* This story contains spoilers. Do not read it if you are not up-to-date with Game of Thrones.
A Game of Thrones director says this week's shock episode was one of the "smallest" of the season and claims "the episode to end all episodes" is coming.
Alex Graves directed Monday night's The Lion and the Rose episode, a grippingly tense hour of television which saw the excruciating death by poison of evil King Joffrey at an event dubbed "The Purple Wedding".
While the death of a main character in Thrones is nothing new, the death of the much-hated Joffrey was a moment celebrated by fans of the show who lit up Twitter with joy.
But Graves - who directed four out of this season's 10 Thrones episodes - told Deadline.com that it was the "smallest" episode he'd worked on and promised "massive" things were coming.
"I think that this season is going to be the most exciting season that they (executive producers David Benioff and DB Weiss) have ever done," Graves said.
"I will say that as somebody who directed four out of the 10 episodes this year, episode two is the smallest episode I directed. It's hard to talk more about it without starting to give away things because the spoilers and the secrets in this season are many and are big."
Graves also promised that the season would end with an explosive finale.
"Episode 10 of the season is, you know, as David and Dan will tell you, it's the first true finale they've ever done and it's really the episode to end all episodes.
"It's the largest episode they've ever made."
Game of Thrones screens on Sky TV's Soho channel on Monday nights at 8.30pm.
Read more: Thoughts on Thrones: Nice day for a wedding
- nzherald.co.nz