'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 4 Runtime Length Should Feel Familiar

The Great Battle of Winterfell is over, but a new war is just beginning. As such, the runtime for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 4 remains much longer than most. With only three more episodes left in the entire series, there’s only so much left before it’s all over. Episode 3 will forever remain the longest episode in the show’s history, but Episode 4 isn’t much shorter. In a way, it feels as if the show is returning to its roots with the narrative, but the runtime is almost identical to the Season 7 finale.

HBO publicly confirmed the runtimes for each Season 8 episode in March. We therefore know that Episode 4 will last one hour and 18 minutes, six minutes shorter than Episode 3 and two minutes shorter than the final two episodes this season. Of the back four, it’ll be the shortest by just a tiny bit, but at 78 minutes, it’s still far longer than the average Game of Thrones episode.

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Big spoilers for Episode 3 follow.

Before Episode 3, nobody really knew how the rest of the season would develop. Could the heroes lose the Great Battle of Winterfell? Would the “Great War” end here? Or would it last the rest of the series? Some wild theories wondered if the Night King wouldn’t even show up to Winterfell. But he did. The living suffered heavy losses, including Jorah Mormont and Theon Greyjoy.

With the Night King’s death at Arya Stark’s hand, that means the entirety of the three final episodes will focus on the war against Cersei Lannister. Quite literally, rather than a supernatural war against the undead, the series’ end will instead focus on that titular Game of Thrones. This is fitting, in a way. Despite the series opening on a scene with the White Walkers, the vast majority of the drama has focused on the political aspects of Westeros.

Cersei Lannister, it would seem, was the real villain all along.

Game of Thrones Season 8 airs Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. Eastern.