Game of Thrones Won’t Break for Memorial Day Weekend

There’s only one thing worse than the realization on Monday that there’s a whole seven day waiting period until the next episode of Game of Thrones, and that’s that week where you remember that next weekend is Memorial Day in the US, and it’s going to be fourteen days until the next episode of Game of Thrones.

But this year, those dreaded words “In two weeks on Game of Thrones“…. will not be uttered. Due to a combination of the season’s start date and the vagaries of the Gregorian calendar, Game of Thrones will run right through without a break.

There seem to have been a few reasons for this, including the slightly later start to the season—April 12th, instead of April 1st/7th, which were the starting dates of Seasons 3 and 4. Also, both times the show took a two week break it was because Memorial Day fell in a good cliffhanger spot—last year it arrived right before “The Viper and The Mountain,” giving the show plenty of time to hype the fight. The year before that, the break came right before “The Rains of Castamere,” giving book readers an extra week to agonize while Unsullied blissfully wondered why their friends looked so pained. This year, with Memorial Day coming early (the second to last weekend in May instead of the very end), the break would fall right after episode 6, and have the unwanted effect of splitting the season in two. Then of course, there’s the simulcast factor—when you’re airing in 170 countries, just because one has a holiday doesn’t mean everyone should have to wait two weeks.

So rejoice everyone, for there will be no long breaks until the long winter of the off-season begins. And for those Americans who are planning to head out to the beaches over the long weekend, make sure your lodgings have HBO, or at least your laptop/ipad gets free wifi, lest you miss an episode.

• Published on 05/11/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:04 PM CDT