As we inch closer and closer to the final season of Game of Thrones, the meatier details about season 8 are finally being shared. In fact, the biggest spoiler — and potentially the only released by HBO itself — is here. We're talking about the episode lengths.
As unsexy as "episode lengths of Game of Thrones" may sound, these minutes and hours reveal a ton about what to expect come April 14 and beyond. Okay, maybe not a ton, but more than those pictures of everyone staring at the sky did.
Here are the run times (each episode airs Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. E.T.):
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April 14 (premiere): 54 minutes.
April 21 (episode 2): 58 minutes.
April 28 (episode 3): 1 hour and 22 minutes.
May 5 (episode 4): 1 hour and 18 minutes.
May 12 (episode 5): 1 hour and 20 minutes.
May 19 (episode 6, the series finale): 1 hour and 20 minutes.
What do these tell us? Feast your eyes on episode 3, airing April 28. I'd asterisk that one. Not only is the absolute longest of the bunch by two minutes, it is believed to be the infamous Battle Of Winterfell episode. Vladimír Furdík, who plays the Night King, suggested as much during a fan conversation in in December 2018. "In the third episode of the last season, there is a battle that the creators intended to be a historic moment in television,” Furdík said, according to The Wrap.
If Furdík was telling the truth, it only makes sense for Thrones to give the still-unnamed third episode some extra attention. So, get ready to stew in whatever tragedies befall Westeros over three extremely long episodes of television.