The second season of House of the Dragon ended last year, and we were far from the only fans who noticed that it kind of...didn't really have an ending? Instead of closing with a big climactic event drawn from the pages of Fire & Blood, the season 2 finale closed with a montage of armies and navies on the move, presaging clashes that were about to happen. It was strange.
It ends up that this wasn't the original plan. At first, the producers were going to have 10 episodes, but at some point HBO or Warner Bros. Discovery came in and cut that number down to eight, leaving the season feeling kinda awkward and unfinished. Speaking to Gold Derby, director Alan Taylor shed more light on what happened:
"It was a funny kerfuffle at the beginning, because we were going to originally do 10 episodes, and we cut it down to eight episodes. I was going to do Episode 9, so I had to jump around and find a new chair to sit in, and I wound up getting 204, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," which came early in the season, but wound up being one of the bigger production numbers. I was happy that I got to deliver on some things the fans felt like they were waiting for."
"The Red Dragon and the Gold" featured a thrilling dragon-on-dragon battle over the castle of Rook's Rest and ended up being the best episode of the season, so Taylor made it out okay. Still, I don't like hearing that the reduction in episode count from 10 to eight came along seemingly this late in the process, when there was already another plan in place and Taylor had to "jump around" to settle things. It sounds like the team was thrown for a bit of a loop, and it does go a ways toward explaining why the end felt so anticlimactic.
The third season of House of the Dragon is in production right now. We've heard that the season will start with the Battle of the Gullet, a major action set piece that, if I had to guess, I'd say was originally intended to happen in Episode 9 of season 2. I think that's likely what Alan Taylor was originally going to direct, before the plans shifted. And then Episode 10 could have pushed the plot forward even further and set things up for season 3.
Instead, season 3 will have to have the climax of season 2 at the start, and then build to another climax at season's end. I don't like that the show was put in this position, but at least the producers can go forward and plan without needing to worry about any last-minute changes coming down from above...we hope. It's not 100% known why the episode count was reduced so late in the process, but it likely had something to do with the actors and writers strikes of 2023 making production more difficult. To ensure that House of the Dragon season 2 still got out in a timely manner, HBO may have lopped off a couple episodes at the end.
Alan Taylor also worked on Game of Thrones, directing famous episodes like "Baelor," where Ned Stark is beheaded. HBO asked him to come back for the second season of House of the Dragon. "It was a fortuitous set of things, because I was happy to go back to a world that I'd enjoyed so much the first time, and where I felt like I knew the language," he said. "It's always comforting to go somewhere where you think you might not screw it up, because you get it. And HBO really wanted somebody to come on to partner with [showrunner] Ryan Condal, to maintain a continuity with the original mythology in the original show and the original look, and all that, as this show was still finding its footing. I came in to contribute in that way, and it was a pleasure to make sure that we stayed in the same world."
That said, Taylor isn't part of the director lineup for season 3. We'll see how Condal and his team handle things when House of the Dragon returns for its third season on HBO and Max sometime next year.
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