Sophie Turner unofficially revealed this a short time ago, but now it’s legit: HBO has confirmed in a press release that the last six episodes of Game of Thrones won’t air until 2019. Cosmopolitan reports that the author of the original book series, George R.R. Martin, will not return to direct any Season 8 episodes, which hopefully indicates that those books will finally get finished. What with the TV series so close to its end, I’ll need a new book about this world to cope.
Apart from Turner’s surprise hint, we had plenty of other clues that GoT wasn’t returning in 2018. According to Entertainment Weekly, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss revealed last year that they were spending a year and half intricately planning out the series’s last episodes. The timing of the eighth season also benefits HBO’s other blockbuster series Westworld, which returns for a second season later this year.
This final season is due to deliver quite an epic storyline, especially given the fact that episodes are expected to air over the course of eight months. The Hollywood Reporter says that production on new episodes began this past October and that the series reportedly won’t even wrap up filming until this August. There’s also a rumor that some of the episodes will be longer than usual, providing fans with even more thrilling content that is separate from the later books’ events.
While we don’t know when in 2019 GoT will hit the airwaves, it’s safe to say that this long wait will totally be worth it.