When Game of Thrones wrapped up its run after eight seasons, it seemed it had ruined any chance of a spinoff due to the poor fan reaction to the final season.
House of the Dragon, a prequel charting the downfall of the Targaryen dynasty, premiered in 2022 and delivered plenty of fantasy drama to reignite interest in the franchise.
The Targaryen storyline is interesting because we didn’t meet many of them on the original series due to them being dead.
House of the Dragon Season 1 successfully established the conflicts between the Greens and the Blacks to prepare for the mother of all battles on House of the Dragon Season 2.
With new episodes fast approaching, it’s time to delve into everything we know about the next chapter.
Get all the details below.
When will House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere?
House of the Dragon Season 2 will premiere on Sunday, June 16, at 9/8c on HBO and Max.
The show was expected to be delayed due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, but the series managed to continue production because the cast had contracts that were not with the striking guilds.
Initially, 10 episodes were ordered for House of the Dragon Season 2, but the plan was changed to make it eight episodes as filming was underway.
Cutting two episodes is huge because the storyline moves so quickly, but perhaps some of the cut content will make its way to the eight episodes, which could be a bit longer than planned.
House of the Dragon Season 2 cast revealed
The returning cast of House of the Dragon Season 2 includes Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Tom Glynn Garney, Ewan Mitchell, Matt Smith, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Matthew Needham, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, Harry Collett, Rhys Ifans, Phoebe Campbell, Bethany Antonia, Jefferson Hall, and Phia Saban.
New cast members include Gayle Rankin, Simon Russell Beal, Abubakar Salim, Freddie Fox, Clinton Liberty, Jamie Kenna, Kieran Bew, Tom Bennett, Tom Taylor, and Vincent Regan.
There will also likely be plenty of surprising cameos thrown in because, as Game of Thrones teased with Ed Sheeran‘s appearance, this universe likes some stunt casting.
House of the Dragon Season 2 plot revealed
House of the Dragon Season 1 concluded with Rhaenyra learning of Lucerys’ death, but we don’t know whether she knows that Aemond and Vhagar caused it.
There can’t have been many witnesses, but we’re sure word will have gotten back that they had an awkward encounter at Storm’s End. It seems like an inciting incident that will kick off the great war between the two sides of the family.
The look on Rhaenyra’s face as she learned about her son’s demise was certainly shocking, and she won’t let this slide.
The official trailers for House of the Dragon Season 2 show both sides trying to evade capture and plan more than one step ahead in the name of winning the war and laying claim to the throne.
Alicent will be backed into a corner as she wrestles with whether her decisions have shaped her current situation and whether she can keep her sons safe from Rhaenyra.
At one point, she and Rhaenyra were like sisters, but their relationship has imploded since they were younger. Despite some hints that they still care for each other, the war they’re in won’t allow them to be cordial any longer.
We should buckle up for lots of death and destruction because if the source material is to be believed, this next phase of the power struggle will have plenty of bloodshed.
Will House of the Dragon return for Season 3?
House of the Dragon is supposed to be a multi-season story and news broke as the final stages of filming on the second season that producers were already mapping out House of the Dragon Season 3.
The news means that production will probably be underway well ahead of a formal renewal, but given the franchise’s popularity, details will spill out the moment cameras get back up.
Beyond House of the Dragon Season 3, there’s much debate about how long the show will go. In the source material, the period the show covers is very small in comparison to, for example, Game of Thrones.
But House of the Dragon has brought some much-needed context to things that we didn’t have the context to before, which has taken up some of the screentime.
Perhaps more story elements could be expanded to keep the show around longer.
After the complaints that Game of Thrones Season 8 was rushed, the producers and HBO will want to ensure that the spinoff moves at the right pace to secure the franchise’s future.
House of the Dragon Season 2 will premiere Sunday, June 16, at 9/8c on HBO and Max. You can Stream Season 1 on Max.