HBO sure knew what they were doing when they decided to shelve that Bloodmoon prequel (to Game of Thrones) in favor of letting the messy Targaryen history soar on House of the Dragon. Not only do viewers now get to see fire-breathing beasts but also their riders as the earlier posturing for the Iron Throne led to the downfall of the long-ruling house. Naturally, much of this was down to King Viserys‘ knack for making bad decisions, but he wasn’t the only Targaryen lacking judgment, and he won’t be the last, either.
HotD Season 2 will feature many more clusterf*cks, which will be pushed into overdrive by Aemond’s decision to scare the holy hell out of Luc before Vhagar went rogue and enjoyed a snack. This, of course, could lead to bad strategy moves from Queen Rhaenyra, but she surely cannot outdo King Aegon II in that department. After all, there’s a reason why George R.R. Martin called the show’s source material Fire and Blood, but we already know how the Targaryen bloodline ends. How does Season 2 help it get there?
Plot
The show has already slightly departed from GRRM’s writing by starting the timeline about 50% of the way through the Fire and Blood book. This leaves room for an Aegon The Conquerer show in the future, and it also drops us into the part of the Westeros history when sh*t really started to hit the fan. Following Luc’s death, Rhaenyra will be kicked into vengeance mode, and the story leaves Dragonstone and King’s Landing to focus more elsewhere. That includes more action of figures from Driftmark and more blanks filled in about The Stepstones, which are islands that formed following the flooding of a land strip. In the below video, GRRM is shown filling readers in with areas that we should see onscreen, and that includes parts of Old Valyria, Dorne, and various paths along the Narrow Sea.
Will we see Winterfell in Season 2 as well? This happens at a few points in the Fire and Blood book, but there’s no telling whether Season 2 will have room for too much Stark focus.
Essentially, the new season will set up several new lords and show lots of civilians having their lives destroyed by the silly yet devastating Targaryen war. Winter Is Coming did some detective work and found that a casting call for amputees in Wales could point toward the adaptation of scenes where those without the blood of the dragon were invited to tame beasts and join the war on Team Black. As you can guess from the description, some hopefuls lost life and limb in the process.
To be certain, Team Black will have enough dragons to outnumber those of Team Green, but Aegon’s side starts with the advantage of being in King’s Landing. As well, Green has the largest dragon, Vhagar, but she’s also clearly a loose cannon and not willing to always do Aemond’s bidding. And we also know that Game of Thrones began in a Westeros where dragons were all but extinct, so get ready for casualties of the human and fire-breathing variety.
Eventually, the show will leave us in a place where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight begins, at least chronologically. However, GRRM has revealed that Hedge Knight is in development, so there’s no reason why both shows could run concurrently at some point.
Cast
The show settled into adult versions of several characters already, which means that Emma D’Arcy will be back as Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Olivia Cooke returns as her former friend-turned-nemesis, Alicent Hightower. As well, Ewan Mitchell (Aemond Targaryen) and Tom Glynn-Carney (Aegon Targaryen) will keep bringing us the saltiest sons, and that’s especially the case for Aemond, who desperately wants to be like Matt Smith’s Daemon.
Steve Toussaint (Corlys “Sea Snake” Valaryon) will likely regain his strength, hopefully after recovering from that fever while accompanied by Eve Best as the Queen Who Never Was, Rhaenys Targaryen. Expect to see even more of these actors as non-Targaryens who are particularly adept at maneuvering: Sonoya Mizuno (Mysaria/that White Worm) Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole the terrible), and Rhys Ifans (Otto Hightower).
What of new characters, though? Via Winter Is Coming, rumor has it that Lord Moogan (an ally to Rhaenyra) shall be portrayed by Turlough Convery, and the role of Cregan Stark will be picked up by Tom Taylor. Additionally, a surprisingly pivotal character — although this may or may not become apparent in Season 2 — will be Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin). She is a healer and a prolific wet nurse of Harrenhal, which is one of the first castles to head over to Team Black within the Fire and Blood book.
As well, key characters including Ser Simon Strong (Simon Russell Beale), Ser Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox), and Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim) will do their part to help (and possibly harm) a divided kingdom in Season 2.
Release Date
Hollywood largely went into disarray throughout 2023, but the good news is that HotD stayed largely immune to the recent turmoil. Production continued without interruption in Europe with scripts already set in place before various strikes, and that all adds up to an early Summer 2024 debut for Season 2. At present, the show’s in post-production with CGI touches going into one of the more important parts of the series: those damn dragons. Without them, the Targaryens would simply be pretty people in questionable wigs, and no way would they have held onto the Iron Throne as long as they did. And we will see their fire again in a few months.
Trailer
Civil war has begun. The teaser trailer dropped on Dec. 2.
HBO’s first ‘House of the Dragon’ season can currently be streamed on Max.
