New ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Details Revealed

HBO’s House of the Dragon surprised fans with a shortened second season and a quiet ending while promising battles to come. But HBO’s Francesca Orsi says fans won’t have to be patient for long; Season 3 of the Game of Thrones prequel will open with the Battle of the Gullet, the much-anticipated showdown between the Greens and the Blacks.

“It was worth the wait,” Orsi told Deadline of the decision to move the battle from Season 2 to 3. “It’s going to be better than ever, and I don’t think we had the time at that point to do what it is that we’ve achieved now this season.” She noted that lead producer Kevin de la Noy worked on Titanic, so his experience as a master producer will lead to the show’s massive battle being better than it could have been before.

She also revealed that HBO is working on yet another Targaryen-focused spinoff, although details are still under lock-and-key. The next Targaryen-based spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, will premiere this summer and has been receiving fantastic early reviews—including from series creator George R.R. Martin.

We last left our Targaryen friends on the cusp of war. In the season 2 finale, Alicent Hightower travels in secret to Dragonstone to meet with series protagonist Rhaenyra Targaryen and beg for the safety of her family in exchange for the end of the coming war—but Rhaenyra tells her it is too late, unless she sacrifices her son, Aegon. Meanwhile, Daemon Targaryen foresees a future involving the White Walkers that is strangely different from the original HBO series’ ending. (Final season retcon, anyone?) As the season 2 finale ends, we see armies in the North, the Riverlands, and the Westerlands mobilize for war, while Otto Hightower sits in a cell somewhere.

HBO has already announced that House of the Dragon will end with Season 4, as the series will soon reach the end of Fire and Blood, the novel that the prequel series is based on. Season 3 will premiere at some point this year.