House Of The Dragon Suffers After Saving Two Major Moments For Season 3

This article contains spoilers for the “House of the Dragon” season 2 finale.

“House of the Dragon” season 2 just ended much earlier than it should have. The season had a reduced episode order and ended up with eight episodes rather than the 10 it was supposed to have. As series writer Sara Hess told Entertainment Weekly, “it wasn’t really our choice” to cut down the number of episodes, even if HBO insisted to Deadline that the episode count trim was “story-driven.”

TV seasons getting shorter isn’t new, it’s been happening for years. We’ve gone from 22 episodes a season down to 13, then 10, and now eight is normal. It’s a bad trend that’s come with hyper-inflating budgets and the diminishing of writers rooms, which also means there’s less time for the kind of experimentation that made shows like “Lost” a cultural phenomenon. The shorter seasons also means that many shows can feel rushed nowadays, as we go from big moment to big moment in an attempt to prioritize binging without letting the story breathe.

When it comes to “House of the Dragon,” the first season felt like a perfect adaptation for this particular tale, fleshing out the story and the characters so that we cared about the people and not just the big fights. Season 2 has had some of that, incorporating new scenes to add context, but mostly it feels like table-setting. The season finale, in particular, just ends up doing a lot of build-up for events we won’t see until season 3. And the thing is, it didn’t have to be this way. “House of the Dragon” would’ve almost certainly ended its sophomore season in a grandiose and rather bloody way if the episode count hadn’t been trimmed.

Throughout season 2, we’ve spent a substantial amount of time exploring the effects that Team Black’s naval blockage on King’s Landing has had on its populace. The blockage caused famine, which led to the riots we saw earlier in the season. It also led to Tyland Lannister seeking the help of mercenaries from the Triarchy to break the blockade. In the season finale, he secures a large fleet to fight the Sea Snake in what promises to be quite the rematch after the battle against the real Prince That Was Promised, the Crabfeeder.

The Battle of the Gullet, as it’s known, has big repercussions in the show’s source material, marking a turning point for the Dance of Dragons that shifts the hierarchy of power in Westeros. And yet, as big as the upcoming battle seems to be to the story, we don’t get to see it in the season 2 finale. It’s an unfortunate development that leaves the episode without any sort of real payoff. Instead, by ending with both sides preparing their armies and seeking our allies for a future conflict, the whole things plays like a repeat of Rhaenyra and Otto Hightower sending out word to their vassals and calling them to aid in the upcoming war back in the season 1 finale (a war which we’re still waiting for, a whole season later).

At least that episode had the big surprise of old Vhagar killing Lucerys Velaryon like she was having a dementia episode that made her think she was back in Dorne committing war crimes. The season 2 finale? Nothing nearly as shocking, save for a wild vision of events we already saw in “Game of Thrones.”

Then there’s the other big event teased in the season 2 finale — Rhaenyra conquering King’s Landing. We spent a substantial amount of the season 2 runtime exploring Rhaenyra’s hesitation to win the throne through bloodshed, but she takes a sharp turn in the finale and decides to just go on the attack no matter the casualties. Toss in Alicent’s promise to have the gates wide open for her, and it certainly seems like we’ll be getting a battle for King’s Landing in the future.

But why does it have to be the future? Both of these events were clearly structured to be the centerpieces for season 2’s original ninth and 10th episodes. The Battle of the Gullet, in particular, is the kind of epic naval fight that we came to expect from the penultimate episode in any season of “Game of Thrones.” After that, episode 10 would have culminated with Rhaenyra arriving at King’s Landing, kickstarting the next phase of the Dance of the Dragons.

As it stands, however, season 2 feels incomplete and lacking in resolution. Worse yet, if removing the final two episodes of the season and moving their events into season 3 was meant to be a cost-cutting measure, then HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery just shot themselves in the foot. On top of whatever battles or big VFX-heavy moments season 3 was already supposed to have, adding the Battle of the Gullet and the Fall of King’s Landing will make things incredibly expensive. If you start the season with two massive battles, where the hell can you go from there to make the arc of season 3 satisfying?

“House of the Dragon” will return for season 3 at a yet-to-be-announced date.