Rumored Cuts in ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2, Explained

We knew before it aired that House of the Dragon Season 2 had been cut from 10 episodes down to 8, but only now are we learning what that meant for the show. The belated insight comes from interviews with writers and producers, behind-the-scenes coverage, and even some anonymous leaks to journalists. Here’s a look at everything we know about the cuts and how they were handled.

House of the Dragon got 10 episodes in its first season just as Game of Thrones did for its first six seasons. When Game of Thrones was ending, the shortened seasons were generally chalked up to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who were intent on ending the show in seven seasons. This case seems to be different, and fans were unhappy about it from the start. As the season went on, commenters had their eyes out for pacing issues, but in the end they seemed to pile up right at the end.

When HBO renewed House of the Dragon for a second season, it didn’t announce how many episodes the new season would have. Instead, the news broke in March 2023, leaving fans uncertain if this was a change or not. Executive producer Sara Hess cleared this up in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in May, saying “it wasn’t really our choice” to cut the episodes.

This left fans and reporters to speculate, with the most popular theory being that HBO was trying to reduce the budget on the show. This made sense with other moves Warner Bros. Discovery was making at the time, especially with the WGA writers’ strike and the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike both looming on the horizon.

The timeline here is vital to understanding this situation – the scripts for the season were reportedly finished in January 2023, the shortened season was announced in March, and the writers’ strike began in May. It’s not clear if there were eight scripts in January or 10. That means there were less than two months for the writers to rework their scripts from 10 episodes down to eight. On top of that, they had to work quickly, as their writers’ room had already been dismissed, but the strike would prevent them from working on the set.

House of the Dragon took some heat for filming through the summer despite the strikes. Technically the show did not violate any union rules as the cast were not represented by SAG-AFTRA, but the WGA writers could not do any work covered by their union. Even showrunner Ryan Condal, a WGA member, was not allowed to do any writing, revising, or related work on set.

If you felt like Season 2 stopped abruptly on its way to one more big action sequence, you’re not alone. Way back in the spring of 2023, Deadline reported that “a portion of the plot originally intended for Season 2, including a major battle” had now been moved to Season 3. Book readers correctly guessed that this was the “Battle of the Gullet,” and Condal explained the choice to move that action in a press conference this month.

“We are trying to give The Gullet – which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood – trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We are building to that event that will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling, and it should be the biggest thing to date that we’ve we’ve pulled off. We just wanted to have the time and the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans in the way it’s deserved. We also wanted to build some anticipation toward it. So I apologize for the wait, but… with the team that we have together, we’re going to pull off a hell of a win with The Battle of the Gullet.”

Another action sequence that was left hanging in Season 2 was Rhaenyra’s return to King’s Landing, with Alicent literally left watching for her on the horizon. One or both of these actions could have made for the satisfying, action-heavy ending most fans were on the lookout for, perhaps even filling two episodes. This has led many commenters to speculate that two episodes were simply cut without any editing, and a growing number of reports are considering that possibility as well.

Many fans were perplexed and disappointed by the brief appearance of Lord Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor) after his casting was announced ahead of the season. Cregan may not have had much to do in Season 2, but the original plan was for him to make at least one more appearance. In the finale, when the army of the North marches across the Freys’ bridge, the original shot apparently featured Taylor as Cregan once again. Many commenters fear that he was cut from this scene because we won’t be seeing him again, which would be a major change from the books. However, if they’re looking for characters and side plots to dismiss to accommodate shortened seasons, someone will have to be on the chopping block.

House of the Dragon Season 3 was already greenlit before Season 2 aired and is now in pre-production. The episode count hasn’t been confirmed, but Condal said he expects it to have eight episodes once again. Meanwhile, HBO did renew the show for a fourth and final season, which Condal said will allow them to finish up this story as he envisioned it. Again, there’s no episode count for Season 4, but it seems reasonable to assume there are 16 episodes left in total to go.

There are other changes to the story in Season 2 that fans are discussing online, which do not seem to be related to the reduced episode count. The biggest is the change to Rhaena Targaryen’s story, which has apparently taken the place of a beloved book character named Nettles. However, it doesn’t appear that Nettles was cut for time – especially since Rhaena’s adventures were added in anyway. There are those hoping that Nettles could still show up in Season 3, but with fewer episodes overall, it’s hard to imagine them introducing this character belatedly.

Finally, fans are understandably concerned about what these cuts could mean for the other shows about Westeros. Right now, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight is filming, and it will have six episodes in its first season. However, this was the stated plan both before and after the writers’ strike, so it seems safe to say there will be time to plan for it. Whether this is the right length for a fantasy epic is another question, but at least the writers won’t be caught between a strike and budget cuts with no way to change their plan.

There are seven other Game of Thrones spinoffs in development, with no guarantee that they will ever be ordered to air. It would be exciting enough for them to get made at all, but now fans are wary of quick cash grabs from HBO. The network mostly escaped blame for the ending of Game of Thrones, but now many content creators want to put pressure on the network to invest in their shows rather than pulling the rug out from under them.

House of the Dragon is streaming now on Max. Season 3 is in pre-production. The Hedge Knight is filming now and is expected to air sometime in 2025. George R.R. Martin’s books are available in print, digital and audiobook formats.

Source: Entertainment Weekly, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter