‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 needed to be 10 episodes long

How can you best sum up the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale? Four words: good episode, underwhelming finale.

In many ways, the Season 2 closer, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” should be a House of the Dragon viewer’s wildest dream. The show treats us to scene after scene of incredible, dialogue-driven character work, from Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower’s (Olivia Cooke) charged reunion to Alyn of Hull’s (Abubakar Salim) brutally honest confrontation with his father, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). Plus, we get several fascinating nods to the magical powers at work in Westeros, like Daemon Targaryen’s (Matt Smith) weirwood vision and Helaena Targaryen’s (Phia Saban) dragon dreaming prophecy.

But much of that goodness loses its shine when you consider “The Queen Who Ever Was”s many missteps, and where this episode stands in the context of House of the Dragon as a whole. It’s the end of the season, so why are we just now spending so much time on Tyland Lannister’s (Jefferson Hall) excursion to Essos? Why does Rhaena Targaryen (Phoebe Campbell) hunt the dragon Sheepstealer for the entire episode, only for the finale to end before they truly interact? Why do the last two minutes play like a “next week on” trailer for a nonexistent ninth episode, instead of delivering a definite conclusion to Season 2?

The point is, it feels like something is missing as the finale’s credits roll. And what’s missing are the extra two episodes that would have taken this season from eight episodes to a much-needed 10, just like House of the Dragon‘s first season and much of its predecessor Game of Thrones. Two more hours of storytelling — I’d even settle for just one! — would have allowed House of the Dragon more room to expand on the many arcs that feel woefully incomplete by the end of Season 2. One in particular comes to mind: the much-teased Battle of the Gullet.

“To the Gullet on the morrow!” (But really, Season 3.)

Abigail Thorn in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO

The House of the Dragon storyline that is perhaps most emblematic of all the disappointment towards the Season 2 finale is that of the Velaryon blockade in the stretch of ocean known as the Gullet. We’ve heard about the blockade since Season 2’s very first episode, and it’s been a constant murmur throughout the season ever since: Rhaenys (Eve Best) discusses patrolling it, Corlys plans to join it once his ship is repaired, Team Green laments the pressure it puts on King’s Landing, and Rhaenyra and Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) eventually use it to their advantage in gaining the smallfolk to their side. Basically, House of the Dragon is telling you time and again that the blockade in the Gullet is a big deal.

All this emphasis on the blockade creates expectations. With every mention of the blockade, House of the Dragon sets up a narrative pattern that it wants you to pay attention to. Think of it like Chekhov’s gun. When we see a loaded gun onstage, we know it must go off by the end of a play. When we hear so much about the blockade in the Gullet, of course we’ll anticipate that a large-scale conflict will play out in the Gullet by the end of House of the Dragon Season 2.

Unfortunately, Chekhov’s gun gets jammed here, and House of the Dragon does not go to the Gullet in Season 2. Instead, it pushes the pivotal battle off to Season 3 along with Rhaena’s (likely) claiming of Sheepstealer, whatever’s up with jailed Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), Rhaenyra and her dragonriders’ attack on King’s Landing, and the many forces converging upon the Riverlands. The frustration around these storylines not reaching any solid conclusions is not as simple a complaint as “we yearn for sweet, sweet dragon action!” It’s actually exasperation over being promised something for an entire season, then being told to wait another few years for payoff. As it stands, “The Queen Who Ever Was” feels like an episode building up to a finale. Imagine if House of the Dragon followed it up with the Battle of the Gullet in a potential Season 2 episode 9 or 10! We would have gotten closure on one of Season 2’s largest-scale conflicts — and still had more than enough to get excited about in Season 3.

Why House of the Dragon‘s Season 2 ending doesn’t work — and why we needed the Battle of the Gullet.

Steve Toussaint in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO

The balance between narrative satisfaction and building anticipation is a tricky line that all season finales must walk. With the exception of Rhaenyra and Alicent’s sublime confrontation and Daemon finally bending the knee after six episodes of weirwood therapy, “The Queen Who Ever Was” doesn’t really deal in satisfaction. It leans too far into anticipation and mistakes an unfulfilling cliffhanger for narrative momentum (something we could have used in the lull following Rook’s Rest).

To understand just how unsatisfying House of the Dragon‘s Season 2 finale was in the grand scale of Westerosi storytelling, let’s compare it to a similar season finale from a familiar show: Game of Thrones.

“The Winds of Winter,” the Season 6 finale of Game of Thrones, shares some similar-seeming beats with “The Queen Who Ever Was.” Both episodes feature game-changing visions: Bran learns that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, while Daemon learns of the Song of Ice and Fire. Both episodes also end with new alliances. In Game of Thrones, the Tyrells, Yara Greyjoy, and Sand Snakes ally with Daenerys Targaryen, while in House of the Dragon, Alicent and Rhaenyra hatch a plan together, and Tyland Lannister secures the Triarchy’s naval support. But the biggest commonality that stood out to me was the very simple fact that these finales end with “People On Boats Sailing Towards Big Things.” Game of Thrones‘ version of this is Daenerys finally sailing to Westeros with her fleet (and many allies). House of the Dragon, on the other hand, features Alyn and Corlys rowing out to the blockade, with Tyland and Lysene admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn) sailing to meet it.

That’s a lot of People On Boats about to do Big Things, but there’s one key difference between the two. Game of Thrones spent all of Season 6 — no, the whole show — building towards Daenerys leaving for Westeros. Her departure from Essos is in itself the end of one narrative arc for her, and the start of another. It’s both narratively satisfying (she’s leaving, what a big step!) and also makes you want to know what she’ll do when she reaches the next phase of her journey. In House of the Dragon, we’re still mid-blockade arc. The show has specifically been building to the Battle of the Gullet (and Rhaena’s dragon claiming, and the showdown in the Riverlands, and Daeron’s arrival from Oldtown, and, and, and…) for the whole season, so stopping now is basically the equivalent of stopping Game of Thrones Season 6 before the Battle of the Bastards.

House of the Dragon is already falling into the pitfalls of shorter seasons.

Freddie Fox in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO

While Game of Thrones certainly stuck the landing on its Season 6 finale, its seventh and eighth seasons proved disappointments. Just like House of the Dragon Season 2, those two seasons were shorter than their predecessors, meaning the story got less breathing room. Overly rushed character development and plot points compounded on one another until we were left with an underdeveloped, unsatisfying letdown.

Similarly, House of the Dragon Season 2 is already feeling the strain of a shorter episode order. In the finale alone, there were several scenes that felt like we were missing connective tissue between “The Queen Who Ever Was” and its predecessors. How did Aemond Targaryen’s (Ewan Mitchell) barbecuing of Sharp Point play out? How did Alicent act upon her return from her cleansing lake swim? Why did Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) choose this episode of all episodes to suddenly confront Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) over his affair with Alicent? These are all things House of the Dragon lets us infer fairly well, but there’s still enough of a disconnect between episodes that we could have used a little more time fleshing out the moments between them.

House of the Dragon is far from the first genre show to struggle with a shorter episode order, a sacrifice likely made in order to pull off high-budget sequences like Rook’s Rest and the Red Sowing. Game of Thrones, obviously, comes to mind, and as much as I love recent Star Wars offering The Acolyte, I’ll be the first to admit it needed more time to truly develop its story and ideas.

However, House of the Dragon does feel like the first show whose “missing” episodes I’ve felt the most. At least with Game of Thrones and The Acolyte, you’re getting the whole story. Watching House of the Dragon Season 2, I feel like I’m missing 20 percent of the narrative — and a crucial 20 percent at that.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is now streaming on Max.