This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 1. Now available for streaming on HBO Max.
The first season of House of the Dragon featured several major time jumps, meaning audiences watched some of the most important actors grow in the blink of an eye. Showrunner Ryan Condal assured the next season won't span as great a stretch of time.
Speaking to Deadline, Condal stated, "I will say, as a reward to our wonderful audience for following us through all the time jumps and recasts, they are done. We tell the story in real time from here forward. The actors are playing these characters until the end. We’re not recasting anybody." He went on to explain that the show has now reached the beginning of the war known as the Dance of the Dragons, which will play out in real-time.
In a separate interview, the showrunner previously teased House of the Dragon Season 2 will also feature much more spectacle, now that the bulk of introductions has been made. "We will get to the spectacle... But you have to understand these people’s complexities before they’re thrown into war... Series two will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in."
House of the Dragon Season 1
House of the Dragon begins roughly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and explores the fall of House Targaryen and the last days of their famed dragons. The series adapts events and characters introduced in author George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood novel, which was an encyclopaedia-like book covering the Targaryen family history, including the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, waged between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother, Aegon II, for their father's throne.
King Viserys I, played by Paddy Considine, was killed off in the Season 1 episode "The Lord of the Tides." Not before mistakenly leading his wife, Alicent Hightower, to believe he wanted his son, Aegon, to assume the throne, where he had previously named his daughter, Rhaenyra, his heir.
Work on Season 2 of House of the Dragon reportedly began sometime before the first episode premiered. The series debuted to record numbers. Reports showed the first episode garnered 9.986 million viewers across traditional cable and HBO Max platforms, making it the largest series launch for HBO.
The entire first season of House of the Dragon is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Deadline