All eight seasons of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best

Season 3

Here where I start splitting hairs. Honestly, depending on my mood, season 3 might jump ahead one or two spots, but at the moment, I’m putting it in the middle of the list, not because it doesn’t contain wonderful episodes of television — it definitely does — but because a few too many of them move a touch too slowly, at least compared to a couple of the other seasons.

High Point: The Red Wedding

Obviously. The Red Wedding is THE iconic Game of Thrones event, the moment that turned the show from a successful fantasy series into a pop cultural phenomenon. Yes, the show fooled audiences when it killed Ned Stark, the hero, back in season 1. But surely it wouldn’t do that again? Ned’s son and wife would eventually get justice for him, right?

Nope. Robb and Catelyn died brutally, darkness reigned, and the world could not stop watching. Congratulations, Game of Thrones: you’re a legend.

Low Point: All the drawn-out where-is-Theon nonsense

Whew, this plot. So season 3 is when the evil bastard Ramsay

Bolton

Snow tortures the proud Theon Greyjoy until he becomes Reek, a sniveling shell of his former self. It pays dividends down the line and Alfie Allen is nothing if not committed, but this leg of Theon’s journey is just boring. We watch Ramsay torture Theon over and over without the context needed to understand why it’s important. To this day, I’m not sure it was.

MVP: Jaime Lannister

Yes, I’ve given Jaime the best-in-show nod for two separate seasons, but I can’t help it that he’s fascinating.

And this really was Jaime’s year. This is the season he goes from being an outright villain to an anti-hero in training, and all it took was getting his hand lobbed off and a confessional soak with Brienne of Tarth. Those are transformational moments for the character, pulled off expertly by Coster-Waldau.

Runner-up: Catelyn Stark

This was a very hard pick. Jaime was always my MVP, but there are a lot of people bubbling up beneath him. Do I choose Daenerys, who gets her plot back on track when she sacks the city of Astapor? How about Margaery Tyrell, who breezes into King’s Landing and immediately does what the Lannisters had struggled to do for the last two seasons: get a handle on Joffrey. Her grandmother Olenna is pretty entertaining, too. Or what about Tywin, who commands every scene he’s in no small thanks to Charles Dance’s towering glower?

In the end I chose Catelyn Stark, who had always held down her part of the story with grace and earthy good sense. And even if her big moments this season took the form of understated monologues, she gets the most emotionally raw moment of the season — and maybe the series — when she lets out a guttural cry of anguish upon seeing her son killed at the Red Wedding. There’s no moment more emblematic of Game of Thrones than that.