Game Of Thrones: Every Penultimate Episode Ranked From Worst To Best
How does The Bells stack up?
In just a few short days, the long-awaited conclusion of Game of Thrones will be upon us, and as such we've just witnessed the final penultimate episode of the series.
Every season, the episode that most gets looked forward to is the ninth episode (or sixth and fifth in the cases of seasons 7 and 8, respectively), because those episodes are generally the climaxes of their seasons. They're the ones where something truly epic or insane goes down, whether it be huge battles, the shocking deaths of main characters, or both.
With the penultimate episode of the entire series having aired, and bringing the downfall of King's Landing, what better time to look back at the other penultimate episodes and see how it fares against the Battle of Blackwater, the Battle for the Wall and the Battle of the Bastards?
Of course, spoilers are coming, so if you're not caught up, get to bingeing.
8. Beyond The Wall (S7, E6)
After Season 6, the days of “episode 9s” came to an end, and apparently so did the quality of the show, because seasons 7 and 8 have left a lot to be desired.
Season 7’s penultimate hour, Beyond the Wall, certainly has what you expect from a penultimate episode – a huge battle, Jon Snow fighting White Walkers, Dany and her dragons, etc. – but the episode is horribly weighed down by its willingness to defy logic to rush the story towards its endgame (hey D&D, maybe you should’ve let the final two seasons have their standard 10 episodes each instead of 13 episodes split between them?).
The concept of the episode was already a terrible idea – thanks, Tyrion – and the execution doesn’t help much either. Seriously, how did anyone think it was a good idea to try to capture a wight? The leaps in logic, like Gendry somehow running all the way back to Eastwatch in record time and Daenerys fast traveling to save everyone just in the nick of time are just frustrating to watch.
And if that wasn't bad enough, we still have to watch the fake feud between Sansa and Arya in Winterfell. Lovely.