'Game Of Thrones' Executive Producer Apologizes Over Coffee Cup Cameo

The Coffee Cup Who Was Promised

There is so much to dissect, speculate and criticize about Sunday night's jam-packed antepenultimate episode of Death, Sex & Dragons: Why did Jaime decide to leave Brienne and go back to Cersei? Is Tyrion going to betray Dany? Did Ser Bronn just walk into Winterfell unnoticed? Is vomiting really the same thing as celebrating? How the fuck are giant crossbows so much more powerful than dragons? WHY DIDN'T JON GIVE GHOST A PET??? But fans are obsessed with one detail in particular: how did a coffee cup end up in Winterfell?

For the night is dark and full of continuity errors—actually, the reason an errant coffee cup has been turned into a social media talking point today is because GOT is generally so meticulous about such things. I can't think of any other really major moments like this from throughout the show's run, which is partially what has made coffeecupgate so exceptional.

That's why the Game Of Thrones Power Rankings awarded this week's "The Viserys Targaryen Memorial Least Powerful Person Of The Week Award" to The Person Who Left A Starbucks Coffee Cup In The Shot At The Winterfell Banquet. Also, there's the fact that showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff made a cameo in that very scene, so they were literally there on set and also didn't notice it either.

Bernie Caulfield, one of the executive producers of the show, discussed the goof on All Of It: "I can’t believe [it]!" she said. "Our on-set prop people and decorators are so on it one thousand percent. I just honestly can’t, I’m like, is that really? Because nowadays you can’t believe what you see because people can put things into a photo that really doesn’t exist. But I guess maybe it was there, I’m not sure. But, yeah. We’re sorry! Westeros was the first place to actually to have Starbucks, it’s a little known fact."

Adobe in fact demonstrated just how easy it would have been to remove the coffee cup in post production:

But it turns out, despite what everyone thought, it isn't actually a Starbucks drink! GOT art director Hauke Richter told TMZ the cup was from a local coffee shop in Banbridge, Northern Ireland near where they filmed. "We are usually so diligent that this does not happen," he added. "The shoot was very hard and demanding and it is likely that after a very tiring ep 3 shoot, this was simply overlooked by an exhausted crew."

Hopefully the production team isn't too upset about this one—it really is a pretty minor error, especially compared to some of the more controversial plot decisions from the episode (like everything going on with Dany right now). Plus, look how much joy The Coffee Cup Who Was Promised is bringing people: