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  === Critical reception ===
  "Oathbreaker" was very positively received by critics, citing the Tower of Joy flashback, the final scene with Jon Snow executing his assassins, and the storytelling as strong points for the episode. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, who surveyed 48 reviews of the episode and judged 87% of them to be positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The most solid episode of season six so far, 'Oathbreaker' boasts no shocking reveals or breathless cliffhangers, just strong forward-moving storytelling."
  In a review for IGN, Matt Fowler wrote, "With Jon's final choice in "Oathbreaker," the show seemed to make a huge step forward into the endgame. One where we might see things that have been set up for a long time start to pay off. Not everyone's story is firing on all cylinders at the moment, Tyrion was actively bored while waiting for news this week, but enough is going on in the North and at King's Landing to carry the series right now." Likewise, Emily VanDerWerff of ''Vox'' wrote, ""Oathbreaker" is a crisp, lean, nicely paced episode of ''Game of Thrones''. It's one of those episodes where the characters are mostly being positioned for future episodes, but it's a solidly executed version of that basic template." Alyssa Rosenberg of the ''Washington Post'' wrote that she believed this was "The strongest episode of the sixth season of ''Game of Thrones'' to date." While Erik Kain of ''Forbes'' noted "The season has been full of revelations, but things are still building. That's okay. I love the tension and not knowing exactly what's coming."
  James Hunt of ''What Culture'' wrote, "Another week of table setting, and a very entertaining one at that ... It didn't quite reach the high watermark of last week's instalment, but there was still a lot of great stuff here." Steve Johnson of ''The Baltimore Sun'' noted, "Instead of the heavy action of the season's first two hours, Sunday's Game of Thrones, called "Oathbreaker," was more about putting pieces on the chess board into place." Sarah Larson of ''The New Yorker'' wrote in her review, "Last week, we saw Jon Snow re-enter life; this week, we may have been in proximity to him entering it, the first time, in the usual way." Tim Surette of TV.com called the episode, "Exhilarating".