“House of the Dragon” Season 2 Unleashes Two Trailers, Plenty of Dragons, and War

March 21, 2024

How big is House of the Dragon season 2 going to be? So big they’ve just released two trailers to prepare you for the war to come.

The green trailer focuses on Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and her father, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), dealing with the aftermath of the death of King Viserys (Paddy Considine). The King’s rule had been peaceful, but his final years, as his health deteriorated and his house was rife with rumor and intrigue, were marred by ruthless maneuvering. Queen Alicent and Ser Otto believe they are the two people who know how to steer the realm back towards a peaceful rule, lorded over by Alicent’s son, King Aegon. Yet vipers circle above and below, and Ser Otto assures his daughter that the price for peace very well means war.

The black trailer focuses on Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), the daughter of the late King Viserys, and the person he chose to succeed him. Yet, as season 1 ended, it was Alicent’s son Aegon who took Rhaenrya’s place. “I need to fight this war and win it,” Rhaenyra tells a round table of her people, including her beau (and uncle), the dangerous Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). She’s supported as well by the petulant and equally dangerous Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) and Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint).

Both the green and the black trailers offered plenty of dragon shots, and that’s fitting, considering when we spoke to showrunner Ryan Condal, he teased how much more dragon-centric season 2 would be.

“We’ll definitely introduce more of them as we go along. I think that’s part of the fun of doing the show. They are characters, and in season two, they’re needed for their most famous purpose, which is to decimate and cause death and destruction.”

Condal also discussed how they worked on differentiating the dragons in House of the Dragon from the beasts fans got to know and love in Game of Thrones.

“In season one, the dragons were designed over the course of a year, where we did a lot of early concepting on basic things like how our dragons are different from what you saw in the original series and honoring what they did with Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion,” Condall said. “Then it was figuring out, during a time when there were many more dragons, was there just one breed? We came up with these three different genotypes of them, where they’re all the same species but have different breeds with different shapes, colors, and sizes.”

The returning cast for season 2 also includes Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall and Matthew Needham. Dragon newcomers are Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull, Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers, Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower, and Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong.

Check out the two trailers below. House of the Dragon season 2 returns to HBO on June 16: