‘House of the Dragon’ creator says show will end with season 4

Warning: This article contains spoilers from the House of the Dragon season 2 finale.

The war is only just starting to heat up on House of the Dragon, but the end is already in sight.

On Monday, creator Ryan Condal revealed that the Game of Thrones prequel will only last four seasons. “I think it’s four,” he told the group of journalists via a Zoom press conference the morning after the House of the Dragon season 2 finale aired.

The showrunner first answered a question about how the highly anticipated Battle of the Gullet did not occur in the season 2 finale, and whether it was originally supposed to take place this season.

“One of the things that really came into play in season 2 is what is the final destination of the series and where are we going?” Condal said. “And I think it was a combination of factors that led us — knowing now where we’re going and we know what that end point is — to rebalance the story in such a way that we had three further great seasons of television to round out and tell this story, and we knew where we were going and we know how those things kind of break up and break out.”

He added that they “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.”

Later during the conversation, Condal was asked to clarify what he meant by “three further great seasons of television to round out and tell this story,” which is when he confirmed that he’s planning to end the show with season 4.

As for when the prequel series will return with season 3, Condal revealed the tentative schedule. “We will be starting prep in the fall and we should be in production again in early-ish 2025,” he said.

Now that Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) has seven adult dragons and Daemon (Matt Smith) re-pledged his loyalty and armies to her, the table has been set for the war to really ignite.

“I haven’t had discussions with HBO about it, [but] 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. “There are so many great events that we’re already writing in season 3 as this war really comes to a big head at this point in the storytelling.”

He added that the show is “largely a metaphor for nuclear conflict.”

“If season 2 was the arming of the sides and the cold war with moments of actual conflict and explosion, I think season 3 you do start to see things boil over from here to the end of the war,” Condal explained. “As always with this show, there’s going to be giant moments of spectacle but also real moments of surprise and character nuance that we’re very much looking forward to. Some of my favorite moments in the book, just as a reader, that I’m excited to adapt as a dramatist, are yet to come in the story.”

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