It’s been a little under a year and a half since the first House of the Dragon season finale—even if the wait for fans has felt like forever. (Remember: The gap between seasons 1 and 2 is only about a month in dragon years.) So with our glasses now half full, I’m thrilled to announce that season 2 of the HBO fantasy series will premiere this summer, June 16. To get audiences even more hyped for the big return, House of the Dragon released dueling trailers for the civil war to come.
Asking fans to choose a side between Queen Alicent Hightower and Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the two trailers preview the upcoming “Dance of the Dragons.” The teasers also serve as a wake-up call for anyone (including yours truly) who barely remembers who all these people are. For those who also need a bit of a refresher, feel free to join me as I dive back into our weekly episode recaps. .
Even through many major television shows experienced heavy production delays from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the Game of Thrones spin-off filmed throughout this past summer. Francesca Orsi, the executive vice president of drama series at HBO, reaffirmed back in May that the network was also restarting production for The Last of Us and The White Lotus. “We have a beautiful cast that was assembled by Kate Rhodes [James], and we just are proud of seeing how those scripts are coming alive,” she said in an interview with Deadline. “The emotionality that the cast is bringing to it is something that we feel confident with and know that we’re going to deliver something special.”
So what can we expect to see this summer? The exact plot for House of the Dragon season 2 is under wraps, but the series showrunner, Ryan Condal, told The Hollywood Reporter that many new characters will appear. “We are thrilled to be shooting again with members of our original family as well as new talents on both sides of the camera,” he said. “All your favorite characters will soon be conspiring at the council tables, marching with their armies and riding their dragons into battle. We can’t wait to share what we have in store.”
If you were watching House of the Dragon’s first season and noticed a surprising lack of actual dragons—as I was!—season 2 will also reportedly introduce us to some new winged beasts. Finally! “You’re going to meet five new dragons,” Condal revealed at a recent event in Los Angeles. Wow. Five? Oddly specific, but intriguing! You could honestly go full Dragon Tales and not even give me the people. I’m even ready for the dragons to talk like the whales in Avatar: The Way of Water, but one can only be so greedy. Remember, Thrones fans, we still don’t have The Winds of Winter in our hands to read. Until then, five more dragons it is.
Unlike the fandom’s obsessive theorizing with Thrones, House of the Dragon will be adapted from George R.R. Martin’s finished novel, Fire & Blood, so its course is pretty much laid out. Yet, so far, fans of the fantasy series have been doing a fantastic job not revealing the fates of many of its popular main characters, even as many of the show’s deaths and major plot twists have been coming fast and loose.
In the latter half of the first season, the series controversially united Rhaenyra and her uncle, Daemon, in marriage—though many fans don’t seem to mind. “He’s become Internet Boyfriend in a way that baffles me,” House of the Dragon writer Sara Hess told The Hollywood Reporter. “Not that Matt [Smith] isn’t incredibly charismatic and wonderful, and he’s incredible in the role. But Daemon himself is … I don’t want him to be my boyfriend! I’m a little baffled how they’re all, ‘Oh, daddy!’ And I’m just like: ‘Really?'” She also teased what’s to come for the couple. “And right now, we’re writing season 2 and figuring out, what is the nature of his relationship with Rhaenyra?” Hess continued. “There are many interpretations [in George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood] to that.” Uh oh! Trouble in uncle-husband-neice-wife paradise?
