The thrill of Game Of Thrones at this point is less in the terror of the unknown and more in the satisfaction of watching things fall together. The war against the White Walkers has been brewing since the very first scene of the show, and the romance between Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen has been predicted and foreshadowed for years. But the show knows where its bread is buttered, and still fits in scenes of sudden narrative shifts—most shockingly, this season, in the carefully laid trap set up by the Stark sisters for the sniveling, Machiavellian Littlefinger.
And boy, did he get his. As played by Aiden Gillen, Littlefinger’s always been majestically precise and smug, with his clipped little phrasings and perfectly manicured goatee. Watching a typically masterful house of cards come crashing down around him was (kisses fingers), and Gillen milked it with some of the best “holy shit” faces ever captured on film.
Nomination affirmed. Sorry, this guy:
You had a good run. Let’s see some more faces:
Here he is moving from maximum snideness to maximum comeuppance in a single GIF:
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner David Benioff said, “We’ve had a lot of death scenes on this show, and this is one of the great ones. Diana Rigg [as Olenna Tyrell] was so true to her character in the end, and Littlefinger was so true to his character—in his own cowardly, horrible way.” If there is any justice in the world, we’ll be able to relive every stunned blink and pathetic exhortation of that death scene for years to come. They’re pretty much all good.