GoT Season 8 Premiere Had Two Cameos You Completely Missed

Game of Thrones fans can attest to a big truth: if you don't pay close enough attention to what's happening on screen, you'll miss out on a ton of ton of tiny details. This certainly applied to the first episode of Thrones' eighth and final season.

The premiere featured plenty of buzz-worthy moments — like the heartwarming reunion between Jon and Arya, the awkward reunion between Jon and Bran, the dramatic reunion between Bran and Jaime Lannister, plus that dragon joyride and Jon discovering he's a Targaryen [ and Daenerys not giving a single hoot about telling Sam she burnt his family alive.

What has people talking even more than all that are the two blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos that most people didn't pick up on the first time around — you know, on account of everything else happening during the episode.

In the season 8 premiere, there's a scene in which Theon Greyjoy storms his uncle Euron's ship, making his way to his sister Yara, Before he can rescue her, however, Theon has to pick off a few members of Euron's fleet. Theon's hand is steady as he fires an arrow clean into the back of one man's skull, sending it shooting out his eye. He and two men behind him put several more arrows through the heads of other random guys on deck. The siege is successful, the path to Yara is clear, and Theon is free to return to Winterfell while Yara looks over the Ironborn as Queen of the Iron Islands.

On the surface, the scene doesn't seem out of the ordinary: it's a calculated act of violence executed to meet an end goal. Look closer at the people playing Theon's victims, though, and you'll see that the sequence is anything but normal, as it features cameo appearances from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Rob McElhenney and Silicon Valley star Martin Starr.

They aren't on screen for very long and the dim lighting makes it difficult to recognize their faces, so it's easy to see why so many never caught McElhenney and Starr on the season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones.

With each passing season, the series has gotten better at sneaking in celebrity cameos that only the most eagle-eyed viewers can immediately find. Over the years, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have managed to include musicians, other actors, and even political figures on the series. Even Weiss and Benioff themselves made cameo appearances, their mugs seen in the Hall of Faces at the House of Black and White. And very few could forget the time singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran appeared on Thrones, playing a singing Lannister bannerman Arya met as she was traveling to King's Landing.

While many Game of Thrones fans weren't keen on Sheeran's cameo, most everyone is loving that McElhenney and Starr got to be a part of the series, if only for a few seconds each. In a way, it marks a full-circle moment: McElhenney is close friends with Benioff and Weiss, who previously wrote the season 9 It's Always Sunny episode "Flowers for Charlie" and made their own small appearances on the season 12 installment "The Gang Goes to a Water Park." A longtime Thrones fan, McElhenney was thought to have already cameoed on the show back in season 6, appearing alongside his Always Sunny co-star Charlie Day as Unsullied soldiers, but that ended up just a rumor. Keep watching to see more about the GoT season 8 premiere had two cameos you completely missed!


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