How House of the Dragon season 2 will feel different from season 1

The first season of HBO's Game of Thrones show House of the Dragon was pretty unique, so far as opening seasons of expensive tentpole fantasy dramas go. The first 10 episodes covered a period of 20 years, with huge time jumps in between episodes as characters were introduced, grew up, got married, had kids and died. We didn't meet the cast that we'll be spending the rest of the series with until Episode 8, but season 2 will be different.

According to showrunner Ryan Condal, the second season of House of the Dragon will pick up "a couple of days" after the end of season 1, when Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) killed his own nephew Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault), ensuring that a war between Aemond's brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his half-sister Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), both of whom feel they have a claim to the Iron Throne, is inevitable. "All the wounds are fresh," Condal told Variety.

With no more time jumps and our main cast established, the pacing of the second season will feel different from the first. “I think the pace will feel more like building momentum,” Condal says. “Season 1 felt breakneck because you were jumping time periods, whereas Season 2 feels like you light a fuse in Episode 1 and watch it go — and at points, little charges go off...Season 2 felt bigger and more diffuse.”

Losing showrunner Miguel Sapochnik had "a great effect" on the tone of House of the Dragon

That's not the only change coming in season 2. In the first season, Condal shared showrunner duties with Miguel Sapochnik, who had directed several iconic episodes of Game of Thrones. But Sapochnik left the series ahead of season 2, reportedly because HBO wouldn't let his wife become a producer. Condal will fly solo from now on. “My job is the same,” he said. “I would call it director-wrangling in a non-pejorative way. We had five directors this season over eight episodes.”

But might Sapochnik's absence affect how the new episodes feel? Matt Smith, who plays Rhaenyra Targaryen's husband Daemon, thinks so. “It’s a shame, because it had a great effect on the tone of the show, and knowing what you need to deliver,” he said. “It’s kind of second-album syndrome, isn’t it? You’ve got to play the hits a bit...We wish him well — but certainly, when you lose a director of that caliber, you’re going to feel it.”

Filming season 2 was also odd because it was done during the actors and writers strikes of 2023; filming on House of the Dragon could continue because the scripts were already written and actors in England don't have the same union protections and obligations as actors in the U.S. But it doesn't mean the cast wasn't aware of what was going on. “There was a huge sense of conflict in us as performers and actors,” Smith said. “We got together and discussed it in depth and made our feelings clear of what we’d like to do, but we didn’t have a great deal of choice. It was going to go on.”

Emma D'Arcy also weighed in. “I found it pretty uncomfortable,” they said. “I found it like being between a rock and a hard place. We spoke about it all the time.”

We'll see the fruits of these strange labors soon; House of the Dragon season 2 premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 16. Beyond that, Condal and company are already looking ahead to season 3 and beyond. He and his team already know how they're going to end the series, although he wasn't forthcoming with the details. “It became clear what we needed to do, and how to bring it to an end, and where. We have the advantage that the book is here, it’s finished, and we know where the curtain closes on this particular chapter in the Targaryen history.”

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