Sean Bean, George R.R. Martin assure Jimmy Fallon the Game of Thrones premiere is coming

The wait for the final season of Game of Thrones to return to HBO has indeed been long. You know it. We know it. And a sketch from Jimmy Fallon won’t let us forget it. 

On last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy brings the lords of the House of Fallon together to Rockefell (get it?) to determine if and when Game of Thrones will return for its final season. If not, then why are they paying so much for an HBO subscription? 

Fortunately, the sketch features not one but two celebrity cameos who assure Jimmy & the gang that the season premiere is coming...and coming very, very soon.

Check it out below:

And before the lords get particularly cranky, who but Sean Bean appears to calm everyone down? The actor who played Ned Stark in Game of Thrones’ debut season tells Jimmy & Co. to fear not: “the premiere is coming.” He then does a joke, which he hopes everyone gets (it certainly made Bean chuckle).

Unfortunately, although Bean gave us that nice little self-referential bit and assured everyone that the season premiere would be upon us soon, he didn’t actually provide a specific date. Well, that’s where the sketch’s second celebrity cameo comes in. George R.R. Martin, author of the Song of Ice & Fire books on which the series is based, tells us that the finale will appear on April 14.

Not only that, but he also assures everyone that after the series ends, there will also be books. (“Trust me,” he assures the group. “I know a guy.”) We certainly hope so, mysterious stranger. We certainly hope so.  

Game of Thrones begins its final season this Sunday night at 9 p.m. EST on HBO. The Winds of Winter, one of those books that the mysterious stranger obliquely promises, hits bookstores…at some indeterminate point in the future after that.