A Near-Historic Number Of People Watched The Battle Of Winterfell Episode Of ‘Game Of Thrones’

The similarities between Avengers: Endgame and the Battle of Winterfell episode of Game of Thrones (officially known as “The Long Night”) continue. Both involved big battles, lots of death, and out-of-this-world weapons. But while Endgame broke nearly every box office record in the books, including Thursday night preview, single-day, and weekend, “The Long Night” finished just short of becoming the most-watched initial viewing of a Thrones episode.

“The longest-ever episode of the HBO series delivered 12.02 million viewers for its initial airing, the most of the season to date and second-most ever for the series,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “The 12 million-plus viewers trail only the season seven finale (12.07 million) in initial audience.” But when streaming is added (those numbers aren’t available yet), “The Long Night” couple topple the record set by “The Dragon and the Wolf.” The irony of a near-historic number of people watching an episode they couldn’t see should not be lost on anyone. The Battle of Winterfell did, however, break one specific record:

The episode was predictably huge on social media as well: Twitter says “The Long Night” sparked 7.8 million tweets, the most ever for an episode of a scripted series.

At least 3.1 million of those tweets were people writing “ooooooooooooooooooooooooh sh*t” when THAT moment happened.