 The episode was well received by critics. Time's reviewer James Poniewozik called "You Win or You Die" the "most thrilling and thematically rich hour to date," AOL TV's Maureen Ryan found it an excellent outing that "saw the stakes raised in satisfying and suspenseful ways," and HitFix's Alan Sepinwall called it a terrific episode and commended how "it turned the spotlight on the characters who are villains in Ned Stark's version of the story."
