“People die” in “The Winds of Winter”—cast and crew preview the season finale

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with a bunch of cast and crew members from Game of Thrones to see if they would spill the beans about what’s going to happen in “The Winds of Winter,” the show’s sixth season finale. Naturally, most of them were tight-lipped, but we still got some soundbites.

• Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane): “Breathtaking, amazing, brilliant.”
• Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy): “Thrilling, epic and overwhelming.”
• Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon): “Worth waiting for.”
• Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H’Ghar): “The end is near.”

Episode director Miguel Sapochnik gave an especially chilling soundbite: “People die.” We could have guessed that, but it still makes us nervous.

Predictably, Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) gave the funniest response. What will “The Winds of Winter” be like, Mr. Cunningham?

"Redacted, redacted and redacted."

Liam Cunningham is the best. But it wasn’t all smartassery. While he took care to be vague about it, Cunningham expanded on what we can expect from this Sunday’s finale.

"For a couple of seasons, we’ve built up to episode nine. We have this huge episode nine, and then going into episode 10, we see where we are for the season, and we start setting up the next season. It’s going to be a little bit different this time. You can certainly say there are going to be some surprises in the next episode."

He’s right that Episode 9 is usually the big one and that Episode 10 generally resets the stage*. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t provide details on how the tenth episode of Season 6 differs, expect to say that “[i]t’s not a recap. There are very big events that are going to happen.” By way of parting, he left us one final soundbite: “Do. Not. Miss. It.” Whatever you say, Davos.

*While Episode 9 is traditionally the most important episode of the year, I’d argue that the pattern has been off for a couple of years now. In both Seasons 4 and 5, the eighth episode made a bigger impact than the ninth. For that matter, the finales to both of those seasons were pretty huge.

Elsewhere, over at The Cut, we got an unexpected hint at what might be coming in “The Winds of Winter” from Michele Clapton, who oversees much of the show’s costume design. The whole article is worth reading—Clapton explains the design ideas behind things like Melisandre’s chocker and the Hand of the King’s pin—but what interested me was a bit at the bottom, when she talked about a crown she designed specifically for “The Winds of Winter.”

"I try to make each crown have some relationship to the person wearing it. One of my favorite crowns I’ve ever done is for someone in episode ten."

Who is this crown for? Clapton didn’t say. The most obvious answer is Tommen—he is wearing a crown in the episode trailer—but it could well be for someone else. We’ll find out on Sunday.