Season 8 Game of Thrones begin with the series premiere echoing back in 2011. During those happier days, the procession of King Robert Baratheon arrived at a cheerful Winterfell; in April 2019, the army of Queen Daenerys will begin the season by getting a cold welcome from Sansa Stark, who will bend the knee to the Dragon Queen grudgingly after her "brother" Jon Snow has already surrendered the autonomy of the North to the Targaryen.

However, EW's James Hibberd hints that Sansa might be soon won over by Dany, as well as stating the obvious: Team Dany meeting Team Stark will cause a lot of overdue reunions in the premiere: the Hound and Arya, the Hound and Sansa, Sansa and Tyrion, Jon and Bran, and (best of all), Jon and Arya.

“It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” co-executive producer Bryan Cogman says. “It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what George set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”