Major HBO Show to End After 4 Seasons

A major HBO show is ending.

Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is confirmed to be ending after its upcoming fourth season.

HBO renewed the series for Season 4 in November, and while at the time it wasn’t confirmed that it would be the final season, it was likely that it would be the end. Co-creator Ryan Condal has also previously said that Season 4 would be it, but HBO never actually confirmed it… until now. Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content, told Deadline, “That is the idea” in regards to Season 4 being the final season.

“The idea has always been to follow the history of the Targaryens,” Bloys shared. “If you know the books, you know how the Targaryens end up. So there is a natural end to this particular history of that House of the Targaryens.”

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon premiered in 2022 after receiving a straight-to-series order in 2019. The series is set about 100 years after the Seven Kingdoms are united by the Targaryen conquest, nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. In House of the Dragon, viewers see the events leading up to the decline of House Targaryen, a devastating war of succession known as the “Dance of the Dragons.”

The ensemble cast includes Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel, Olivia Cooke, Matthew Needham, Jefferson Hall, Harry Collett, Tom Glynn-Carney, Ewan Mitchell, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, and Phia Saban. House of the Dragon was renewed for Season 3 in June 2024 and will be released sometime this year. A premiere date has not yet been announced, but more information will likely be released soon.

As for the final season, which isn’t expected until at least 2028, Bloys revealed that Condal “is working, like any show like this; he is finishing post on Season 3 and working with the writers on what Season 4 looks like. I don’t know where he’s landed on the episode count yet.”

Since House of the Dragon’s final season won’t be coming for another two years, fans will have plenty of time to prepare for the beginning of the end. It can be assumed that Season 3 will set up Season 4, so fans might get a glimpse as to how the show will end later this year.