Game Of Thrones: Every Penultimate Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

Before Blackwater arrived, we never really saw any of the battles on Game of Thrones thanks to budget issues, so the showrunners had to fight to get the budget needed to bring the Battle of Blackwater to life. And boy, did they deliver.

Thanks to Neil Marshall’s astounding direction, Stannis’s attempted siege on King’s Landing made for one incredible hour of television. The sheer scale and spectacle of it was something that few would think could be done on television, and the fact that they pulled it off so brilliantly makes it more impressive.

The characters moments also add depth to the chaos going on arounf them: Bronn singing with the Lannister men, Tyrion and Shae, Cersei and Sansa, and the Hound being notable highlights in that department.

But two scenes stand apart above all others: The wildfire blowing up the ships and Tyrion's speech at the gates. The former is a moment of awe-inspiring spectacle, while the latter was a powerful demonstration of Peter Dinklage's acting as well as the strength of Tyrion's character (before his decline from season 5 onwards).

Game of Thrones was already a great show, but as the first ever battle episode (with many more to come), Blackwater was the hour that turned it from merely an enticing drama into an epic for the ages.