HBO Ghost is coming ...

If anything, Jon Snow’s direwolf lived up to his name in Season 7 of “Game of Thrones.” Throughout the course of seven episodes, the King in the North’s constant companion didn’t show up once. Ghost was an actual ghost. This despite the fact that the wolf would probably come in handy in confrontation with zombie hordes, undead polar bears and the Night King, who’s taking down dragons with pinpoint accuracy like he’s plaid-wearing, retired sniper Mark Wahlberg in any Mark Wahlberg movie.

In fact, the direwolf was barely even mentioned. In Season 7, Episode 5, Sansa said that it was unfair for Jon to expect the North to “sit and wait for him like Ghost.” But that was about it. A cut scene did intend to show Jon petting Ghost on the head, as “Game of Thrones” writer Bryan Cogman revealed, instructing the direwolf to watch over Sansa. Alas, it didn’t make it in the season. But I’m here to tell you today that Ghost will no longer be ghosted. “Oh, you’ll see him again. He has a fair amount of screen time in Season 8,” VFX supervisor Joe Bauer told me in an interview in August. “He does show up.”