
Dany’s decision-making deserves a facepalm. And it was a bit lame to
end on Drogon flying away as opposed to the Jaqen reveal.
#41- Oathkeeper
(4x04)- It says a lot about season four that its second-worst episode
is all the way up at 41. I don’t actually have a lot to say about it
because it does all of its scenes well, though nothing exceptional. We get
confirmation that the Purple Wedding was orchestrated by Littlefinger and
carried out by Olenna, and Margaery begins her manipulation of Tommen in an arousing
bedroom scene that probably plowed him through puberty in about 30 seconds.
There are two notable book changes that occur in “Oathkeeper”.
First is that Grey Worm and the Unsullied enter the sewers of Meereen and
convince the slaves to revolt. I think it’s a great change that makes even more
sense because I believe the Meereense servants would be more likely to follow
the lead of former slaves instead of knights or sellswords. They’ve built up
Grey Worm to something much better than he was supposed to be. An even bigger
change, though, is what they did with Craster’s. In the book, the mutineers are
never dealt with, Jon never fights them, and Bran is never captured. However,
if the writers wanted to condense the wildling attack into one episode, then
this is a good way to keep the Night’s Watch relevant and an even greater way
to give Bran something to do except just trudge northward to the tree. Not to
be forgotten: that final scene with the White Walker that surprised all of us.
#40- Breaker of
Chains (4x03)- “Breaker of Chains” and “Oathkeeper” feel like two
halves of the same episode; there are similar scenes between the two (like
Margaery and Olenna talking in the garden, or Sansa/Petyr on the boat) or
scenes that seem like half of the same idea (Grenn and Edd warning of the
mutineers, then Jon pushing to fight the mutineers). So I feel like they are
tied together in that way, and I only put “Breaker of Chains” on top because of
how Tywin seizes control of Tommen in front of Joffrey’s corpse and because of
Daario’s “duel”, in the very lightest sense of the word, with the champion of
Meereen. Any reservations about Michiel Huisman should have evaporated after
that. This gets knocked down a point for Sam sending Gilly to Mole’s Town. In
addition to making very little sense – since he KNOWS it’s in the line of fire
for Tormund’s group – it’s far from the most interesting thing to happen.
#39- Mockingbird (4x07)-
Isn’t it weird how the episode is titled “Mockingbird” and yet there doesn’t
seem to be any reference to the mockingbird as Petyr’s personal sigil? In any
case, Lysa becomes the bird here when she “goes flying” at the end. Except for
the slightly corny CGI when we see her falling backwards into the hole, the
scene was good. One thing I did NOT expect was the return of Hot Pie, who helps
Brienne on her quest. Readers know that Brienne’s story was majorly
reconfigured for season four and instead of hopping around to five different
points, Benioff and Weiss wisely made Hot Pie the one link in the chain that
ends up with Arya. Speaking of Arya, she runs into Rorge and Biter again but
they are dispatched in the quickest and most anticlimactic way possible. They
couldn’t squeeze another 20 seconds out of them?
One little part I think deserves more attention is
Melisandre and Selyse. The red woman openly admits that some of her vials and
potions are tricks that are meant to make people believe they are witnessing
the Red God’s power. She even cites one that creates black smoke (vagina
monster?). It’s an unexpected right-turn in that thread of the story that I think
is important to remember when thinking about “Mother’s Mercy” and season six.
And despite everything with the Moon Door, I think the best scene of “Mockingbird”
is Oberyn’s emotional story to Tyrion and his pledge to be his champion.
Fist-pump for sure. That was also Pedro Pascal’s first scene that he filmed.
#38- No One
(6x08)- Very much a pairing with “The Broken Man”, it sort of flops on
a few payoffs. The setup from “The Broken Man” really made it seem like there
was some kind of sleight-of-hand trick about to be played with Arya, and not
only was there no real trick, her stab wounds seemed to heal abnormally
quickly. I can suspend disbelief for a lot of things, but that injury was
pretty severe. The chase itself was nicely choreographed, but the jokes about
The Waif acting like a robot are not unearned. The Hound’s vengeance was also a
bit too anticlimactic and even humorous, which does not fit with how we left
him at Brother Ray’s sept. The return of Thoros and Beric is welcome,
and their interplay was fun.
The Riverrun plot continued to be one of my favorites, and I
am okay with the Blackfish’s death – perhaps because I don’t know what he’s up
to in the book. I do think it was a little too convenient that the dumb Tully
guard was so easily swayed by whatever Edmure ordered. But it gave us all these
other interactions, so I’ll take it. Tyrion’s attempts at lightening the mood
in Meereen was fine for one scene earlier in the season, but I’m not sure why
we’re spending multiple minutes trying to teach Missandei and Grey Worm how to
drink and tell jokes. It seemed a little forced. King’s Landing continued to be
slow-paced, but set up a nice mystery with Qyburn’s “rumor”.
#37- Home (6x02)-
They finally did Euron Greyjoy! Hooray! (...I said to myself before I saw how they took his character.) His introduction and the death of Balon
was a pretty great scene, although the rain muffled their conversation
somewhat. In addition to the Rickety Rope Bridge of Doom, there was a lot of
tension vibrating for much of this episode. Tyrion’s meeting with the dragons,
despite me being certain he was not going to get roasted, still had me holding
my breath – and Walda and Baby Bolton’s demise, while inevitable, still had me
holding out against hope that maybe Ramsay shows some mercy. But nope. Meanwhile,
Roose’s death was quick and anti-climactic. I’m not saying he needed
to be shanked by Sansa or anything, but a bit more flourish would have been
nice. As for Jon’s resurrection, I’m alright with its placement in the season,
but still wish we knew why, narratively, he ever had to be killed in the first
place.
#36- The Iron Throne (8x06)- This is it. What it all comes down to. And the best I can
say is, “…..it didn’t totally whiff”? Dany’s death (perhaps the most important
one in the show, you could argue) was rushed and a little unsatisfying.
Drogon’s actions made no sense (unless he sensed Jon was a Targaryen and felt
he couldn’t kill him). And the choice of Bran to be king, while not the worst
idea I’ve ever heard, was not properly explained by Tyrion or set up well
enough over the course of the series. His ability to see practically any moment
in the past could serve him well in deciding how to run things but that aspect
is never factored in. And just to nitpick, this one had plenty of scenes which
could have shaved off some seconds: people walking the streets, Tyrion looking
for his siblings, Tyrion staring blankly in his cell, Edmure waffling when told
to sit down, etc.
I did enjoy the Dragon Pit scene.
Seeing these characters together (including the wonderfully lax Prince of
Dorne), on the verge of making democracy but never quite making it there, was a
fun sequence – and it’s almost too perfect that Edmure Tully thought he could
serve himself up to be nominated the king. I stan a messy cringelord. There
really should have been more debating (and an explanation of who the hell those
random guys were) but I will leave it up to George to come up with that. What
follows is a series of pleasant moments to close out the show, like Brienne
finishing Jaime’s Wikipedia entry (adding further proof that their Winterfell
tryst was a bad move), Sam’s book, the new Small Council, Arya heading west of
Westeros, and “Da Queen in da Norf!” And ending on Jon leading the wildlings
into the forest shows that, while he was banished and sent to live out the rest
of his life in shame, he and his “new” people are in fact the only people who
will be living out from under the thumb of kings and thrones. A sober end to a
crazy series – that gets the wide view right, even if some of the details are
swept under the rug.
#35- Stormborn
(7x02)- Jon and Daenerys discussing each other for the first time is
weird, isn’t it? There’s a lot of talking in “Stormborn”, but this is the good
kind. Dany finally confronting Varys about his role under Robert; war plans at
the Dragonstone table; Jon’s lords debating whether to align with Dany, etc.
Jorah’s “surgery” is guaranteed to get a reaction, and the sudden slaughter on
the sea gave Euron the set-piece we all wanted from him – while reverting Theon
back to Reek in a surprising moment of self-preservation. I also appreciated
Grey Worm’s honesty in how Missandei makes him vulnerable, though the
hanky-panky went on longer than it deserved. (Plus: HOT. FUCKING. PIE.)
#34- The Queen’s
Justice (7x03)- The long-awaited Jon and Dany meeting was, thankfully,
a little icy. It would be lame if they were best buds and got married
immediately after six seasons of buildup. I didn’t really enjoy Emilia Clarke’s
performance in that meeting. She doesn’t do “intimidating monarch” that well.
But the energy between everyone there still felt natural and unforced. Cersei’s
torture of Tyene and Ellaria made me feel sorry for them, which is a good sign,
considering how little we were asked to care about them up to this point. While
we don’t get to see the sack of Highgarden, or anything impressive out of
Casterly Rock (the CGI soldiers are noticeable, guys), it’s almost made up for
by Olenna’s badass exit. That’s how you kill a character and make it count.
#33- High Sparrow
(5x03)- Few deaths were as highly celebrated or as wished-for as Janos
Slynt, and Jon didn’t let us down (those of you lamenting the absence of “Edd,
fetch me a block” can go cry in a corner with Strong Belwas and the Griffs).
Jon seemed to have achieved a new level as he toyed with Thorne in the
dispensing of Wall duties and went toe-to-toe with Stannis. For the short time
that we’re in Volantis, it makes a mark with a beautiful tracking shot across
the bridge and the mysterious stare-down from the red priestess. Jorah’s sudden
reappearance could have been teased a little bit better.
Among the major deviations or merges between book and
screen, I think the decision to have Sansa marry Ramsay is one of the choices
that makes the most sense (from a story structure perspective, not necessarily
from a Littlefinger plan perspective). Sansa has a bare-bones story in this
part of the book that doesn’t really have a climax, and the Winterfell plotline
doesn’t exactly have a strong heroic anchor since Reek is still a walking
footstool for most of it. Merging the two cuts down on unnecessary characters,
anchors Winterfell with a favorable character, and saves time by excising one
more sub-plot that could take up precious minutes in an already crammed season.
Many beats remain the same and it also manages to rope in Brienne along with
it. With time, I think even some of the more diehard book purists will come to
accept its legitimacy. “High Sparrow” has a meaty runtime of 60 minutes, and
they accomplish a lot in that hour, even if the title character gets kind of
lost in the shuffle.
#32- First of His
Name (4x05)- With the exception of Craster’s Keep, this is pretty much
a character-building episode. Not as good as season three’s “Kissed by Fire” (also,
coincidentally, episode five) but a short rest-stop before the bonkers 2nd
half of season four. I had no idea how much I missed The Eyrie until we returned
there – first passing through the Bloody Gate which was suspiciously AWOL when
Catelyn and Tyrion were there earlier. I don’t necessarily like who Crazy Lysa
is as a person but I do enjoy WHAT she is when she shows up. Nice little scenes
with Brienne and Podrick hanging out, Arya and the Hound bickering, and Cersei
opening up to Margaery and Oberyn. All pleasant, if largely inconsequential. As I said in “Oathkeeper”, I liked the Craster’s Keep
diversion. Karl ended up as a bit of a cartoon character but he works as a
mid-level antagonist. And if Locke wasn’t going to be tossed into the bear pit
to get mauled to death, then getting his neck snapped by Hodor is the next best
thing.
#31- Garden of
Bones (2x04)- This is another of those episodes that is just solid
all-around and evenly balanced among the sub-plots. Harrenhal looks perfectly
macabre and ruined on the outside, filthy and soul-crushing on the inside. The
Camp Renly scenes, once again, feel very unique to this specific section of the
story and this is the only time where Stannis gets to be onscreen with either
of his brothers. Renly trolls him like any younger brother would and that’s a
dynamic I wish we’d got to see more of. I already mentioned how Renly’s death
probably should have come in this episode but the smoky vagina monster is still
one hell of a way to go out. The scenes at King’s Landing and the gates of
Qarth are pretty good too.
Another one of the great changes the show made was to show
more of Robb’s conquests and courtship. He was not written as a POV character
but it’s a critical area that needed to be seen for the Red Wedding to have as
much of an impact as it is supposed to. Talisa, by and large, does not exist in
the book; rather Robb’s wife takes the form of a local girl named Jeyne
Westerling who has the characterization of a cardboard box. For Robb’s decision
to break his vow to Walder Frey, we really had to see a charismatic,
fully-realized character and that’s how we end up with Talisa who makes her
debut in the first few minutes. We don’t see Robb’s battle victory but it
doesn’t matter because now he has a conquest of a different sort to focus on.
#30- Book of the
Stranger (6x04)- The Wall, which had for so long been mostly just Jon and
a relatively dour set of supporting characters, is now crackling with chemistry
as Starks reunite, Tormund gets lusty, and Brienne, Davos, and Melisandre have
the most awkward convo ever. One of the great changes from the books is this
bottle-necking at the Wall. The scheming from Baelish, Tyrion, and Cersei
brings me back to the nostalgic heyday of King’s Landing, as the chessboard
shifts into a dangerous new phase. Wonderful writing in the High Sparrow scene
as well.
Although Dany’s takedown of the Khals was pretty cool (and
spared us from another five episodes of sitting around in the Dosh Khaleen), I
don’t love it as much as others do, simply because we’ve seen something similar
in Astapor, and the inferno walkout as the Dothraki are bowing is basically
what happened in “Fire and Blood”. Speaking of retreads, Ramsay knifing people
isn’t particularly exciting anymore, even if it caught us, and poor Osha, by
surprise.
#29- Eastwatch
(7x05)- Or as I call it: the Westeros Hyperloop Episode! If you’re
going to mess with the pace of the narrative, better to be super-fast than
super-slow. This is clearly where the 7-episode order crunched the story, but
luckily some fun stuff happens to make it not such a big deal. Davos and
Tyrion’s brief pit-stop in King’s Landing not only brings back Gendry (and his
Warhammer[!]), but gives us a nice moment of Davos improv as he tries to send
away the gold cloaks with boner crabs. We build to a nice climax as the gang of
misfits congregate at Eastwatch to nab a wight. The Magnificent Seven imagery
is obvious, but sometimes the obvious can work. Unfortunately, the Lannister drama
still drags, and the Stark girls’ interactions, pushed on by Littlefinger, are not
hitting the right buttons for me - especially when you know how it all turned out.
#28- The Dragon
and the Wolf (7x07)- Perhaps does not deserve its long runtime, but
hard to pinpoint what exactly to cut. The reunion beats at the beginning are
too good to lose, and Cersei trying and failing to gain the upper hand on her
brothers is critical to the Lannister story. We lack a real tipping-point
moment with the main storyline, and Cersei’s last-minute plot to bring in the
Golden Company now feels dumb because of how little they ended up doing with them. I didn’t feel the
chemistry with Jon and Dany, so their hot-sexy-time is a little more lukewarm
than intended. On the positive end, Littlefinger’s downfall was very
satisfying, and the long-awaited Rhaegar revelation came with a glimpse of the
famous couple, though the info-dump by Bran (and incredibly coincidental assist
from Sam) is a stumble that could have been given better care. The conclusion
at the wall was intense and unsettling, even if we all knew it was coming. The
uncertain fates of Tormund and Beric are, to put it bluntly, just plain
annoying.
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#27- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (8x02)- This is a swan song to many of the characters we’ve gotten to
know over the years, though the audience at the time does not know who the song
is dedicated to. The show does a masterful job of instilling dread into us and
making us believe they are all on the precipice of annihilation. We get a few
more interactions and reunions (Jaime, Theon, Edd, etc.) and formulate a plan
of attack – or rather, defense – but mostly it’s a lot of waiting and
pondering. And hey, that’s fine. We won’t have time to mourn during the big
battle, so we need to knock that stuff out beforehand. For the most part, it’s
really fantastic. From Tormund’s origin story, to Brienne’s knighthood, to
Jorah receiving Heartsbane, you are either laughing or crying for much of the
hour. Where it does drag is with the Jon and Daenerys power struggle, with
Sansa in the middle. No real sense of dread there and the debates about ruling
and submitting feel inappropriate given the impending doom that is riding
towards them. Jaime also seems to have gotten off the hook a little easy for
someone who very nearly speared Daenerys a few episodes earlier.
#27- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (8x02)- This is a swan song to many of the characters we’ve gotten to
know over the years, though the audience at the time does not know who the song
is dedicated to. The show does a masterful job of instilling dread into us and
making us believe they are all on the precipice of annihilation. We get a few
more interactions and reunions (Jaime, Theon, Edd, etc.) and formulate a plan
of attack – or rather, defense – but mostly it’s a lot of waiting and
pondering. And hey, that’s fine. We won’t have time to mourn during the big
battle, so we need to knock that stuff out beforehand. For the most part, it’s
really fantastic. From Tormund’s origin story, to Brienne’s knighthood, to
Jorah receiving Heartsbane, you are either laughing or crying for much of the
hour. Where it does drag is with the Jon and Daenerys power struggle, with
Sansa in the middle. No real sense of dread there and the debates about ruling
and submitting feel inappropriate given the impending doom that is riding
towards them. Jaime also seems to have gotten off the hook a little easy for
someone who very nearly speared Daenerys a few episodes earlier.
But “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”
has one of my favorite scenes of the entire show: Podrick’s song. Daniel
Portman’s voice is more than passable and “Jenny of Oldstones” is the perfect
song for this situation (stay for the credits to hear Florence + the Machine’s
beautiful rendition). We skim over to several characters during their battle
preparations, not knowing if they are experiencing their final hours alive. Sam
and Gilly staring at each other in bed, and Missandei watching helplessly as
Grey Worm goes off to war are two especially enduring images. It really sold me
on the feeling of hopelessness and despair. The only thing that weakens it in
hindsight is the fact that no one in the fireplace crew bites it in the battle.
#26- Kill the Boy
(5x05)- Can I bow at the feet of Bryan Cogman? He seems to excel at
writing these midseason pit-stop episodes that largely halt the action in favor
of pressure-cooking some of the marginalized stories. This is a big Winterfell
episode that shades in Reek and the Boltons after being third-string players in
season four. I wouldn’t say the Ramsay backstory softens our stance on him or
raises his stock but it lends some explanation to his personality. Watching
Sansa take in her new surroundings at an old location, I truly felt this was
something that could have come from George R.R. Martin’s hand, which I can’t
exactly say for every change. King’s Landing, Dorne, and Braavos sit this one
out, and the focus away from the power-center of Westeros makes the sub-plots
on the outskirts feel connected and relevant.
The fallout from the Harpy attack does not dominate
screen-time but it does lead to maybe the coolest Dany moment since the Astapor
uprising as she shoves a former master into the dragon chamber only to be
roasted alive and ripped in half as the rest of the masters cower. I’m sorry,
but that’s just too cool for school. Dany’s marriage idea with Hizdahr is a
little out of left-field but we are mercifully spared from a five-minute scene
with a naked Daario pleading with her not to do it and Dany waffling back and
forth between her heart and her brain. Sure, they kind of do that in “The Gift”
but you don’t see it rated up here, do you? Perhaps the biggest joy, and most
welcome surprise, of “Kill the Boy” is the Jungle River Boat Cruise through the
ruins of Valyria. I was nearly as mesmerized as Tyrion and Jorah when Drogon
soared silently overhead, almost as if in a dream. But there’s no time to
appreciate what this signals because the stone men attack. They set it up so
often in the previous four episodes that it doesn’t come as much of a surprise
but that false-ending was pretty nifty. Jorah’s contraction of Greyscale gave us
a ticking-time-bomb scenario, and totally flips the game as they slowly make
their way to Daenerys. A fun and scary ending to a unique episode.
#25- The Long Night (8x03)- It is depressing that I rank it this low. The culmination of
one of the main plots of the show, the longest episode ever, and a massive
battle with most of the characters left on the board. It should have been top
three. And yet…there was just too much it did wrong. First and foremost, the
lighting is…well, I don’t have to tell you. I shouldn’t have to adjust my TV
setting to enjoy something. It was tough to see who was being overwhelmed by
wights or which dragons were onscreen at any one time. In fact, the dragon
skirmishes overall were somewhat dull and did not amount to much. I realize
these creatures are all the more frightening at night, but daytime fighting
would not have been unwelcome.
Further, the Night King dying so
easily, without altering the story in a major way, and without truly
understanding what his goal was, is a little tough to swallow given the whole
buildup. If its purpose was to unite all these disparate peoples in order to create
a more peaceful world, well, that makes sense but needs to be articulated
better. If the ordeal does not leave lasting damage to the landscape or the
characters, it’s all sort of wasted. Arya being the one to deal the death-blow
is fine, and the scene itself was done well (minus the awkwardly long stare-down
with Bran). But there was still enough to like. Melisandre was an MVP and her
arc concluded in the most satisfying way it could have. The Dothraki charge,
and subsequent slaughter, was one of the most visually stunning sequences in
the series. The crypt massacre was suitably horrific, though it was unclear to
me what Sansa and Tyrion were contemplating while it was going on –they should
have taken a more proactive role in that attack.
#24- Walk of Punishment (3x03)- I am going to
make an assertion here: “Walk of Punishment” is probably the funniest episode
of the series. Consider two early scenes that say so much with essentially no
dialogue: first, the introduction of Catelyn’s brother and uncle at Hoster Tully’s
funeral. Edmure steps up to shoot a flaming arrow onto the canoe but he misses,
tries to hide his embarrassment from the uncomfortable onlookers, and tries
again. Eventually the Blackfish has enough, shoves him aside with a scowl, and
nails the canoe on his first try. Two great introductions with no dialogue. Not
long after, we get another quiet scene but with characters more familiar to us,
and this familiarity makes the humor work. The Small Council members jostle for
the seat next to Tywin, until Tyrion arrives and drags his chair as far away
from the others as possible, screeching the whole way. Only then does the
talking begin.
This is also the episode with Podrick becoming a sex god.
Some people hate that little addition, but I personally found it kind of
enjoyable that Tyrion and Bronn are so gob-smacked at the kid’s abilities
between the sheets. It really serves no other purpose than to endear the young
squire to the audience and I’m fine with that. Plus we have the cute scene where Hot Pie gives Arya the blob of bread that’s supposed to be a wolf.
So yeah, there’s a lot to enjoy if you want something light.
Jumping around the map, we get Daenerys negotiating a trade
for Unsullied, and the Night’s Watch shacking up with Craster again; two
plotlines that will break open in the following episode. And in Locke’s
captivity, Jaime and Brienne continue to show their chemistry, which results in
Jaime losing his hand rather abruptly in the final seconds. I know the ending
song was controversial, both for being a modern rock song in a medieval setting
and for ruining the shocked mood of Jaime’s injury with an up-tempo sound. I
didn’t hate it but I would have preferred a more old-fashioned version of “The
Bear and the Maiden Fair” instead of the one we got. I actually liked the one
briefly sung by Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody as they trotted through the woods.
#23- Beyond the
Wall (7x06)- So much hype for this episode. Did it deliver? Eh…sort of.
The only victim from the Magnificent Seven was Thoros, who was the most minor
of the gang, and Benjen’s sacrifice was much too quick to have much of an
impact. There’s a lot to enjoy though (ZOMBIE. BEAR.), and the interplay
between the men in the first half was exactly what we hoped for. Tormund is a
shining ginger star. The spectacle of the lake battle shows how far the show
has come from its early days, and the death of Viserion was sudden and
well-rendered. Just needed a bigger reaction from Dany; she barely seemed to
even notice.
When the sheen of the action wears off, you’re left with
some weird choices, however. For a show that made its name by proving “anyone
can die”, the yanking of Tormund from the jaws of death feels cheap, and the
purpose of Jon being left behind seemed to occur solely to (A) bring back
Benjen one more time, and (B) to jolt Dany into realizing she might love him.
Neither is strong enough to justify him continuing to fight wights when they’re
about to take off. Elsewhere, the Sansa/Arya animosity makes little sense.
Their beef with each other feels out of character, and now feels like setup for
the episode 7 swerve towards Littlefinger. It’s uncomfortable, and the
bait-and-switch didn’t need this in order to be effective.
#22- The Dance of Dragons
(5x09)- Easily the weakest Episode Nine but not by fault of Daenerys
and her Pit of Abundant Violence and Merriment. It looks really good, even if
we don’t get to experience the full games. I appreciate that the random pit
fighters are each given a different look, culture, and weapon. My personal
favorite is the Braavosi with the rapier. It’s so much more elegant than
Jorah’s hack-and-slash style. It’s a little unclear what the Harpys’ goal is
with slaughtering all the random people, and why they didn’t just storm Dany’s
crew when they were surrounded. Drogon essentially melts most of that
frustration away, and the special effects are as good as they can be for TV
show. Your mileage may vary on how Dany’s flight looked, but I was too swept up
in the moment to notice. Overall a strong and memorable segment that saves the
episode from falling further down.
There was great potential in Arya’s stalking of Meryn Trant
but for some reason they delayed the payoff on that for the finale, which ends
up hurting both episodes. I guess Shireen and the Pit were too much craziness
for one day but Trant totally could have died here. Props to Ian Beattie, who
has spent most of the series standing silently by the Royal Court or grunting
an order, but made Trant into a more of a hateful d-bag just in time for his
swan song. Dorne was Dorne, and I will talk more about that in “Mother’s
Mercy”. Shireen’s burning was difficult, not just for her sake but for what it
said about Stannis. They could have fashioned an alternate route where Mel does
the deed behind his back, but that might take away from his brutal comedown in
the finale. For my part, the jury is still out in this.
#21- Second Sons (3x08)- Unlike most other
episodes, “Second Sons” mainly focuses on three storylines. There is also a scene
each with Arya/Hound and Sam/Gilly but they’re quick and act more like
book-ends to the episode. First we have the intrigue outside Yunkai as Dany deals
with the mercenaries, who in turn try to find a way to thwart her. Mark Killeen
makes a strong impression in the small but fun role of Mero. I don’t know where
the majority of the fans fall on the Ed Skrein vs. Michiel Huisman debate but
if I could assemble my preferred Daario, Mr.-Potato-Head-Style, I would give
him Ed’s hair and Michiel’s face.
Then we have the weirdness at Dragonstone. Our goal today is
to get Gendry to have a boner so that his magical King’s Blood is perfectly
concentrated into one appendage to make for easier leech-sucking. Stannis then
burns the leeches in the fire as he lists off the usurpers Robb, Balon, and
Joffrey. Given what we now know happens, is this perhaps the true turning point
in the story? Or is it all coincidence? Stannis is kind of a stick in the mud,
sure, but I love the costumes, sets, and performers of Team Dragonstone so any
sort of prolonged stay with them makes me happy.
Finally, we have Tyrion’s wedding, and the feast which gives
Peter Dinklage his best work all season as Tyrion drinks a little too much,
gets increasingly irritated, threatens Joffrey, and then plays it off as
drunken nonsense. You can see in his face and how his hand quivers that
Dinklage is giving everything to that scene. It’s just great. The narrowed
scope of “Second Sons” works to its benefit, as Jon, Robb, Theon, Bran, and
Jaime are sidelined in favor of these other stories which have major
consequences moving forward in the saga.
#20- The Pointy
End (1x08)- Finally, Robb Stark becomes a major piece to the puzzle
when he calls the banners and declares war. Of the three banner men from the
north that we end up meeting eventually (Umber, Bolton, Karstark), Greatjon
Umber is by far the most colorful and charismatic. Roose Bolton ends up being
the most relevant and intriguing, but Umber makes such a strong first
impression with his booming voice and his maniacal laughter upon having two
fingers bitten off by Grey Wind. He’s only in three episodes because the actor
wasn’t able to return for one reason or another but he helps kick off the war
in grand fashion.
After Drogo’s passionate speech in “You Win or You Die” the
Dothraki go out and plunder a village, kill the men, and rape the women. Dany
saves one of them – which will soon prove to be a fatal mistake. As weird as it
sounds, I do like that the story went this route. We presumably like Dany at
this point and want her to invade with her army but these are some serious
savages we’re dealing with. I like it when we have to stop ask ourselves if we
really want these people to win or lose. The other really cool part of the
episode is the dismissal of Barristan Selmy. His verbal beat-down is legendary
and it’s too bad he isn’t more of a fan favorite character. I’ll leave you with
these: “Even now, I could cut through the five of you like carving
a cake!”; and (throws sword) “Here, boy! Melt it down and add it to the
others.”
#19- Mother’s
Mercy (5x10)- At the top of my list of things I wasn’t sure of was what
ultimately happened with Stannis and his army. It certainly won’t play out this
way exactly when we finally have “The Winds of Winter” in our hands, and it’s
unclear if it will even have the same outcome at all. But with the absence of a
comparison, I must judge the show as if it were an original story, and through
that lens I think I can accept Stannis’ fate. For a man obsessed with duty,
honor, and the rule of law, he was quick to use Melisandre’s powers for
dishonorable and unlawful things. It’s only fitting that her most recent
charade robbed him of his daughter, wife, and army. And his first trick, the
Renly demon, comes back around to haunt his final moments as Brienne rids the
world of him. It’s a tragic arc but one that I can accept. Stannis played his
part in the story but now it’s over. If George has different plans for him,
that’s fine too. But this…this I’m okay with.
The episode had a stronger second half than the first.
Cersei’s Walk was beautifully done, but more importantly: tastefully done. The
show has a mixed record of female nudity but this is an example of how you do
it right. It’s not sexual or gratuitous. It’s necessary. This is a woman who
had kept many secrets for many years, not all of them good. Now she has been
paraded through the streets, naked not only physically but spiritually, and
everyone can see and judge. Great work by Lena Headey, even if her face was
digitally inserted at points. The finish line with Qyburn and
FrankenMountain provides a grim hope for her future. As for Jon…well, you saw
it. The fact that it was planned, as opposed to spur-of-the-moment adrenaline,
makes it more depressing and tragic. Thorne and the others weren’t exactly
angry. Just betrayed and scared.
My main problem with the episode got better with time, but
it threw me for a loop when it was airing: there was too much death in too
rapid a timeframe. We open on Stannis. Selyse is dead. The battle occurs.
Stannis is dead. Cut to Winterfell. Myranda is dead. Cut to the brothel. Trant
is butchered. Cut to the House of B&W. Jaqen kinda maybe dies. Cut to
Dorne. Myrcella dies. And that's before we get to Jon. It’s too much, to the point where it’s almost comical and
the deaths have less meaning. If we move Trant’s (HORRIFYING!) slaughter to
episode nine and remove Myranda’s tumble altogether, maybe it cleans up better.
Arya’s blindness is the perfect season cliffhanger but the gag of pulling all
the faces off removes a lot of the spookiness of the operation.
I held onto hope that Dorne would end up working itself out
but it just never did. If Doran had a greater plan, it should have been shown.
Because otherwise it just doesn’t add up. Tyene gives us maybe the worst line
in the entire series: “You want the good girl, but you need the bad pussy.” I
usually don’t complain about dialogue but that is just terrible. The last order
of business is Meereen. Not sure how much sense it makes for Tyrion, Varys,
Missandei, and Grey Worm to be the rulers of the city, but I could just chalk
that up to Daario not giving a shit about Meereen. As for Daenerys, the
Dothraki reunion was majestic, even if it feels tinged with danger. In all, we started
a trend of good finales, even if this one needed some shuffling to get the
pieces in a presentable order.
#18- The Bells (8x05)-
Is there a more divisive episode in the show’s history? The divide is even more
pronounced than other controversies because this is the climax – the thing that
everything has been building towards. It seems the dividing line on how you
feel about the end of the show rests on how believable it was that Dany decided
on a whim to roast much of the innocent people of King’s Landing. While I
believe it was almost inevitable from a storytelling perspective and something
that she was capable of doing, they did not quite set it up properly. They
should have included scenes of Cersei rallying the villagers to her cause and
then have some villagers either resist Dany or openly provoke her, giving her
an impression that these people are expendable. Some other irksome things
include Varys’s unimaginative end (without even much of a wrap-up on his fear
of magic), the Golden Company being useless, and Euron’s completely
off-the-mark line, “I’m the man who killed Jaime Lannister.” Sincerely hope
Book-Euron ends up in a more suitable storyline.
“The Bells” is still a big episode,
and it had some big moments. The destruction on the city streets is suitably
scary and depressing. They create this very small character in Nora, who
briefly helps Arya only to get incinerated with her daughter by a stroke of bad
luck. Cersei’s frantic pleas to survive contrast with the tough, stoic, and
merciless persona she has adopted since her walk of shame, and that she and
Jaime get crushed together in front of a dead-end is perhaps the most suitable
end for them. Even Harry Strickland’s brief scramble from the invading Dothraki
– seemingly being spared, only to get a spear in the back from Grey Worm – was
a fun visual. And of course I cannot forget the CleganeBowl, hyped to hell and
back and still mostly delivered. The backdrop of the crumbling Red Keep gave it
the epic aura it deserved, and although Gregor’s apparent invulnerability was
perhaps half a step too far, it ended with the poetic justice we all knew it
would – not with another eye-gouge and head-smash, although they teased us with
that, but rather with both men tumbling out the wall and into the inferno
below. Game of Thrones’s last battle was among its most brutal, and no weak
link in the narrative can drag it down to the lower portion of this list.
#17- The Broken
Man (6x07)- At long last, we get the Riverrun subplot, and Brynden
Tully holds his own in the story despite being absent for over two seasons. His
dynamic with Jaime is great, and the politicking is a nice throwback to the
season 1-3 era. And the costumes pop even more than usual. The Hound’s return
was expected, but welcome all the same. His dynamic with Brother Ray (they
couldn’t just call him Maribald?) was all too brief, but Ian McShane embedded a
nice little bit of gravitas to that thread. His monologue on violence would be
a lot more impactful of Clegane didn’t spend the next episode chopping people
up. The recruitment of northern houses was fun to watch, and the scene-stealer
Lyanna Mormont did a great job keeping our heroes on their toes (the meteoric
rise of Lyanna in the fandom is so high that it almost prompts me to want to
wrangle it back down to prevent hyperbole). Margaery signals a façade in
regards to the High Sparrow, alleviating earlier fears that she might have been
manipulated. The Arya scene is sort of blown because of how it plays out in “No
One”. Did the story really call for her to get stabbed in such a way that survival looks impossible?
#16- The Spoils of
War (7x04)- This could rank higher if not for the tepid two-thirds that
precede the big battle. The Stark reunions aren’t these amazing tearjerkers
that many people claim they are, although Arya’s duel with Brienne was pretty
impressive. Bran is a dick now, even if he knocks Littlefinger off-balance for
a moment. No, the only reason this is even in the top half is for the so-called
“Loot Train” battle – although “massacre” may be more appropriate. The Dothraki
stunts are fantastic, the fire is real enough not to take us out of it, and the
soundtrack is aces. The audience is going to be more pro-Daenerys, but having
rootable characters on both sides presents an interesting situation,
particularly when Bronn is spinning his ballista (like a video game,
practically) to get the best shot at Drogon. That no one important died is a
minor complaint, but the bigger sin is the completely gratuitous shots of Jaime
sinking into the river, which is then negated by the next episode. In spite of
that, this was, from a pure technical standpoint, maybe the best outright
battle that they have produced
#15- A Golden
Crown (1x06)- I really enjoy this one. Before there was “The Laws of
Gods and Men”, Tyrion had a different trial, albeit a funnier one. Instead of
confessing to Bran’s attempted murder, he confesses the various shameful
incidents of his life; from stealing a bathing woman’s clothes, to pleasuring
himself into a bowl of soup. It’s vintage Tyrion, and culminates in a duel between
Ser Vardis Egan and Bronn, who instantly becomes a top-tier character. The sky
cells are properly scary and it’s compounded by the dim-witted Mord, whom
Tyrion manipulates fantastically. Even Winterfell manages against all odds to
be interesting when some wildlings sneak down to the woods and nearly get Bran
killed before Robb and Theon save the day. Osha joins the party!
Viserys had one of
the most perfect deaths in the series. Drogo manages to find a loophole in the
“spill no blood” rule of Vaes Dothrak when he melts gold into a pot and dumps
it on the dragon-king’s head, thus ironically giving him the golden crown he
always wanted, and proving to Daenerys that he was no dragon because “fire
cannot kill a dragon”. Beautiful. The only thing I’ll mention from King’s
Landing is that they had the difficult task of translating Ned’s investigation
to screen. They can’t have his inner monologue to show that the black Baratheon
hair contrasts with Joffrey’s blond, so he just reads it out loud. Problem is,
Sean Bean has a thick accent so “black of hair” sounds like “black of air”. The
couple times where I saw this episode with people watching for the first time I
had to confirm if they understood what was happening. But that’s a nitpick.
This episode is fun. And hey…I just realized that “A Golden Crown” can not only
refer to Viserys but also to Joffrey’s “golden head”. I like being smart!
#14- Kissed by Fire (3x05)- At first glance,
this doesn’t seem like it should be a top fifteen episode. There really isn’t
much plot progression or flashy scenes (other than the Beric/Hound fight), but
there are a LOT of great character beats that keep things interesting after the
previous episode’s big excitement in Astapor and Craster’s. First we have some
family time with the Baratheon family, which apparently includes jar fetuses.
Shireen is adorable but marred by the greyscale disease. Combine this with the
dreary backdrop of the Dragonstone castle and it’s easy to see why Stannis is
so grouchy and depressing all of the time. It goes a long way to humanizing the
guy, which the show desperately needed at this point. Shireen helping Davos
read in the dungeons is another great moment.
Moving to Riverrun, Lord Karstark murders the two Lannister
children which prompts Robb to behead one of his most valuable commanders.
Richard Madden usually doesn’t get to play a wide range of emotions but his
fury over Karstark’s betrayal beneath a curtain of rain certainly gives one the
impression that Robb may be losing his grip on not only his army but the entire
war. There’s a quick scene of Jaime/Brienne arriving at Harrenhal but even that
packs a punch as Bolton trolls Jaime hard by pretending Cersei was killed in
Stannis’s siege. Then there’s the fan-favorite bathtub scene with both
Coster-Waldau and Christie doing good work as we unravel some more layers of
Jaime.
King’s Landing is ripe with marriage drama, which isn’t
always that exciting (and leads to the Littlefinger/Loras/Olyvar sequence which
goes by too fast for it to make much sense) but we do get the long-anticipated
Tyrion/Olenna conversation. In Slaver’s Bay, Jorah and Barristan bro down for a
bit and talk about their history and Jorah tries to gauge if Barristan knows
about his spying. Unfortunately Ser Barristan doesn’t really get many other
personal moments in the next two seasons so this is crucial. Dany assesses her
army and is introduced to Grey Worm who vows to keep his slave name since it is
the name he had when he was freed. Good stuff.
But in an episode of highlights, maybe the MVP goes to Arya
and the Brotherhood. The duel is exciting, although it occurs a little too
early in the hour for Beric’s resurrection to have much of an impact. The rest
is gold. Arya and Gendry have a bittersweet conversation, while Arya
chats with Thoros and Beric about resurrection and where they should go from
here. Maisie Williams continues to be a terrific asset to the show and she can
have chemistry with just about anyone they put into a scene with her. As I
said, a character-driven episode, but a great one.
#13- Baelor
(1x09)- OMG! How could they kill Ned Stark! He was the main character
and he was the good guy! He was going to take down the Lannisters and he knew
about the –
Yeah, fine. Not even my favorite part. Don’t get me wrong,
it’s a good scene and I love how the crowd sound drops out as the sword is
about to be swung. But there’s more to “Baelor” than the beheading. It has our
first glimpse of The Twins and Walder Frey, and the capture of Jaime Lannister.
I am a sucker for scenes involving Robb and I have no idea why. He doesn’t have
the characterization of Tyrion or Arya, he’s not super funny, and doesn’t
intersect with many storylines like the others do. Maybe it’s his thick
Scottish drawl? His curly locks? I don’t know. It’s weird.
The best part of “Baelor”, by far, is the drinking game that
Tyrion, Bronn, and Shae engage in. They play games and share stories, and give
us a ton of characterization for a main character, another character who’d only
had several minutes of screen-time, and a character who just appeared for the
first time. It’s funny, sad, and mysterious all at the same time. I really
can’t rave about it enough, it’s one of the best scenes of the season and maybe
the series. The next day is the first big battle of the war and although we
don’t get to see it the lead-up and wrap-up is good enough. We’ll get our fighting
quota raised for season two.
So I hope “Baelor” is remembered for more than just “Ser
Ilyn, bring me his head.” There’s a lot of great beats that came before it.
#12- The Laws of
Gods and Men (4x06)- Coincidence that the episode that introduced Shae
is on the list right before the episode where Shae betrays her lion? Well, yes,
it’s a coincidence. But it’s NOT a coincidence that some of the top episodes of
the show involve major moments of Tyrion awesomeness. Because that’s what he
is. And the trial scene is the culmination of three and a half seasons worth of
buildup. Every time Tyrion expressed irritation with Cersei, every time he
slapped Joffrey to the cheers of the audience, every time he expressed
vulnerability to Shae, it was all leading to this. Much has been said about
Peter Dinklage’s final speech, justly so. When Tyrion gets angry, it’s almost
as if Dinklage is getting angry. I could theorize that when he confesses his
crime of being a dwarf that we were witnessing Dinklage oozing out years of
repressed anger at any jokes and teasing that he received growing up as he did.
You know your ending is good when we cut to credits on a version of The Rains
of Castamere.
We have our first official look at Braavos (complete with
maybe the best credit sequence pop-up) and the Titan. I think this may be the
first time we have ever seen Davos’s fingers outside of the gloves so that was a
nice touch. And it’s the final sighting of Salladhor. He’s not as quippy
as the first two times but he’s bathing with two naked ladies. So, sure. Dany
properly meets Hizdahr zo Loraq for the first time. I don’t recall the book
having this anecdote of Hizdahr’s father being staked so that makes things kind
of interesting knowing how it all played out.
There was some irritation and confusion regarding Yara’s
attempt to rescue Theon. The way it was executed was a bit sloppy but overall I
think it mostly works. If you look at it from the perspective of confirming
Theon’s transformation into Reek, it makes sense. When Ramsay tricked Theon
into thinking his sister was saving him in season three, the purpose was to
condition him to distrust anyone who claims they are freeing him. After all,
it’s probably just another of Ramsay’s tricks which will lead to torture. It’s
easier to portray the descent into Reek when reading it in the book because we
get inside his head. We don’t have that luxury on TV. For all we know, Theon is
just pretending to be this creature so he doesn’t lose a finger. So Benioff and
Weiss position Yara to attack the Dreadfort so she gets to her brother
face-to-face, ready to save him. But Reek refuses. His sister is RIGHT THERE,
with no Bolton men around, and he still refuses because he’s been twisted into
this new person that can’t, or won’t, differentiate real help from the tricks
of Ramsay Snow. Now the audience knows for sure what has happened to him.
The problematic part comes when Ramsay vows to sick his dogs
on the Ironborn and they just leave. Why don’t they just keep fighting? Well,
because Yara realizes her brother is a lost cause, and he’s the sole reason
they came. So they pull back. It’s not that well-explained, and the entire raid
happens in the span of a few minutes, making it pretty anti-climactic after waiting
not only the entire GoT offseason but also another five full episodes. They
might have been better served spacing it out over the hour. But those missteps
still don’t detract from the incredible 2nd half.
#11- The Door
(6x05)- I may not be able to hold the door, but I can hold a spot for
you this high in the ranking. Who knew Bran’s storyline was capable of such
intensity? In any other episode, the demise of Summer, the Children of the
Forest, and the Three-Eyed Raven would be highlight enough, but we also get the
tragic backstory and sacrifice of Hodor, one of the few people I actually
thought might be completely safe. The overlap of Wylis’s spastic repetition of “Hold
the door…hodor…” with present-day Hodor’s strained fight against the wights was
grimly poetic. We are seeing “Hodor” being born just as we are seeing him die.
Combine with a glimpse of the first White Walker being made, and some new
mythology with how the Night King operates, it was a pretty groundbreaking
episode.
Baelish and Varys are usually cool as cucumbers but both
seemed to get their asses handed to them by Sansa and Kinvara, which was enjoyable. The Braavosi play, in addition to providing a few laughs, shows how the
truth can be distorted in an impressively short amount of time (something that
modern media has failed to improve). The Kingsmoot was a bit rushed, and
Euron’s order to build a thousand ships from nothing was a little bit
ridiculous, plus it did not seem immediately clear what Theon and Yara’s
intentions were. But mostly I’m just happy to see this actually played out.
#10- And Now His Watch is Ended (3x04)- Okay
fine, let’s get it out of the way: Daenerys taking down Astapor was awesome.
Kraznys getting what’s coming to him is awesome, Dany revealing her Valyrian
was awesome, her speech to the Unsullied was awesome, the soundtrack was
awesome, even that final shot of the army and dragons leaving the city was
awesome. It’s easy to place this episode on a pedestal because of that alone
but it was still just the final seven minutes. There’s a lot of other good
things to mention, not the least of which is the mutiny at Craster’s Keep. It
was such a tense chapter in the book and it largely translated well to the
screen, though my only real disappointment is that there was no moment where
Commander Mormont had any final dying words to Sam. Could have been a great way
to connect back to Jorah.
Meanwhile, Theon realizes the innocent little janitor boy
has been toying with him and gets mind-fucked when he realizes they wandered
around in circles right back to the torture chamber. It’s hard to put myself
into the mind of a new viewer since I knew that this was Ramsay and he was
messing with Theon, so I have no idea if this part was confusing or frustrating
or jaw-dropping or maybe all of them at once. I think it makes a bit more sense
once you realize he is trying to turn Theon into Reek, and can only do it by
giving him the hope of rescue before yanking the football away like Lucy does
to Charlie Brown, ensuring that whenever REAL help arrives (see: "The Laws of
Gods and Men") Theon/Reek is conditioned to be mistrustful of it.
In King’s Landing we get two great bits. First we have a
wonderful visit with Varys where we hear of his castration and see he has
acquired the magician who cut him. A creative addition, but a welcome one. Then
we arrive at the Sept of Baelor as Joffrey practically gets a boner while
telling Margaery about the torturous history of the previous royal families,
and tries to make nice with the crowd. Cersei is troubled by the growing
influence of the Tyrells on Joffrey and the court. Just a great episode
overall, but misses out on the top spot of season three because of a certain
dinner party gone awry…
#9- The Watchers
on the Wall (4x09)- It’s quite difficult to place this one, isn’t it? On
the one hand, it’s more of an exciting battle than “Blackwater”; what with the
giants, mammoths, hammers to the head, and a giant-ass scythe. On the other
hand, the characters within that battle are collectively just a fraction as
interesting as those in “Blackwater”. It does go a long way to make Grenn, Pyp,
Edd, and Thorne memorable – even heroic – but ultimately it’s a dreary location
with almost no color, which doesn’t really lend itself to a full episode. Still, it’s a great action piece and that counts for a lot. The mammoths and
giants look good and I appreciate they included the barrels of burning oil and
Mag the Mighty charging through the tunnel. The close-combat fights were
well-choreographed, especially Styr vs. Jon. And was that a super brief cameo
from Three-Fingered Hobb with the giant cleaver?
They dug a little into Aemon’s past, and made Janos Slynt a
complete doofus, which I am happy about. The big question-mark is if it should
have ended with Stannis coming to the rescue. I can see why they may have
wanted to leave it for the following week but I still think they could have
trimmed a couple minutes in order to fit all that in. It might also have freed
up the finale to tie things up nicer. But even still, it was a thrilling 51
minutes that set a new benchmark for “Thrones” action sequences.
#8- The Mountain
and the Viper (4x08)- “YOU RAPED HER! YOU MURDERED HER! YOU KILLED HER
CHIDLREN!” The head-splat heard ‘round the world. It may have gone by all too
quick but it looked damn good while it was happening. Pedro Pascal (and/or
possibly a stunt double) does some serious footwork, and his performance is
wonderful, both in the cockiness and the blood-curdling screams of getting your
eyeballs mushed like grapes in a vineyard stomp bucket. It pretty much met
expectations, and even exceeded them with the final crushing blow. This whole
event could have benefitted from a few buildup scenes earlier in the hour; like
Oberyn cleaning his spear, Tyrion trying to calm himself down, the Mountain
doing…whatever it is that he does before a fight. It’s the episode title and
it’s the number one priority after episode seven, so they could have thrown us
a bone with that one.
But seven really good minutes alone does not a Top Eight episode
make. The secondary headline is probably the fallout from the Moon Door debacle.
For such small parts, I really enjoyed the actors they got to play the Lords of
the Vale. Sansa took a little longer to make a major move than her siblings did
but after 37 episodes it feels earned because she was the least likely. We only
got three episodes of Theon/Ramsay this year and this is the last we see of
them for the time being, but it’s a pretty critical moment. Moat Cailin, in and
of itself, does not seem to be terribly important but the Boltons neutralize
the Greyjoy threat after forcing Reek to pretend to be Theon. It’s a real
mind-fuck. When Roose arrives, he legitimizes Ramsay and officially claims the
north for himself, as they ride into Winterfell. It’s been a long road to get
here – most of what Theon has endured over these two seasons either happened
off-page in the book or was invented for the show. We got back on the railroad
tracks with these guys and season five would give them their due diligence.
Jorah’s betrayal of Dany has been set up for a long time and
now that Chekhov’s Gun must go off. When they changed Barristan’s storyline
they had to change this too but I think I may like this version slightly better
because it doesn’t paint Barristan in a poor light. This may have been a plot
point that would have been better served spread over two episodes so as to give
Dany time to process what happened and allow Jorah to put up more of a fight. It’s
a tad too rushed and doesn’t come up in the finale, which is weird because this
is maybe the one pair of characters that have been side-by-side all the way
through the series. People have rolled their eyes at the Grey Worm and
Missandei love story but I actually don’t mind. In addition to making them
rounder characters I think it might be worth pursuing what happens when an
Unsullied wants to love. They are essentially a giant tool used by Dany in her
conquest, but when she freed them she gave them permission to be human again.
Their training has taken most of their humanity (not unlike Reek) but what
happens when it starts to creep back in? Is it a cause for celebration or is it
the beginning of a downfall?
#7- The Children
(4x10)- I was so ready to put this at number one when it aired. There
were so many climaxes we were expecting and while they were all done pretty
well, I realized after the fact that a finale full of climaxes may actually end
up being slightly less than the sum of its parts. I think you need some of that
connective tissue, some of those smaller moments to build up to the bigger pieces.
We got a couple of those scenes in King’s Landing but really it was almost all
adrenaline. And that goes a long way, but it makes it seem like a “Best of”
clip-show rather than a full episode.
If I’m being honest, I think my favorite part of the episode
is at the Wall. The Jon/Mance bro-ment is possibly Hinds’s best scene as
King-Beyond-the-Wall. Then Stannis storms in. I thought we’d only get a few
riders stampeding through the forest but we got the whole damn army! Stannis’s theme gets heavier and louder which feels right, and he and Davos emerging from
the fog was a clutch shot. Stannis does not seem like someone who belongs at
the Wall and just seeing him standing in the snow is like mixing two mediocre
foods and discovering it tastes amazing. And that Melisandre stare is some nice
foreshadowing.
After a four-episode absence, Bran finally returns in a big
way, as he has now ended the journey he began back in the season 2 finale.
Lots of people hated the skeleton wights. I think they’re goofy, perhaps, but
not sinful. I was less high on the Child of the Forest throwing fireballs like
she was in a Dragonball Z movie. A rare miscalculation there. Plus her
performance was very uninspiring. Good thing she was recast for season 6. The
Brienne/Hound fight was grade-A, and a great way to make those two stories
connect while still having the same outcomes that they separately have in the
book. This was Rory McCann’s finest hour as he begs Arya to kill him. Just
great performances from everyone, really. A brutal fight and an even more
brutal cold shoulder after the fact.
Finally, it’s Kill Bill: Tyrion Edition. There are some gaps
that make it a bit confusing as to why he took a detour to Tywin’s room but I
won’t get worked up over it. Shae’s murder is quick and uncomfortable. Tywin’s
is given very little fanfare but the mere fact that it happened (in the privy,
no less) is enough to be satisfying. There’s not much else to say. Tyrion and
Arya are both sea-bound, and if you take out the disappointment of Lady
Stoneheart’s absence, I think Arya hopping a boat to Braavos was probably the
best way this season could have ended. It signals new horizons as we close the
chapter on the first half of the series and head for new waters. After another
bleak season, it’s the most hopeful we’d been in a long time.
#6- Hardhome
(5x08)- In the long-awaited conversations between Tyrion and Daenerys,
Tyrion’s dry wit and level-headed pragmatism prove to be the right elixir to
combat Dany’s over-the-top “I will BREAK the wheel” rhetoric, which has been a
small burden to her for the last couple seasons. There hasn’t really been a
sarcastic figure in her entourage, so Tyrion finally gives her a dose of the
truth. For the main course, we all expected a battle at Hardhome. But, because
Jon is not present for this in the book, we had no idea on specifics, and the
feeling of “anything could happen” was pulling on me from the moment they rowed
onto shore. When the dogs started barking and the snow kicked up, my heart
started beating with a sense of dread at what we were about to witness. The
battle exceeded expectations. It was a free-for-all, with wights ripping
through the gate and wildlings maniacally stampeding into the surf. What it
lacked in flashy tricks and seismic scale (as seen in “The Watchers on the
Wall”) it made up for in pure viciousness.
I will single out the portrayers of Loboda and Karsi for
creating two interesting characters in twenty minutes, even if we immediately
lose them. The revelations of the White Walkers were a long time coming, and
the “Thrones” team managed to keep them menacing despite limited screen-time. The
final moments of the boat drifting away as the army of the dead leers just out
of arms reach brings the fervor to a level of zero as we are asked to patiently
and quietly think about what this means for the story’s endgame. I don’t think
there were any real missteps here. It was fun and intense. That’s all you need
for “Game of Thrones”. I came really close to putting “Hardhome” ahead of “The
Lion and the Rose”, since the minor plots were better. I think now that the
shock of the wight/White Walker incursion has worn off, it sinks just a few
inches below the Royal Wedding. But it’s definitely close.
Even though the best part is at the beginning, the rest of it is pretty damn nice too. Arya’s sneak attack on Walder Frey doesn’t dwell too long, and the union of the Martells and Tyrells with Daenerys is a good way to keep those characters in the picture – and Olenna smacking down the Sand Snakes was David and Dan throwing us a bone. Sam’s Oldtown arrival provided some much-needed humor. Although it’s one of the biggest moments of the story, the Tower of Joy reveal actually did little for me. I’d rather it was all just said out in the open instead of this teasing.
Speaking of Jon, I was also a bit underwhelmed by the “King in the North” chant. It’s a carbon copy of Robb’s moment five seasons earlier, and although we have little Lyanna to lead the charge with style, it still left me feeling, “Been there, done that”. The slack here was made up for in Meereen, as Emilia Clarke gave Dany her most subtle and conflicted moments in ages. this conclusion for Daario feels tacked-on, and fine by me, as he was never the most interesting character – plus the converging of all these storylines means that the dead weight should be dropped. Here we get probably my favorite season-ending scene, with Dany and all of her allies packed and ready to ship out across the sea. For perhaps the first time, I wasn’t left wanting more; rather I was left satisfied that what was coming up was going to be good.
The 2nd half is basically one long scene and just
about every segment of it is top-notch. It’s probably the best that the
costumes and set design have ever been and it’s a feast of color for the eyes.
Getting characters like Jaime/Loras, and Brienne/Cersei to pair up and chat was
a nice way to shuffle the cards, and Jack Gleeson gave his most well-rounded
performance of Joffrey ever. Seriously, have we ever seen him laugh
hysterically before? From the moment he brought out the dwarf performers (who,
by the way, all received very detailed costumes which was also appreciated) the
tension slowly built up, as Tyrion and several others grew more and more
offended by his antics. They couldn’t resist making Joff so deliciously evil
one final time when he poured wine onto his uncle’s head and made him pick up the
dropped goblet. Extra kudos for setting up the potential for Sansa to be in on
the plot. And when the other shoe dropped, it was long and painful and pretty
much perfect. In my opinion, the Royal Wedding reception may be the single
greatest sequence in the history of the show, outside of the big battles. It’s
even better than the Red Wedding – but just barely misses out to it on the list
simply because “The Rains of Castamere” had two great sub-plots mixed in with
it, while “The Lion and the Rose” sub-plots were a mixed bag.
#3- The Rains of Castamere (3x09)- This could
easily be placed in the top five for the Red Wedding massacre alone, but let’s
also not forget that some other memorable scenes happen. Bran’s group arrives
at an old mill and finally link up with Jon and the wildlings who are in
pursuit of a horse breeder. This leads to a skirmish and Bran warging into
Summer to help Jon escape (R.I.P. Orell). It’s a pretty exciting semi-reunion,
and gives the impression to the viewers that all of these various storylines
can, and will, converge and link up at certain points. Osha and Rickon part
ways in a tearful goodbye. Over in Yunkai, a plan is made and Jorah, Daario,
and Grey Worm form the world’s greatest tag team as they take out soldiers near
the entrance. The choreography is wonderful and all three get to be badass in
their own fighting style with three different weapons. The city seems to “fall”
relatively quickly but it gives Jorah and our two newest heroes a chance to
show off a little.
The meat and potatoes of the episode is at the Twins, where
Edmure weds Roslin Frey and everything seems nice and positive for Team Stark
before the doors close, the band plays the Lannister theme song, and everybody
dies (R.I.P. Grey Wind). Talisa and her unborn baby are slaughtered brutally,
and Bolton quickly dispatches with Robb, as Catelyn screams in agony and kills
Mrs. Frey before ultimately losing her own life in a very quick and spooky shot
that leads straight to the silent credits. It’s a painful gut punch, made even
more so by Arya’s arrival; and I do wish I could put myself into the mind of a
GoT newbie and watch it for the first time surprised. Even as I was reading, I
knew beforehand that something called the Red Wedding was coming so I have
never truly gotten the full effect. In any case, it’s an expertly-crafted
episode that contains three great climaxes and action scenes without even
anything from King’s Landing or a couple other locations. There’s no fat to
trim. Ultimately, I still think I like two episodes slightly more than “The
Rains of Castamere” but wow, it was fun seeing the world’s reactions to it for
the entire week afterwards.
Another separation from the other two big battles is that
there is a 2nd story occurring. I thought the Siege of Meereen was going to be cut, so it was cool to see it added back in, and it looked amazing (like
everything else in this episode). And who would have picked Yezzan to be one of
the sole survivors of the story? Combine with the alliance of the Greyjoys,
this was the best that Dany’s story has been since they arrived in Meereen. Like
“The Watchers on the Wall”, “Battle of the Bastards” could have suffered from
its narrow focus on a dreary, exhausting dogfight, but the inclusion of a
one-sided triumph of fire and color added some spice to the occasion and
elevated our two protagonists of these side-stories to new heights.
2017 Note: I may end up changing
“Blackwater” out of number one someday. The question is, do I rearrange the entire Top Five as well?
#1- Blackwater (2x09)- Just about all of previous ten episodes on this list had the
death of at least one major character, sometimes more. “Blackwater” is a battle
episode with no notable fatalities except Matthos Seaworth who was barely a character.
But this is still probably my favorite episode of the series. The sole
focus on King’s Landing was absolutely the right decision, and what sets it
apart from “The Watchers on the Wall” is that it features many characters we
actually like watching for extended periods. Tyrion being the big one, of
course. The dread creeps up on us slowly, notably Varys’ ominous line, “I’ve
always hated the bells. They ring for horror.” (And even more ominous in light of season 8.) The Hound finally comes into his
own here (not surprising, since George wrote it) and shows us his prickly side.
Up until now he’s mostly been the strong but silent killer. And his “fuck the
king!” tirade quickly turns soft when he hides out in Sansa’s room to escape
the fire. Stannis raises his stock by leading the charge on the gates, and Davos
gets literally blown off his boat from the wildfire. Now there’s a scene I’ve watched
many times over.
The fighting itself is
well-choreographed and contained a few bloody surprises. By the time we reach
the climax, Cersei has taken Tommen to the throne room and relays a story about
how a “little lion” becomes king and that all of the animals will bow to him.
Some major foreshadowing, no? She is about to poison him but Tywin and the
Tyrells arrive to save the day. One of my favorite shots of the show is the one
seemingly from the injured Tyrion’s perspective of the army coming to save the
day, charging on their horses and blowing horns. It looks almost dream-like. There’s
not much else to say. It was a one-hour episode that felt like a movie and had
me nervous for the characters who, if not outright villains, were certainly
presented as the antagonists to the story at this point. It proved that “Game
of Thrones” could do big battles, and do them well.
---
Now that the hard part is out of
the way, let’s crunch the numbers and see the average placement for each
season:
Season 2- 49.3
Season 1- 48.4
Season 5- 36.9
Season 8- 36
Season 3- 35.4
Season 7- 33.1
Season 6- 29.6
Season 4- 25.7
S4 being at the top is no surprise. It has four of the top
ten. S5 is saved only by a solid three-episode ending streak, but the whole
feels stronger than the sum of its parts. And it’s entirely possible that on
another rewatch I may find more to enjoy about “The Kingsroad” or “Lord Snow”
and less to like about “The Old Gods and the New” or “The Prince of
Winterfell”.
Until next time, keep climbing that ladder.
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