All 73 episodes of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best
7. “The Children,” Season 4, Episode 10
Our highest rated season finale comes from the fourth season. This isn’t just a season finale—it’s the finale for the first half of the series. Many of the plots and storylines that had been building over the past four seasons come to a head here, and characters shoot off in new and unexpected directions.
The threat of Mance Rayder’s wildling army is effectively ended by the timely arrival of Stannis Baratheon, who rides roughshod all over the wildlings. Just like that, the threat that had loomed over the Wall for almost four seasons is smashed. There’s something way worse on the way, though.
Bran arrives at the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven, and is rescued by the oldest looking kid you’ve ever seen. Magic was previously confined mainly to Dany’s dragons and Melisandre’s weird stuff, but Bran’s tutelage under the Three Eyed Raven promises to open up all kinds of new possibilities.
Down in the Vale, Brienne succeeds in locating Arya, only to run afoul of the Hound, who defends Arya with the ferocity of a father. Brienne and the Hound’s fight is brutal, and both take a beating. Afterwards, Arya and the Hound have a reckoning as the later lies mortally wounded. Throughout their wacky road trip, the two appeared to bond. But even after everything they’ve been through, Arya is unable to forget that the Hound murdered her friend Mycah in Season 1. Despite the Hound’s pleas for a quick death, Arya leaves Clegane to die slowly, as she boards a ship to Braavos. Valar Morghulis.
As often is the case, the meat of the episode occurs down in King’s Landing. House Lannister appears on the brink of exploding, after Cersei threatens to tell the world about her relationship with Jamie, startling the implacable Tywin for perhaps the first time in the series. Tywin usually maintains his cool, but the thought of his perfect children having a relationship together shocks even him.
There are a handful of scenes on Game of Thrones that literally cause you to stop breathing for a moment, and one of those comes in the closing minutes of this episode. After Jaime and Varys spring Tyrion from his cell, Tyrion is unable to resist the temptation to confront his father before fleeing the capital, and so he sneaks into Tywin’s chambers.
Thinking he may find his father in bed, Tyrion instead finds Shae, his former girlfriend. I am Jack’s utter sense of betrayal.
Peter Dinklage’s face runs from rage to pain to shock in a matter of seconds, but ultimately rage wins out. It might sound like circular logic, but finding Shae in his father’s bad is made worse because of the terrible relationship Tyrion and Tywin have always had. Tyrion might have harbored some hope that he could eventually win Tywin’s approval, but this hammers home the fact that Tywin has never loved and will never love his oldest son.
Tyrion chokes Shae to death, simultaneously angry and sad. And then it’s down the hall to confront his father in the bathroom. For the second time in the episode, Tywin is caught off guard by one of his children. After dismissing Shae as a whore one too many times, Tyrion shoots his father with a crossbow, and after all Tywin’s preaching about family and legacy, the smallest Lannister kills the biggest one.