Spoilers Are Coming After HBO Spain Accidentally Airs 'Game of Thrones' Episode 6

HBO thought they were being extra cautious by refusing to give journalists screeners for new episodes of Game of Thrones the past two years, but it turns out the call was coming from inside the house all along. For two weeks straight now, HBO affiliates have leaked episodes of Game of Thrones. Last week, it was a copy lifted from HBO India (arrests have been made in that case), but this week, HBO Spain flat-out aired this Sunday’s episode six, “Death is the Enemy.” (You will find no specific spoilers below).

Again, this has nothing to do with the massive hack of HBO that happened a few weeks ago, where infiltrators stole episodes of shows, scripts and personal information of the channel’s employees and casts. It seems like Thrones episodes were not actually taken in that hack, and this latest episode appears to be HBO Spain just flat-out dropping the ball. I have no idea how you “accidentally air” an entire episode of a show five days early, but here we are.

The fact that this was an official airing, not a garbage-quality lifted copy like we saw with episode five, is extra bad news. The episode is available on torrent sites in full 1080p quality, meaning pirates are much, much more likely to watch it early, and while HBO Spain was airing it, some Twitch streamers actually tried to stream it live for about 30 minutes, attracting 20K+ viewers before they were shut down.


Now the dance to avoid spoilers begins. This is going to be a problem because A) the high quality means a ton of people will have watched it and B) Supposedly something “big” does happen, though I have not heard what, and do not want to hear what. I woke up to a message from a friend asking if I’d watched Game of Thrones yet, and I responded I had, thinking he was referring to Sunday’s ep. But I didn’t know this leak had happened yet, and he was talking about the pirated copy where something “crazy” happens, which is par for the course in penultimate episodes of Game of Thrones. Thankfully, I figured out we were talking about different episodes before he actually managed to spoil anything (friendship over forever, if he had).

The combination of this being a huge leak and something of great significance happening means that the internet is going to be dark and full of terrors for the next five days. All it takes is two words to spoil something big, “X dies,” for instance, and while I’m guessing that’s what happens (they’re calling it Jon Snow’s Suicide Squad for a reason), I’m going to do my best to avoid any and all mention of spoilers until airing. Stay away from comment threads, fan communities, any and all places like that online until then.

I don’t know what’s going on at HBO, but they really need to get a handle on this stuff. It’s baffling to me that even after a massive hack it’s their own affiliates who keep not just leaking this stuff, but accidentally airing an entire episode.

So, be careful out there, and stay strong if you’re waiting to watch until Sunday like me.