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  ===Critical reception===
  The episode received critical acclaim, being consistently rated as the best of the season at the time of its airing. Review aggregator surveyed 21 reviews of the episode and judged 100% of them to be positive with an average score of 9.2 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "'And Now His Watch is Ended' is an enthralling meditation on betrayal and revenge, bolstered by a mind-blowing surprise for those who would underestimate Daenerys Targarean ." IGN's Matt Fowler rated it with a 9.3/10, highlighting "shocking deaths, brutal double-crosses and a Kingslayer undone made for some mighty fine Thrones". David Simms, writing for The A.V. Club, considered it "an insanely satisfying, shocking episode" and gave it an "A" grade. His colleague Emily VanDerWerff agreed on the score.
  The final scene with Daenerys was unanimously praised. At Cultural Learnings, Myles McNutt found that the scene was one of the series' best sequences and considered it an impressive feat to have achieved a climax so satisfying for the viewer with only a relatively small number of scenes building up to it in the first three episodes. VanDerWerff felt that Emilia Clarke's performance Emmy worthy. HitFix's Alan Sepinwall also praised her performance, remarking that "her big moment comes in a (fictional) foreign language, and the subtitles are barely necessary. That's how good she is."