‘Game of Thrones’ First Final Season Teaser Shows Stark Reunion

HBO released the first teaser for Game of Thrones‘ final season Sunday night, featuring three of the last members of the Stark family finally reuniting in Winterfell.

The teaser was released alongside the premiere date announcement. The six-episode season will begin on April 14, 2019, so if there is no break during the season, the series finale will air sometime in May.

In the 90-second teaser, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) meet in Winterfell’s underground crypt, where they look at the statues of their ancestors. In the end, the trio see statues of themselves when suddenly their torches are blown out. Jon pulled out his sword to confront something, as frost begins to take over.

Although the new season will only run six episodes, each one is reportedly 90 minutes long, effectively making them six television movies.

“It’s a spectacle. The guys have done six movies. The reaction I had while watching them was, ‘I’m watching a movie,’” HBO CEO Richard Plelper reportedly told guests at a 2019 Golden Globes afterparty.

“They knew the bar was high,” Plepler said of showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. “They’ve exceeded the bar. 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.”

During the Golden Globes, HBO also released a sizzle reel for its 2019 programming, including a very brief scene where Sansa meets Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). “Winterfell is yours,” Sansa said in the scene. Notably, Jon and Daenerys still have no idea they are related.

Game of Thrones is based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire, but has since moved beyond the events in his novels. Martin is working on the next book in the series, and is an executive producer on HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series.

Titled The Long Night, the show is expected to take place as much as 5,000 years before the events in Game of Thrones, meaning there will be no Targaryens or familiar locations in Westeros. The pilot was written by Jane Goldman (X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Woman In Black), who will serve as showrunner. The cast is headlined by Naomi Watts, with Georgie Henley, Toby Regbo, Jamie Campbell Bower, Denise Gough and Josh Whitehouse.

Game of Thrones‘ ensemble cast also includes Lena Heady as Queen Cersei Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Isaac Hempstead Wright as Bran Stark and Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth.

Game of Thrones returns on April 14.