Every episode from the final season of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best

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“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” Season 8, Episode 2

The best episode of season 8 is also the quietest and slowest. “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” simply lets characters talk while they wait for the hammer to fall on Winterfell, and scene after scene is a winner. The opening trial of Jaime Lannister is wonderfully textured. Daenerys is angry with Jaime, who refuses to apologize for killing her tyrannical father and who finds support in Brienne of Tarth, whose honor is beyond question. That gets Sansa on Jaime’s side, so Daenerys looks for support from Jon, who’s flustered because he just found out the woman he’s sleeping with is his aunt. There are so many rich currents flowing back and forth in this scene. It’s a pleasure to watch them flow.

I also love the scene in the godswood where Jaime confronts Bran about the vicious act of attempted child murder that kicked off the series, and finds that Bran has evolved beyond caring, which is a new kind of confusing and frightening. Jaime and Tyrion also have a long-overdue talk about what Cersei means to them, and the reunion between Sansa and Theon Greyjoy hits unexpectedly hard.

Scene after scene is a winner. Sansa and Daenerys try and fail to make a connection, Missandei and Grey Worm contemplate their future, and Arya visits with the Hound and then with Gendry, taking a tour of her seven-season journey and making a decision to celebrate what life she has left.

Easily the high point of the episode is the scene around the hearth, where Tyrion, Jaime, Davos, Tormund, Gendry and Brienne gather to chat before the end. Jaime shows how much he’s grown when he makes a knight of quite possibly the only person in Westeros to actually deserve it: Brienne. And as the final hour draws near, Podrick sings a mournful song that reminds everyone of how far they’ve come, and how it could all end tonight. I get chills watching it every time.

The only drawback to this scene is that none of the people involved actually perish in the coming battle, which robs it of a little of its poetic power, but “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is still a warm sad hug of an episode. We love these characters and it was nice to spend quality time with them.

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