Game Of Thrones Season 6: All 10 Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

2. The Battle Of The Bastards

Making a ninth episode these days for HBO is such a difficult thing that it looks like they've now stopped it altogether in favour of shorter season runs for the final two seasons. The prospect of outdoing last year's exceptional Hardhome must have been doubly concerning considering how well received it was.

And yet, they pulled it off in some style, double-stuffing far more into the episode than anyone could possibly have predicted.

In a breathless opening, we saw Dany deal with the slavers, Greyworm remind everyone he's a bad-!*$% and more dragon action (always a high-point), and then the battle also somehow allowed space for Theon and Yara to join forces with Dany and Ser Davos to discover Shireen's death.

And there's no escaping the fact that that spectacular battle was probably the best sequence in the entire show's run: it was grand, devastating, brilliantly choreographed and dramatic. Seeing Jon Snow almost die again, Rickon fail to zig zag and Littlefinger save the day were all watershed moments. Plus the climax of Sansa gaining her revenge was almost Shakespearean in its intoxicating pleasure.

Best Moment: Beyond the battle itself, Ramsay getting his comeuppance wins by some distance, though Dany reigning Hell down on Slaver's Bay was definitely a great moment. And on smaller scale, the look on Littlefinger's face when the Knights Of The Vale turned up was just glorious.