game of thrones

Game of Thrones season 7 is slated to begin in just over a month on July 16th. The seventh and penultimate season of the HBO series is only going to be seven episodes compared to ten in seasons past, but three of those episodes will set a record.

One of the episodes this season will break a major record for Game of Thrones: the shortest episode in series history. Wow. Incredible.

But the bigger record being broken by Thrones? The final two episodes of the season will be the two longest episodes of the series, according to Entertainment Weekly. Now that’s the incredible.

EW has become the main hub for Game of Thrones news when HBO wants it to be news in a way because EW always gets exclusive interviews with showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff. That was the case with the big news that GOT will have three record-breaking episodes this upcoming season.

“We have two episodes over 60 minutes this year,” showrunner Dan Weiss told EW. 

“One will be our longest episode ever — it’s coming in around 90 minutes,” added showrunner David Benioff. “Another is going to be our shortest episode at 50 minutes.”

Watchers on the Wall is a major Game of Thrones blog that broke the news about the episode lengths before EW. How did they find out the episode lengths for the upcoming season? The Game of Thrones season 7 page on HBO’s website.

Here are the lengths for each episode this season:

Episode 1: 59 min

Episode 2: 59 min

Episode 3: 63 min

Episode 4: 50 min

Episode 5: 59 min

Episode 6: 71 min

Episode 7: 81 min

The previous record for shortest episode was 51 a couple of times according to EW and the longest episode had been the season 6 finale “The Winds of Winter,” which was 69 minutes.

With the two final episodes clocking in at record-breaking lengths, it creates the possibility that Season 7 could leave fans with major cliff hangers. Season 7 is scheduled to be the second to last season, so it would only make sense for viewers to be left on the edge of their seats.

Another thing for fans of the show to keep in mind when looking at these run times is there is no episode 9. During the first six seasons of Thrones there has always been a major plot development in episode 9 (SPOILERS if you’ve somehow not watched it yet):

Season 1 – Ned Stark’s beheading

Season 2 – Battle of Blackwater

Season 3 – Red Wedding

Season 4 – Battle at the Wall

Season 5 – Burning of Shireen Baratheon, Jon Snow and the Wildlings return from Hardhome, Dany flies away on Drogon after the incident at Daznak’s Pit.

Season 6 – Battle of Meereen and Battle of the Bastards

So what does this mean for season 7? In the past episode 9 has been the second to last episode, episode 6 could be big during season 7. First, it’s almost as long as the finale, and second, it’ll need to set up 81 minutes worth of finale drama.

Game of Thrones season 7 begins on July 16th.

[Entertainment Weekly] [Watchers On The Wall]

About David Lauterbach

David is a writer for The Comeback. He enjoyed two Men's Basketball Final Four trips for Syracuse before graduating in 2016. If The Office or Game of Thrones is on TV, David will be watching.