All 73 episodes of Game of Thrones, ranked worst to best

69. “Kill the Boy,” Season 5 Episode 5

Here’s another Season 5 episode with a few exciting moments, but which overall serves as a bridge to the very busy end of the season. We check in with a lot of players. Brienne and Podrick set up shop outside Winterfell and got a message to the soon-to-be Mrs. Ramsay Bolton, Daenerys fries a Meereenese nobleman in the wake of Ser Barristan’s Selmy’s death (and then decides to marry a different one in an attempt to quiet the lot), and Stannis finally pulls up stakes at the Wall, but not before getting in a dig at the Night’s Watchman’s poor grammar. The show is inching toward incident.

Speaking of Sansa, inside Winterfell she encounters Theon/Reek for the first time, a startling encounter for both parties. Also important is Jon and Tormund forming an alliance to go north of the Wall to save as many wildlings as they can, something Jon realizes is vital with winter on the way. The Wall will need to be reinforced with new soldiers, and it won’t do to give the White Walkers more “meat for their army.”

And in perhaps the best part of the episode, Tyrion and Jorah continue their trek to Meereen by passing through the ruins of ancient Valyria. Distracted by a Drogon flyby, Tyrion and Jorah are waylaid by a group of stone men, lepers that have had Greyscale cover their entire bodies. In the process of fighting them off, and after a long Sopranos-esque fade to black, we discover that Jorah has become infected with Greyscale himself. Went to Valyria and all I got was this lousy incurable disease.

68. “The Night Lands,” Season 2, Episode 2

Every episode of Game of Thrones can’t feature someone we know and love being stabbed in the back, and even though The Night Lands has a whole lot going on, unfortunately none of it is very exciting. Season 2 is fairly challenging for new show-watchers to get through, as a bevy of new characters are introduced. This episode introduces us to the happy-go-lucky Greyjoys. After a reunion with his sister Yara that would have made the Lannister twins proud, Theon gets verbally and literally undressed by his father Balon, lord of the Iron Islands.

Samwell Tarly meets his future girlfriend, Crasters daughter wife, Gilly, asking Jon if it’d be alright to take Gilly and her soon-to-be-born child North as the Night’s Watch wages war on the wildlings. Only Sam would fall in love with the first girl to talk to him, and then ask if he could bring her with them into battle.

We also are introduced to Salladhor Saan, a pirate who joins Stannis’ service in return for the opportunity to seduce Cersei. Apparently, he is very persuasive. The fans are amused, though Davos’ religiously minded son is not.

And fulfilling her contractual obligation to appear naked once per episode, Melisandre tempts King Stannis into producing the son he has always craved, but perhaps not exactly the one he wanted.

And oh yeah, Dany walks around the desert some more after being abandoned by Drogo’s khalasar at the end of Season 1.

67. “The Wars to Come,” Season 5 Episode 1

The fifth season of Game of Thrones began with a yawn as we caught up with all our favorite families in The Wars to Come. Although it left out a key bit from the books, we see a young Cersei receive a prophecy about a younger, more beautiful queen who will cast her down in the show’s first-ever flashback. Margery? Daenerys? Time will tell.

After Tywin’s funeral, Cersei speaks with the freshly devout Lancel Lannister, who has converted to a fanatical sect of the Faith of the Seven: the Sparrows. This is the same Lancel who shared Cersei’s bed while Jamie was held captive by the Starks, and the same Lancel who helped Cersei off King Robert in Season 1. If Cersei was half as smart as she thinks she is, she’d recognize Lancel as a threat, but she simply laughs him off.

Across the Narrow Sea, Tyrion finally arrives in Pentos, and is let out of the shipping crate he apparently spent the whole journey in. Varys convinces the ever-drunk Tyrion to meet Daenerys Targaryen, and to support her claim to the Iron Throne. Tyrion takes his drunkenness to a whole other level and shames alcoholics everywhere when he immediately pours himself a fresh cup of wine after vomiting up the first cup. Also, has anyone noticed how there is always a flagon of wine, complete with cups, in every room of every building in the world of Game of Thrones?

In the episode’s best scene, Jon tries to convince Mance Rayder to bend the knee to Stannis Baratheon, the man with the greatest grammar in all of Westeros. He’s unsuccessful, but the show finally lets Ciarán Hinds shine as the doomed Mance. Stannis decides to burn the king beyond the Wall to death, but Snow mercifully shoots Mance with an arrow in the middle of the proceedings. Our first major death of the season!