Game of Thrones just wrapped up its sixth season on Sunday, but the Season 7 train has already left the station. As a result of the herculean schedule of the HBO drama series, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are working year-round on the show so that by the time a new season airs, they’re already well into writing the scripts for the next season, which begins production at the end of every July. As such, right now the scripts for Season 7 are essentially complete, and now we know who will be at the helm of some of the last Game of Thrones episodes ever.

The Game of Thrones Season 7 directors have been revealed, and they are as follows (per EW):

  • Alan Taylor
  • Jeremy Podeswa
  • Mark Mylod
  • Matt Shakman
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Image via Marvel

Of these four, Shakman is the only newcomer to the series, but he’s a TV veteran best known for helming 39 episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as well as two installments of Fargo Season 1, and a handful of episodes of The Good Wife and You’re the Worst.

Taylor is the most recognizable name of the bunch, and this marks a homecoming of sorts for the director who helmed the final two episodes of Season 1 and four installments of Season 2 before leaving the series to make his feature debut with Marvel's Thor: The Dark World. He subsequently directed Terminator: Genisys to less-than-stellar results, but now he’s back on Thrones to usher in the concluding installments of the series.

Podeswa made his Game of Thrones debut in Season 5, helming two episodes (including the controversial “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”) before returning to the series to helm the first two episodes of Season 6. And Mylod followed a similar path, making his GoT debut in Season 5 with “High Sparrow” and “Sons of the Harpy” before helming Season 6’s Hound episode “The Broken Man” and the wheel-spinning “No One.”

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Image via HBO

What’s curious about this list of Season 7 directors is that it’s four names as opposed to the usual five or six. Benioff and Weiss recently said there are only about 13 episodes left in the series, to be spaced out between Season 7 and Season 8, so it very much looks like we’re in for an abbreviated Season 7 of only seven or eight episodes as opposed to the usual 10.

I’m incredibly curious to see Taylor make his return to the series, and one imagines a homecoming like that signals some big episodes ahead. There’s still one more round of production left, meaning there’s hope for folks like Miguel Sapochnik—the director behind “Hardhome”, “Battle of the Bastards”, and “The Winds of Winter”—or Neil Marshall to potentially return for the eighth and final season. The end is nigh folks.

For more of our Game of Thrones coverage, peruse the links below.

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Image via HBO
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Image via HBO