Game Of Thrones: Every Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

7. A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms (S8E2)

Written By: Bryan Cogman Directed By: David Nutter

For a moment, all was well. For just one, quiet hour, everything seemed more or less perfect. Before Winterfell went to war, and before the Game of Thrones fandom followed suit, we had A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms - a beautiful, instalment that served as the precursor to the war to come, allowing us to spend some time with the characters we love and the fireside's warm embrace.

Coming from Thrones vets Cogman and Nutter (both of whom are vital to the show's success, and will appear again further up the list), this reads like a love letter to the titular Seven Kingdoms, and the eight years we've spent in them. If it's fan-service, then it's earned; a better way to think of it is as payoff, or a thank you.

It's a rare latter-day episode that just allows people to sit down and talk, and the results are better than any of the huge set-pieces found in Season 8. These are exchanges between characters we know so well and love so much, and it's like spending time with old friends, and a reminder of the show everyone fell for. It's all great, but the obvious highlights include Pod singing Jenny's song, Jon revealing the truth to Dany, and, of course, Jaime knighting Brienne, which is one of the most emotional moments of the entire series.

Poignant, intimate, and yet with a haunting sense of dread underneath it all, this was Thrones back to its very best, and we never wanted to leave.