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  ===Critical response===
  "The Wolf and the Lion" was met with highly positive reception by the critics of the show, and many regarded it as the best episode yet. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 21 reviews of the episode and judged 95% of them to be positive with an average score of 9.3 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With "The Wolf and the Lion," Game of Thrones tightens its grip while ratcheting up the tension through powerful writing, terrific acting, and an evocative, immersive setting." Maureen Ryan of AOL TV gave it a 90 out of 100, noting the exceptional work by the cast and excellent writing. Both Emily VanDerWerff and David Sims, from the A.V. Club, rated the episode an "A."
  Reviewers agreed that after four episodes presenting the setting and introducing the main characters, the story started to move forward faster and raise the stakes. David Sims considered it "the point at which all of the scheming and conversing and table-setting began to lumber forward and gain some real momentum." James Poniewozik wrote for ''Time'' that the episode "began to let the swords do the talking," and "while there were some very significant scenes of talk, the dialogue went beyond Westeros History 101 to take the story in some very interesting directions." IGN's Matt Fowler wrote that this was "the best episode of the series so far" even though fan-favorite characters like Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen did not appear.
  Maureen Ryan believed that one of the reasons the episode worked so well was because it left out the storylines with the Night's Watch and the Dothraki and focused in a single location. VanDerWerff agreed, and added that with each episode the writers got bolder in the sense that they added new scenes not included in the book to round out the source material.
  Other aspects of the show that were highlighted by the critics were the effectiveness of the action scenes and the visuals, especially the views of the Eyrie and its sky cells, and the dragon skulls.