‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Won’t Premiere Until 2019

Sophie Turner broke the bad news, and revealed what’s in store for Sansa Stark.

Winter is coming way later than we thought. 

The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones will air in 2019, some two years after the conclusion of the penultimate Season 7.

The bad news for hardcore Thrones fans was probably meant to be kept top-secret, but star Sophie Turner dropped the ball in a recent interview with Variety. “Game of Thrones comes out in 2019,” she said.

The actress also revealed some of the plot when asked what her character Sansa Stark will be up to come 2019.

“This season, there’s a new threat, and all of a sudden she finds herself somewhat back in the deep end. And without Littlefinger, it’s a test for her of whether she can get through it,” Turner said. 

“This season is more a passionate fight for her than a political, manipulative kind of fight.”

Season 8 is currently filming and will continue into 2018. Entertainment Weekly speculated why it’s taking so damn long.

“The 2019 date arguably benefits HBO a couple ways. Since Game of Thrones season 7 aired last summer, the show is competing in the 2018 Emmy awards, which air next fall — which allows HBO to focus GoT publicity efforts on its Emmy campaign next year rather than promoting a new season at the same time. Also, when you’re a subscription-based network, keeping the highest-rated show in your history around for a bit longer never hurts either. 

But ultimately the reason for the pushback seems to stem from GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss simply looking to take their time and make the final season as epic as possible. The Emmy-winning duo explained previously they wanted to spend a year and a half making the fantasy show’s climactic round.”

We can all breathe easy that the great care is being put into the final season. This is backed up by star Jason Momoa, who recently boasted that the climax would be “the greatest thing that’s ever aired on TV” and that it will “fuck up a lot of people” after visiting the set in Belfast.

2019 couldn’t get here any sooner.