The Game of Thrones showrunners, who confirmed during a recent public appearance they had no idea what they were doing and that their HBO series turned into a hit despite their inexperience, are making headlines yet again for the commentary track they recorded for the season 8 DVD and Blu-ray release that’s coming on Tuesday. During that commentary, they use the opportunity to dredge up one of the mysteries of the show’s final controversial season.
No, we’re not talking about the reason for the terrible lighting during the Battle of Winterfell episode, or the bizarre evil turn that the character of Daenerys takes. Unfortunately, we’re talking — yet again — about that stupid coffee cup, the one that accidentally ended up being shown during the episode titled “The Last of the Starks.” But don’t worry, friends. Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are here to clear up how that sloppy mistake happened, once and for all.
At one point during the commentary, the showrunners correct the misinformation that some people had, which is that the offending coffee cup shown during the scene had come from Starbucks. Turns out, it was actually from a local coffee shop in Belfast called Established Coffee — which makes sense, since much of Game of Thrones over the entire run was shot in Northern Ireland.
Now, as to who was responsible for bringing it there in the first place: Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark, told Jimmy Fallon earlier this year that Emilia Clarke, the actress who played Daenerys Targaryen, was the forgetful coffee fiend who brought the takeout cup in the first place. “Emilia Clarke … she’s the culprit,” Turner told Fallon:
Okay, mystery solved. Except, wait.
Emilia herself went on Fallon in October to identify a totally different caffeine fiend. According to the Mother of Dragons, the cup actually belonged to Conleth Hill, who portrayed Lord Varys. Ahh, okay. Got it.
That brings us to next week’s release of the season 8 DVD. Because this is deserving of so much attention, the showrunners decided to revisit Coffee-gate yet again, this time revealing that — the cup, in fact, did belong to Emilia after all. Interestingly, she too can be heard on the Season 8 commentary track, and wryly responds to this revelation from the showrunners: “This bus is really heavy you just throw me under.”
Haha, good one, Emilia. Now if the showrunners would just acknowledge their culpability behind an even more serious gaffe related to season 8 — why the writing was so bad — we could finally put Thrones‘ disastrous final season behind us for good.
