Next Game of Thrones Episode Is Show’s Shortest Ever

Screen Rant

By Amanda Hayman

Published Aug 4, 2017

The Game of Thrones episode 'The Spoils of War' will be breaking a slightly smaller record for the HBO series by being the shortest yet.

While Game of Thrones is known for breaking big records, the next episode titled 'The Spoils of War' will be breaking a slightly smaller record for the HBO fantasy/drama, by being the show's shortest episode yet. Season 7 of Thrones is moving at lightning speed with three episodes down and four more to go, and all of the episodes so far have been slightly longer than usual with the premiere, 'Dragonstone', and second episode, 'Stormborn', running at 59 minutes and last week's episode, 'The Queen's Justice', running at 63.

The season's fourth episode, 'The Spoils of War', is going to be a bit different - it's going to be extremely short and earns the title of shortest Game of Thrones episode yet running at a time of 50 minutes. But don't fret Thrones fans, the next episode is going to bounce back to 59 minutes, then building up to a 71-minute penultimate episode and giving us the longest yet with an 81-minute finale.

In a past interview with EW before the season started, showrunner David Benioff confirmed that season 7 is going to have the longest episode ever and the shortest episode ever. He said: “One [episode] will be our longest episode ever — it’s coming in around 90 minutes. Another is going to be our shortest episode at 50 minutes.”

Theon Greyjoy standing on a beach in Game of Thrones

Like most Game of Thrones episodes, we are in the dark about what's going to happen (unless you read the leaks of course) and the official photos also don't reveal much storywise. The episode description doesn't give us much to go on either: "Daenerys fights back. Jaime faces an unexpected situation. Arya comes home."

That doesn't stop us from speculating over the teaser trailer for 'The Spoils of War' though, which shows Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) at her wits end when it comes to Tyrion's (Peter Dinklage) "clever plans" that have been outwitted by Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) and her new ally, the crazed pirate Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk). Dany's solution? Her three massive dragons of course. We get a quick look at the end of the trailer of Dany riding Drogon into battle and, based on the episode description, it sounds like Jaime's (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) "unexpected situation" is going to involve the Mother of Dragon's fire-breathing children intercepting him delivering that gold back to King's Landing.

It's not all about the war between Dany and the Lannisters, we also know there is going to be some drama at Winterfell after catching a glimpse of Catspaw, Littlefinger's (Aidan Gillen) dagger, being pulled out and Brienne swinging her sword at someone. Also, with the news that Arya (Maisie Williams) is coming home, we should suspect to see another sweet Stark reunion between Sansa (Sophie Turner) and the young assassin.