It’s a real war that fans of breaking Bad and those of the universe of Game of Thronescrystallized around a perfect rating on IMDb (Internet Movie Database), the reference database for cinema and television series. It all starts with the broadcast of the series A Knight of the Seven KingdomsA spin-off from HBO Max’s medieval saga, set a century before the events of the original series.
The fifth episode, entitled “In the Name of the Mother” and broadcast on February 15, 2026, received – like all the previous ones – a very enthusiastic critical reception. For a few hours, the episode even reached the maximum rating of 10/10 on IMDb, an exceptional performance on the participatory platform. For more than a decade, only “Ozymandias” (“Alone in the World” in French), a key episode of the fifth and final season of breaking Badheld this symbolic score.
The reaction was not long in coming, indicates the American magazine Fast Company. According to several posts published on the X networks and Reddit, fans of the series created by Vince Gilligan began to rate the “usurping” series negatively, in order to lower the rating of the new episode. This practice, the “review bombing”consists of artificially influencing the perception of a work through coordinated massive evaluations. Some Internet users openly claim their approach and, quickly, the 10/10 is no longer.
A thirteen-year-old record erased
The response from fans Game of Thrones don’t delay either. On the IMDb page for the episode “Ozymandias”, numerous comments appear in turn, taking up emblematic references from the medieval fantasy saga such as “The North remembers” (“The North remembers”) or “Winter Came for Breaking Bad” (“Winter has come to breaking Bad“). The episode’s historical score briefly drops to 9.9 after maintaining perfection for almost thirteen years.
The “Ozymandias” episode of ‘BREAKING BAD’ has dropped to a 9.9 on IMDb.
It held a 10/10 rating on the platform for almost 13 years. pic.twitter.com/9zLtW00a01— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 20, 2026
This good-natured war, however, highlights the limits of open rating systems and more generally of the participatory internet, especially in a polarized conflict like this. These digital places have become areas of expression of identity for fandoms (fan communities). Like other participatory platforms, IMDb relies on the good faith contribution of its users, which makes it vulnerable to coordinated campaigns, when the issue becomes symbolic rather than critical.
Beyond the anecdote, this confrontation illustrates the evolution of fan cultures in the age of social networks. Communities no longer just comment on works: they now seek to influence their digital legacy and their place in the history of pop culture. As of this writing, the episodes “Ozymandias” and “In the Name of the Mother” both have an equivalent rating of 9.5/10 on IMDb.
