The fourth episode of House of the Dragon season 2 is the shortest so far

The second season of House of the Dragon has fewer episodes than the first; season 1 had 10 episodes while season 2 has eight. Thus far, the show has made up for that by giving us longer episodes. The second episode of the season 2, "Rhaenyra the Cruel," was the longest episode of the show so far, and the upcoming third episode is the second longest.

House of the Dragon season 1 episodes averaged out to 62 minutes; so far, every episode of season 2 has been longer, sometimes markedly so. The fourth episode will cut things down to size a bit. According to HBO's official schedule, Episode 204 (for which we don't have a title yet) will run for only 60 minutes. And it's possible that it's shorter than that; HBO's schedule lists the run time as "1 HR." It may just not be capable of giving us minute counts below that mark.

Obviously there's nothing wrong with a slightly shorter episode as long as it's good, and Episode 204 has some huge things in store. It will feature a huge battle scene adapted from the pages of George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood: the Blacks and the Greens will clash in the Battle of Rook's Rest, which the cast and crew spent a long time filming. Finally, dragons will fight in the sky. Game of Thrones was famous for big battle scenes like in "Hardhome" and "Battle of the Bastards." This will be House of the Dragon's first attempt at matching something like that.

Here are all the runtimes we know for House of the Dragon season 2 so far:

• Episode 201, "A Son for a Son": June 16 (1 hour, 4 minutes)
• Episode 202, "Rhaenyra the Cruel": June 23 (1 hour, 12 minutes)
• Episode 203: June 30 (1 hour, 10 minutes)
• Episode 204: July 7 (60 minutes)
• Episode 205: July 14
• Episode 206: July 21
• Episode 207: July 28
• Episode 208: August 4

Based on the trailer for the upcoming third episode, that will have some dragon action as well, but we suspect the real fireworks will be saved for Episode 4. Here we go.

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