More fire, more blood. House of the Dragon is coming back for season 2 — but the next round of episodes will be a bit shorter than the drama’s inaugural season.
The Game of Thrones prequel will only have eight episodes in season 2, whereas the HBO show’s first outing had a total of 10 episodes. According to a March 2023 report from Deadline, the reason for the cut is “story-driven” rather than budgetary.
The epic fantasy series is based on George R.R. Martin‘s novel Fire & Blood, but it’s not clear yet which events the new season will cover. It is, however, safe to assume that there will be fewer time jumps in the new installment, as Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) are now grown adults with their own families.
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Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who played the younger versions of Rhaenyra and Alicent, respectively, aren’t likely to return for more episodes. The duo didn’t even get to find out where their characters ended up until the rest of season 1 aired in 2022.
“We weren’t given [the scripts],” Alcock told The New York Times in September 2022. “I’ve asked for them so much, and they were like, ‘No, you cannot.’ I’m going to be watching on the edge of my seat, because I want to know what’s going to happen.”
Plenty happened to Rhaenyra and Alicent in season 1, and the hits will just keep coming in season 2. The finale set up the beginning of the civil war between Rhaenyra and her half-brother Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) over the Iron Throne. The precipitating incident from the season finale was the death of Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), who was killed during a dragon fight with Aemond (Ewan Mitchell).
“The moment that she receives the news of Luke’s passing, that attempt at mediation crumbles,” D’Arcy told Entertainment Weekly in October 2022, referring to Rhaenyra’s previous attempts to make peace with her family. “I don’t think there is any longer the bandwidth to suppress and repress her nature. … I am excited to discover what happens when Rhaenyra does less navigating and more acting on her instincts and desires. For so many very legitimate reasons, she has her hands tied practically throughout season 1. I have a feeling that the rein might be off for season 2.”
Martin, for his part, is a huge fan of the show, which won a Golden Globe for best drama series in January 2023. “I cannot really review the show, that would be crazy, I am hardly objective … but I do want to commend [showrunners] Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik and the cast and crew for the work they’ve done,” the author wrote via his blog in October 2022, giving a special shout-out to Paddy Considine, who played the late King Viserys I. “The character he created … for the show is so much more powerful and tragic and fully fleshed than my own version in Fire & Blood that I am half tempted to go back and rip up those chapters and rewrite the whole history of his reign.”
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