Game Of Thrones: Every Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

70. The Night Lands (S2E2)

Written By: David Benioff & D.B. Weiss Directed By: Alan Taylor

Game of Thrones starts to expand its scope early on in the second season, and this second episode is mostly concerned with introducing new characters and doing a lot of setup.

Tyrion tricks Janos Slynt into revealing his crimes, and carts him off to the Night's Watch, while Melisandre and Stannis have sex. They're the upsides of the episode.

The downsides are pretty much everything else, which is just checking in with various characters and not offering an awful lot - Theon tries a little incest (oh hey Yara, see you in Season 6 when you actually become a proper character), and Daenerys just lies about in the desert.

69. Lord Snow (S1E3)

Written By: David Benioff & D.B. Weiss Directed By: Brian Kirk

When you start watching Game of Thrones, unless you've read the books, it can be pretty difficult keeping track of who everyone is. As we're just getting to recognise the Starks and the Lannisters, a whole host of other characters are dropped into this one.

Some of them are very important - Littlefinger, Renly, Varys and about eight more - but there's no time to spend with them, as it zips around giving brief introductions. Seeing the Wall for the first time, and Arya beginning her dance lessons, are episode highlights, but there's not much going on here narratively, and the exposition drags it down.