House of the Dragon will end with Season 4 says showrunner Ryan Condal in a press conference following the Season 2 finale. With most of the trades in attendance following the airing of Season 2’s (rather lukewarm) finale, Condal was taking questions.
However, the most notable news was the announcement that House of the Dragon will only have 4 Seasons in total. To be fair, at most, I expected perhaps five seasons in total. Of course it all depends where in this story they decide to end the series. There are multiple points to choose from. Without spoiling, I had always assumed we would end with the Hour of the Wolf. Cut a spoilery story short, this is the point when the war is essentially over. As in, there is no current challenge for the Iron Throne. There could be earlier moments, but I’m not sure any of those would feel like a complete ending. Many characters still have important moments up until then at least.
Season 2’s Lukewarm Finale
Of course what we don’t have is a seasonal episode count. As we all know, it was widely reported by trades that Season 2 was cut from 10 to only 8 episodes. Many, including me, feel like this was the reason for a rather underwhelming finale. Personally, I’d have been critical of certain story choices anyway, finale or not. However, it does feel like Season 2 was a build up to a battle we know will now come in early Season 3. Here is what Condal had to say, as per Deadline.
“As a showrunner you are always in a position of having to balance storytelling and resources you have available to tell that story,” said Condal. “We are also starting to think about, what is the final destination of this series and where are we going? A combination of factors led to that re-balance. There is a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes and visual affects needed to give the Gullet, which is arguably the second most anticipated action even to Fire and Blood, the time and the space it deserved. We are building to that event. It will happen very shortly in terms of storytelling. It will be the biggest thing to date we have pulled off. We want to have the time and space to do that at a level that will excite the fans.”
I personally don’t buy it. The season got cut just before the writers strike. Therefore I think instead of rewriting Season 2 and cutting some things out, they decided to just end after the already scripted 8th episode. I do then wonder if some of the odd choices were to try and make that episode feel more finale like?
RELATED: House Of The Dragon Season 2 Finale Review – Meh!
Condal also teased that fans should be excited for what’s to come in Season 3.
“There are so many great events that we are already writing in season 3 as it is,” he said. “This war really comes to a big head at this point in the storytelling. I mean, if you look at season 2, it’s largely a metaphor for a nuclear conflict … There’s gonna be giant moments of spectacle but real moments of surprise and character nuance that we’re very much looking forward to. Some of my favorite moments of in the book, as a reader, I’m excited to adapt as a dramatist.”
Honestly, given how long it took to get to the action, and knowing what has to happen, Season 3 could be extremely action packed. My worry is that to save money the episode count gets reduced to something like 6 to have a bigger per episode budget. However, that’s a fear that I theorize could happen, not something we know anything about.
Adaptation
Condal also says, (kinda moaned) that adapting this story isn’t easy.
“I invite anybody to take the off season to purchase and read Fire and Blood so you can be armed with lots of information going into season 3,” said Condal, who has already begun writing season 3. “It’s a very tricky position in my seat, Sara Hess and I are custodians of this world. We have to render an exciting TV adaptation of this story, knowing there will be a percentage of the gigantic TV audience that has not read the book. We are constantly trying to serve both worlds.”
Fair point, and accurate. However, as much as fans loved Season 1, Season 2 does deserve some criticism. The decision to keep focusing on some invented kinship between Rhaenyra and Allicent is getting tedious. For some context, in the future Allicent makes it very clear she’d kill any of Rhaenyra’s descendants without a moments thought in the books. The time to end the friendship and make them bitter rivals was Season 2, and instead they doubled down on some pointless scenes. Those scenes added zero to the plot of Season 2, in my opinion. And now we know we only have two seasons to go as the show will end with Season 4.
What do you think of the news House of the Dragon will end with Season 4? What do you think about showrunner Ryan Condal’s comments on Season 2 and 3? Thoughts below as always.
