Is “The Winds of Winter” the last episode of Game of Thrones Season 6?
It’s been a long, eventful journey, but tonight, Game of Thrones Season 6 will come to an end with “The Winds of Winter,” the season finale. Best enjoy tonight’s extra-long show, because we won’t have any Game of Thrones for a while afterward.
But how long is a while? There’s no way to know exactly when Game of Thrones Season 7 will come out, but we can make some educated guesses. Each of the earlier seasons has had a premiere date in March or April—the earliest a season has premiered is March 31 (Season 3) and the latest its premiered is April 24 (our own Season 6). We can be pretty sure Season 7 will premiere somewhere in this time frame.
Or can we? After all, Season 7 won’t be like other seasons of the show. While nothing is set in stone, the latest word is that Seasons 7 and 8 won’t be as long as past seasons, all of which lasted for 10 episodes. It sounds like Season 7 may run for seven episodes, and Season 8 for six. That means we could only have 13 more Game of Thrones episodes in our future after “The Winds of Winter.” Horror of horrors!
That also means that Seasons 7 and 8 may start at different times. If HBO wants future years of the show to keep pace with the past seasons and wrap up in June, it may start them a little later, since fewer episodes means fewer weeks on TV. It could also take more time off. The show hasn’t taken off Memorial Day Weekend for a couple of years, but if Seasons 7 and 8 are shortened, having a break week could stretch the seasons out a bit.
Like I said, nothing is set in stone quite yet. We’ll bring you more on Game of Thrones Seasons 7 and 8 as it comes in. Until then, enjoy “The Winds of Winter.”
Spoiler Alert!
Please take care to tag spoilers in your comments by wrapping them with <spoiler></spoiler>. Spoilers in comments are hidden by a gray overlay. To reveal, simply hover or tap on the text!