The cast and crew say this in some form every year: this season of HBO's Game of Thrones will be the best. So, take whatever showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss say with however many grains of salt you’d like. That said, these gentlemen are extremely proud of the work they’ve done, which is an exciting feeling from a fan perspective.

Speaking with EW about what aspect of the process was the most exciting, Benioff said:

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The whole season. Dan and I talk about this a lot. This is not us trying to hype it. Usually there’s an episode or two we’re kind of nervous about, that didn’t turn out as well as we hoped. This season there is not a weak episode. We had great directors who knew what they were doing, paired with excellent [directors of photography]. We thought at the script stage it might be our strongest season. Then the episodes came in better than we hoped. We’re always reluctant to say it’s ‘the best season yet’ because so much of that is in the eyes of the beholder. And Dan and I are so close to it that it’s impossible to be unbiased. But that’s my sense – watching them all together now, this is the best one we’ve done. It’s also the one I’m proudest of, because it was the hardest.


Among those directing episodes this time around are Jeremy Podeswa (episodes 1 and 2), Daniel Sckheim (episodes 3 and 4), Jack Bender (episodes 5 and 6), Mark Mylod (episodes 7 and 8), and Miguel Sapochnik (episodes 9 and 10). Thrones fans might remember Podeswa helmed “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” and “Kill the Boy” from season 5, Mylod helmed “High Sparrow” and “Sons of the Harpy,” and Sapochnik was the man behind “Hardhome.”

Season 6 will pick up after the jaw-dropping finale that left many fans what would happen with Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Theon (Alfie Allen), Arya (Maisie Williams), Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), and, well, pretty much everyone. Most characters found themselves in sticky predicaments that they may or may not walk away from. At the very least, we know Harington filmed scenes. Whether or not that means they were of his character in a healthy state is another matter.

Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres on HBO on April 24th.

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