Winter Has Come
Season 8, the conclusion of Game of Thrones, is fast approaching, and at this point nothing seems predictable. The show is best known for brutally killing off characters, even the ones fans love, and its final chapter is likely to elevate the feeling that nobody is safe to all-new levels. It's also a time of war, with the rivalries that have marked all seven seasons finally coming to a head. Oh, and the White Walkers have shown up with their army of the dead, and they're trying to wipe out all life in Westeros. So there's a lot going on.
HBO is notorious for its attempts to stop secrets from leaking out onto the internet, although it's not always successful (remember when one whole episode got out early in Season 7?). Things have been buttoned up pretty tight during production of Game of Thrones' final season, but we do know a few details about what to expect. And there are plenty of theories from fans who've poured over every frame of the show and every word of A Song of Ice and Fire, the book series by George R. R. Martin on which the show is based.
Here's everything we know for sure about Game of Thrones Season 8, including when it'll hit HBO, and what dangling plot threads remain to be resolved.
We Know Its Release Window
Thanks to a teaser trailer for Season 8 that dropped in November, we know for sure that Game of Thrones is coming back in April 2019. At this point, production on the final season is wrapped, and all that's left to do is wait.
It'll Have Fewer Episodes Than Other Seasons
Season 8 is shorter than past seasons in terms of its number of episodes--there will only be six in total. However, it will be a longer season in terms of its overall length. Each of the episodes will be longer than the usual runtime of approximately an hour.
Some Of The Show's Best Directors Are Returning
We know showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, as well as returning directors David Nutter and Miguel Sapochnik, are splitting the duties of directing the final six episodes. That's very good news. Weiss and Benioff have obviously been instrumental to the vision of Game of Thrones since the beginning, but Nutter and Sapochnik have been responsible for helping to bring some of the show's best moments to life. Sapochnik helmed episodes like Battle of the Bastards and Hardhome, and he's apparently in charge of a huge battle scene in Season 8. Nutter has directed some intense episodes as well, including The Rains of Castamere--which contained the Red Wedding. He's taking on three of the final six episodes.
Season 8 Starts The Way Season 1 Did
Back in November, Entertainment Weekly had a big cover story about Season 8. It wasn't too heavy on specific plot details, but it did reveal one in particular: Expect the opening of Season 8 to feel a lot like the opening of Season 1. Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is marching to Winterfell with her forces, where she and Jon Snow (Kit Harington) mean to put up a defense against the White Walkers. It'll echo the fateful moment from the show's first episode, when King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) marched to Winterfell to meet with Eddard Stark (Sean Bean), starting a series of events that would spell disaster for Westeros.
There Will Be An Epic Stark-Lannister Showdown
The Targaryens have returned to Westeros, the North is united against the White Walkers, and the politics are still raging, even as the worst winter in generations descends on the country. This is Game of Thrones, so there will be alliances, betrayals, and deaths--but if a recent teaser is any indication, we can bank on at least one big rivalry coming to its final conclusion. The struggle between the Starks and the Lannisters has been bubbling at various levels of murderous boil since the very first episode of the show. Season 7 suggested Cersei has a plan to wreck everyone's life while pretending to back them against the White Walkers, and both Sansa and Arya have serious scores to settle with her.
Season 8 Has A Huge, Ambitious Battle
Fighting is going to happen at Winterfell, and it's going to involve White Walkers. That's easy enough to figure out just from having watched the show, but the EW feature about the battle revealed some ancillary material, too--it'll be the biggest battle the show has ever done. According to Peter Dinklage, it makes the enormous Battle of the Bastards in Season 6 "look like a theme park." The hugely ambitious sequence took 55 nights to shoot, almost double The Battle Of The Bastards' 25.
It'll Have An Intense Ending
Finishing the show has been pretty emotional for the cast, and they've revealed that what Game of Thrones has in store is pretty intense. Kit Harington cried during the table read, according to the EW story. Clarke told Vanity Fair the ending "f--ed me up." Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, told TheWrap that all the pieces fit together in the end, but even he found some of the outcomes surprising. And Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister, trolled the world when he said to Vulture that he thought Tyrion got a "very good conclusion"--and then suggested that that conclusion may potentially be Tyrion's death.
A Fan-Favorite Character Is Returning
No, it's not Lady Stoneheart (as far as we know). The show's visual effects supervisor, Joe Bauer, told the Huffington Post that Jon Snow's direwolf, Ghost, will return for the show's final season. He hasn't been around much because, apparently, direwolves have been very hard on the show's VFX budget.
It's The End, But It's Not Over
While the story of the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens is ending in Season 8 of Game Of Thrones, it's not the end for Westeros. At least one prequel series about the world of the show is coming and will star Naomi Watts and Joshua Whitehouse, with casting ongoing.
Martin leaked on his blog that the show may be called The Long Night (he later retracted that mistaken reveal), and we know it takes place in the Age of Heroes, thousands of years before Game of Thrones, when great houses like the Starks and Lannisters were first founded. The title from Martin also suggests the show will cover the first war with the White Walkers, before the building of the Wall.
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