House of the Dragon will end with Season 4, which has already been greenlit by HBO. The network announced the renewal for Seasons 3 and 4 on Monday, August 5, one day after the Game of Thrones prequel’s Season 2 finale came out. Season 3 has yet to begin production, so what does that mean for the Season 4 release date?
Here’s all there is to know so far about House of the Dragon‘s final season.
Has House of the Dragon Season 3 started filming?
Series co-creator and showrunner Ryan Condal said in the August press conference during which the dual renewal was announced that Season 3 production is expected to begin in “early-ish 2025.” Matt Smith and Tom Glynn-Carney said during a New York Comic Con 2024 panel in October that they hadn’t seen any scripts for Season 3 yet, per Variety. Fabien Frankel joked that he “couldn’t possibly” share what he has seen, but that’s not necessarily a confirmation that he has read scripts already. As of the time of this writing, there have been no further updates about Season 3 filming.
When does House of the Dragon Season 4 come out?
There was a two-year gap between the Season 1 and 2 premieres on HBO. The first season debuted in August 2022, with Season 2 wrapping filming in September 2023. Production on Season 2 was not delayed by the Hollywood strikes that summer, but the second season still didn’t come out until June 2024. If the show’s production timeline continues at that pace, Season 3 wouldn’t come out until the summer of 2026 and Season 4 until the summer of 2028.
Related‘House of the Dragon’ Finale: Every Major Book Change in Season 2
Hopefully, that doesn’t end up becoming the actual release timeline. This could be avoided by filming Seasons 3 and 4 back to back, but that would take a long time out of the cast and crew’s schedules (it took almost six months to film Season 2). The fact that they already have a Season 4 renewal, however, means they don’t have to wait to start writing the scripts for the final season. Season 2 filming took place from March through September of 2023.
During the August press conference, Condal addressed the season being shortened from 10 episodes in Season 1 to eight in Season 2 and what that means for the episode counts for the next two seasons.
“I haven’t had discussions with HBO about it. I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from Season 2 on,” he said. This could mean that Seasons 3 and 4 will have eight episodes each. If the series is diligent with time management and can get scripts for both seasons done in advance, there’s a world where they could feasibly get filming done in less than a year.
What will happen in House of the Dragon Seasons 3 & 4?
Liam Daniel / HBO
After Season 2 ended on the cusp of a major battle from Fire & Blood, the Battle of the Gullet, Season 3 will begin with that game-changing skirmish fought in the air and at sea. Condal explained why they didn’t get to it in Season 2 in the press conference.
“We were trying to give the Gullet, which is arguably the most anticipated — well, I would say maybe the second-most-anticipated action event of Fire & Blood, trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves,” Condal told journalists. “Obviously, as anybody that’s seen the finale, we’re building to that event. That event will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling of House of the Dragon. Based on what we know now, it should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve pulled off, and we just wanted to have the time, the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans and in the way it’s deserved.”
The Battle of the Gullet will put Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) army up against Aemond’s (Ewan Mitchell). Aegon (Glynn-Carney) escaped King’s Landing in secret with Larys (Matthew Needham) in the Season 2 finale, pursuant to the book plot, setting him up for a potential return down the line. Rhaenyra and Daemon (Smith) reconciled by the end of the season as well, with Daemon committing himself to Rhaenyra as queen after his supernatural and foreboding experiences at Harrenhal.
The season ended with Alicent (Olivia Cooke) secretly meeting Rhaenyra at Dragonstone and giving her consent for son Aemond to be killed and his coup of the throne ended as a result. Alicent also asked Rhaenyra to flee with her and daughter Helaena (Phia Saban), which Rhaenyra rejected. Whether she wanted to leave with her or not, Rhaenyra’s hands were tied to the war that Alicent’s actions triggered at the end of Season 1 when she undid Viserys’ (Paddy Considine) line of succession by crowning Aegon.
If you know the book plot, you know that things only get more deadly from here. If you don’t know the book but are familiar with Game of Thrones, you know that violence is always on the horizon in this franchise.
House of the Dragon, Season 3 Premiere, TBA, HBO, Seasons 1-2 Streaming on Max
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