“The Rains of Castamere” (Season 3, Episode 9)

The most shocking death in the most shocking episode — which is obviously saying a lot — wasn’t that of Robb Stark, nor his pregnant queen Talisa, nor their unborn child, nor House Stark matriarch Catelyn. It was your idea of what this show was even about. Orchestrated by ambitious Northern Roose Bolton and vengeful old shitbird Lord Walder Frey, this almost unbearable slaughter killed off the show’s central story line itself. With the White Walkers and Dany’s dragons still constrained to the margins of the action, the Stark-Lannister war was the series’ spine. It is severed here, in the most dramatic and final fashion imaginable.