There are 73 episodes of Game of Thrones, and 68 of them have at least an 8.0 user rating on IMDB. That’s very good. IMDb ratings are an imperfect science, based on the whims of dudes with names like DothrakiLord666, but they are nonetheless valuable in discovering the general consensus among fans for the “best” and “worst” episodes.
For instance, “The Rains of Castamere,” “Hardhome,” “Battle of the Bastards,” and “The Winds of Winter” all have near-perfect 9.9s, and they are, objectively speaking, probably the four best episodes of Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, there are only two episodes below a 6: season eight’s “The Last of the Starks” (5.9) and the final episode of the series, “The Iron Throne” (4.6). To call the reaction to the Thrones finale “polarizing” would be an understatement, although Carice van Houten believes “some people” were/still are being “ungrateful” for questioning David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ vision.
“The fact that some people were so disappointed is because everything before that was so good,” the actress, who played Melisandre, told Insider. “So it feels a bit ungrateful. You’ve had such great times and then yeah, you’re going to be disappointed because it’s not going to go exactly how you anticipated. Of course, you’re going to have all sorts of criticisms and I just thought it was a sign of how good the show was.”
At least now we know who to blame for season eight.