The series finale of Game of Thrones is arriving in just a couple of months, on May 19th to be exact, and the entire world is waiting to see how one of the most celebrated TV programs of all time will come to a close. It's safe to say that few shows in history have had a finale this highly anticipated, and the showrunners for Game of Thrones know exactly just how much is at stake.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss have successfully steered the ship for one of the biggest series in history, and they knew heading into production on the final season that the last episode had to be done just the right way. So they made the difficult decision to direct it themselves.

“When something has been sitting with you for so long, you have such a specific sense of the way each moment should play and feel,” Weiss told EW. “Not just in terms of ‘this shot or that shot,’ though sometimes it’s that as well. So it’s not really fair to ask somebody else to get that right. We’d be lurking over their shoulder every take driving them crazy making it hard for them to do their job. If we’re going to drive anybody crazy it might as well be ourselves.”

When it comes to the reception of the final episode, Benioff and Weiss know what to expect from fans. They wanted to make all the right decisions, but understand that it's impossible to please every single person out there. Still, that doesn't keep them from wanting to make everything as good as humanly possible.

“We want people to love it,” Weiss said. “It matters a lot to us. “We’ve spent 11 years doing this. We also know no matter what we do, even if it’s the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions. There is no version where everybody says, ‘I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this’ — that’s an impossible reality that doesn’t exist. I’m hoping for the Breaking Bad [finale] argument where it’s like, ‘Is that an A or an A+?’”

Make no mistake: Despite being an episode 11 years in the making, this duo has had the ending in their heads from the very start of this journey.

“From the beginning we’ve talked about how the show would end," added Benioff. "A good story isn’t a good story if you have a bad ending. Of course we worry.”

When the finale finally does air in May, Benioff plans to be as far away from the chaos as he can possibly be, with more than a couple of drinks behind him.

"I plan to be very drunk," he said of the finale. "And very far from the Internet."

The final season of Game of Thrones begins on April 14th.

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