Viewers tuning in to watch the season three premiere of HBO’s True Detective were the first to see a new teaser trailer for season eight of Game of Thrones. The minute and a half teaser features Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) reunited in the family’s family crypt at Winterfell. They walk the darkened corridor until it ends and they come face-to-face with statues of themselves.
As three of the four remaining Stark children walk through the crypt, whispers of their deceased family members can be heard. They pass Lyanna Stark’s tomb and we hear, “You have to protect him,” the instruction she gave her brother Ned in her final moments after delivering Jon (fathered by Rhaegar Targaryen).
Catelyn Stark is heard saying, “All this horror that has come to my family, it’s all because I couldn’t love a motherless child.”
Ned Stark is next and he confirms Stark blood flows through Jon’s veins. “You are a Stark. You might not have my name, but you have my blood.”
After realizing their own images are carved in stone, Jon, Sansa, and Arya feel the chill seeping through the crypt. A fog rolls in and Jon and Arya draw their swords to face an unseen enemy.
The teaser trailer directed by David Nutter (Emmy winner for the season five finale, “Mother’s Mercy”) ends with the reveal of the final season’s premiere date. Season eight will arrive on Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 9pm ET/PT. According to HBO, the new season will consist of just six episodes. Fortunately, each episode will be super-sized.
Discussing season eight with Variety, HBO CEO Richard Pepler described each episode as a movie. “I’ve watched them twice without any CGI and I’m in awe. Everybody’s in for an extraordinary treat of storytelling and of magical, magical production,” said Pepler.
Although Game of Thrones is coming to an end, fans can look forward to multiple prequels. The first, The Long Night, takes place thousands of years before the events in Game of Thrones.
Per HBO’s website: “The series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure: It’s not the story we think we know.”
The Long Night cast is led by Naomi Watts (Twin Peaks) and Josh Whitehouse (Poldark). The series also features Naomi Ackie (Lady Macbeth), Denise Gough (Monday), Jamie Campbell Bower (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Mortal Instruments), Sheila Atim (Harlots), Ivanno Jeremiah (Humans), Georgie Henley (The Chronicles of Narnia films), Alex Sharp (How to Talk to Girls at Parties) and Toby Regbo (The Last Kingdom, Reign).
