Spoiler alert: This article contains Game of Thrones season final spoilers.
In terms of body count, the final of the fifth season of Game of Thrones surely outdid itself.
A whole army here. Major characters there. There were poisonings. A hanging. Multiple stabbings of multiple people in multiple locations.
There were trails of blood all the way from the sunny coastof Dorne to the wintry Castle Black to the brothels of Braavos and back.
And bloody footprints, too, on the streets of King's Landing as Cersei Lannister, locked up by city's high priest for her sins, confessed and then had to atone by walking the streets naked.
The procession was oddly Fellini-esque, part of an episode that was a spectacularly grim ending for what's been a grand, grim and sometimes stop-start season.
Cersei prepares for her walk of shame.
This series had spent much time getting its pieces into strategic positions on the board while ignoring others. And some big pieces were sacrificed in this gripping fiftieth episode of what's become the biggest television show on the planet.
Some like Stannis Baratheon were the architects of their own demise. Some, like Jon Snow just didn't see it coming but feared it might.
It was an episode which helped make up for any patchy momentum from earlier in the season and should keep fans both fervent and floating counting the months until next year's sixth season, which will fully depart from George R.R. Martin's books.
And come the next series, they also might be wondering: Is there anyone left to care about?
For this season finale certainly cut a big swathe through the headline cast while leaving others cast into the wilderness.
The most shocking death was, of course, Jon Snow.
He got a Caesar-like seeing-to by those under his command in the Night's Watch.
His killing was the show's most devious act, not just on him, but on viewers. The episode's pre-title recap had gone back to season one to remind that Snow's Uncle Benjen Stark had ridden north of the wall never to return. Forsooth! Maybe that flashback meant there was at last some good news for clan Stark!
At the end of the episode, Snow, who had quipped he was "the most hated man in Castle Black" was called outside with news of Benjen's survival.
But that was just a ruse and the Watch, which had objected to his detente with the Wildlings, lined up to stab him each uttering "For the Watch".
Snow bled out in the snow and actor Kit Harrington departed the series after being the nearest thing this show has had to a conventional leading man. He'll be missed. So will his lovely hair.
Jon Snow, RIP.
"Speak up. It can't be worse than mutiny," said Stannis, foreshadowing the events at Castle Black in the show's opening scene when an underling brought him yet more bad news as he prepared for his ill-fated undermanned attack on Winterfell.
His attempted siege of the castle lasted the best part of an afternoon. The uneven battle between the Winterfell-resident Boltons and the depleted Baratheon army was depicted with a cool economy.
Just as it looked like Stannis might survive the rout, up popped Brienne of Tarth to play judge and executioner for the murder of his younger brother, Renly, who she worked for a couple of seasons ago.
Bad timing for Stannis but it sure was good to see Brienne finally get to do something useful this season.
The late Stannis Baratheon.
Also getting handy with the cutlery was Arya Stark. She got another one on her hitlist in the episode's stabbiest scene among some stiff competition. But it appears she's been left sightless as punishment by her monk assassin coach for going it alone.
But up at Winterfell, big sister Sansa Stark finally got away (hooray!) as she and Reek who were last scene jumping from the battlements into the snow below.
Presuming they've survived, that's a leaping off point for the next season, certainly.
Reek and Sansa Stark prepare to jump from the battlements of Winterfell.
Meanwhile, dragon queen Daenerys was stuck in the middle of a mountainous nowhere without a return flight out- Drogon, her faithful flying fire-breather was still recovering from last week's rescue effort. Wandering away from the convalescing superlizard, she attracted the attention of a few hundred locals on horseback.
If it's that tribe of keen equestrians, the Dothraki, whom she left behind a couple of seasons ago, it seems wee Dany's Game has turned a bit snakes and ladders and she's just slid way back down the board.
