If you’re up to date on Game Of Thrones – and if you’re not, then why are you reading this? – you’ll know that the second episode of Season 8 was the calm before the storm. And that particular storm is going to be an almighty clash between the living and the dead at Winterfell, with a whole host of our heroes waiting for the battle that very well may end them all. With the Night King and his army reaching the Stark family home in the final seconds, the stage is set for an Episode 3 battle sure to leave several characters six feet under, and devoted fans bruised and battered emotionally.
In charge of marshalling the carnage is director Miguel Sapochnik, who previously helmed Season 6’s Battle of the Bastards and Season 5’s Hardhome brawl – all the indication you need that this will be an episode to remember. By the sounds of things, it’s going to be a hard scrabble away from the literal jaws of death, with Sapochnik labelling the Battle of Winterfell as ‘survival horror’.
“There’s suspense and horror and action and drama and we’re not stuck in killing upon killing because then everybody gets desensitised and it doesn’t mean anything,” Sapochnik tells Entertainment Weekly, name-checking siege movie Assault On Precinct 13 as an inspiration. “This is survival horror. That’s the whole episode for me.”
This one’s the first of four final 80-minute episodes – so be sure to prepare yourself in the coming days for an epic showdown. And, you know, for all of your favourite characters to be brutally murdered before your very eyes. See you on the other side.
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