We rank the episodes of Game of Thrones season 7 from worst to best

5. “Stormborn”

Okay, here we go. “Stormborn” is pretty solid wall to wall — there are nits to pick, but nothing damning.

The episode features a few fun tête-à-têtes on Dragonstone, where Daenerys gets face time with characters like Varys, Melisandre, and Lady Olenna Tyrell. This is our introduction to the new Daenerys, a woman who’s taken the lessons she’s learned on Essos and bent them to the task of conquering Westeros. She’s tough — her threat to burn Varys alive if he betrays her is pretty clear-cut — but she still has her good sense, and is smart enough to lean on Tyrion when it comes to winning other houses over to her side…for however long that lasts.

Also, it’s a kick to see so many disparate characters coming together for a strategy session. Worlds shrinking and all that.

There’s strategizing happening all over the place. At Winterfell, Jon decides to head south and leaves Sansa in charge, which is fine…except that he makes the announcement to a roomful of lords without telling Sansa beforehand, which results in all kinds of acrimony. And he does this after pretty much the exact same thing happened the week before. Basically, we’re left with two options: either Jon and Sansa are dumber than we thought, or the writers gave them an attack of the stupids for the sake of drama. The scenes still work, but the contrivance rankles.

Several of the scenes in “Stormborn” have flashes of that. Cersei rallies several lords to her side, which is good…but would she have been able to flip Randyll Tarly that easily? Sam shears Jorah of his greyscale, which is admirable (and memorably gross)…but would he have been able to learn that skill that quickly?

I know I’m nitpicking here; these things stretch rather than break suspension of disbelief. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what could have been if these storylines had a little more room to breathe.

But “Stormborn” delivers where it matters, which is why it’s hard to sweat the smaller stuff. Do we wonder how, towards the end of the hour, Euron Greyjoy is able to ambush his niece Yara’s fleet without her knowing? Sure. But the resulting battle at sea is high-octane stuff, and the final moment — where Theon, surrounded by devastation, regresses back to Reek and abandons his sister — is note-perfect.

The best scenes of the episode belong to Arya. Her reunion with Hot Pit is sweet and funny and sad, while her reunion with Nymeria the direwolf is damn-near heartbreaking. After having her cooped up in the House of Black and White for a couple years, it was liberating to have her back in the mix in Westeros.