Winter Arrives in April of 2019

Ned Stark of Winterfell kept telling anyone who would listen; winter is coming. First uttered on the premier episode of Game of Thrones, "Winter is Coming" in April, 2011, his words will ring true eight years later. Winter will arrive for Game of Thrones fans in the form of the final season in April, 2019.

The official announcement came earlier this week. Because I'm such a GoT fan, I thought I'd share, at this point, what we know, what's been confirmed, and a few other interesting tidbits from the show.

First, David Nutter, the director of three of the six Season 8 episodes did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit that's you should take a look at.

• The final season will start sometime in April. While previous seasons have typically been 10 episodes, the previous season (7) was only 7 episodes long and the final season (8) will only have 6 episodes. BUT, they'll all be more than 60 minutes in length.
• While we know some people will die...I mean, this IS GoT we're talking about, we're still waiting to find out if it will be any of our favorites. When the cast got the scripts for the final season, according Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, this was the first time he didn't skip straight to the final script to find out if his character died. Instead he read them in full from beginning to end.
• Scripts were kept under super heavy security. So much so that Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) hadn't seen the scripts prior to a group reading. He couldn't get past the heavy password protection. Plus, the even though the cast got the scripts the day before shooting, they disappeared 24 hours later.
• Season 8 may or may not involve time travel/flashbacks. Clear as mud, I know. During his reddit AMA, David Nutter was asked "Will season 8 involve time travel?", Nutter said, "I’ll be the first to tell you that I have no time travel in my episodes. That’s the only clue I’m going to give you."OK, so since Nutter is only directing three of Season 8's episodes, we know it won't be in his...but that doesn't mean it won't be in any of the other three.

• The season will feature the biggest action sequence the show has ever done. Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), told Entertainment Weekly that the final battle against the White Walkers is "brutal" and will make "the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park." And we'd expect nothing less.

CAN. NOT. WAIT. April of 2019 can't get here fast enough. To whet your appetite, here's the not exactly a trailer HBO put out announcing Season 8's premiere month and hashtag: #ForTheThrone