Game Of Thrones: First Promo For Season 7’s Penultimate Episode Brings Jon Closer To The Night King

“Hardhome” and “The Battle of the Bastards” are hard acts to follow, but if this first-look promo for the penultimate instalment of Game of Thrones season 7 is any indication, “Death Is the Enemy” will be remembered as one of the show’s greats, even if it doesn’t feature quite as much action as its peers.

Nipping at the heels of Sunday’s “Eastwatch,” which featured a smattering of crucial character moments in quick succession, “Death is the Enemy” has been slated for a premiere on August 20th, and it’ll stretch over the one-hour mark. Ever since it was announced that the seventh season of Thrones would span a total of seven episodes – down from the usual allotment of 10 – showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss vowed to keep the cameras rolling a little longer to accommodate all of the many storylines in play.

And over the next fortnight, Game of Thrones will deliver on that promise with a 70-minute instalment (“Death Is the Enemy”) and the soon-to-be-revealed finale, which will set a record of its own by clocking in at a bum-numbing 83 minutes. Best get comfortable, folks, for Winter has arrived at long last.

With the Night King advancing on the Wall – Eastwatch, to be specific – Jon Snow was last seen leading a ragtag group into the icy north in the hope of capturing a living (dead?) Wight to show to both Cersei and Dany. Flanked by Tormund, Jorah, Gendry, Thoros, the Hound, and Beric Dondarrion – the Suicide Squad of Westeros, if you will – the newly-appointed King of the North will be placed front and center in season 7’s penultimate episode. And we can hardly wait.

“Death is the enemy. The first enemy and the last. The enemy always wins. And we still need to fight it.” Game of Thrones season 7 will air its penultimate episode on Sunday, August 20th. One week later, HBO’s fantasy flagship will reach its climax – for now, at least – with a super-sized instalment.

Further afield, the eighth season is supposedly still on course for a 2018 release – word is that HBO may delay Thrones‘ last hurray into 2019 – and though it’ll only stretch for six episodes in total, there has been talk of feature-length instalments to ensure GOT gets the send-off it deserves.