Divisive House of the Dragon finale gets season-high ratings, if slightly below season 1

The second season finale of House of the Dragon, "The Queen Who Ever Was," aired this past Sunday. I won't deny that I was a bit put off by the finale, which failed to make good on narrative momentum the season had been building and which included some strange character turns, but I want the series to do well, so I'm happy to report that the episode brought in 8.9 million overnight viewers across HBO and Max. According to Variety, that's a season high, up 14% from the season premiere.

After a two-year gap between seasons 1 and 2, it looks like more people hopped on the House of the Dragon train as new episodes were released, which is a good sign. The finale was also part of the biggest streaming day ever for Max, which is increasingly what people are using to watch HBO shows, rather than watching them linearly on HBO itself.

That said, ratings for "The Queen Who Ever Was" were down a bit from the season 1 finale, "The Black Queen," which brought in 9.3 million viewers. I know I'm being a downer here, but I've got to be honest: given how middling the season 2 finale was, I wonder if there will be enough hype to carry fans over the next long gap between seasons. We know season 3 is on the way (and that a fourth and final season is also planned), but we likely won't be watching it until 2026.

Okay, that's enough hang-wringing. There's still plenty of great stuff to come in the story of the Dance of the Dragons, and I look forward to seeing how the show tackles it. Plus, while House of the Dragon isn't coming back for a couple of years, we'll be returning to Westeros before that in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a new series set decades after the events of House of the Dragon but decades before Game of Thrones. This show is based on George R.R. Martin's excellent Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas. HBO included a snippet of footage in its latest sizzle reel:

So fans will be eating well for the foreseeable future.

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