House of the Dragon’s Cut Battle May Explain What Went Wrong With Season 2

Director Alan Taylor spoke about his time on Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon in an interview with Gold Derby last week, and he may have given us some new insight on why the latest season in Westeros got a lukewarm reception from fans. Taylor revealed that he was originally assigned to direct House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 9, and that it would have depicted the Battle of the Gullet. However, when the season was trimmed down to eight episodes, Taylor was moved to Episode 4 and the Battle of the Gullet was pushed back to Season 3. This adds even more weight to the leading theory on why Season 2’s pacing felt off.

“It was a funny kerfuffle at the beginning, because we were going to originally do 10 episodes, and we cut it down to eight episodes,” Taylor recalled. “I was going to do Episode 9, so I had to jump around and find a new chair to sit in, and I wound up getting 204, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” which came early in the season, but wound up being one of the bigger production numbers. I was happy that I got to deliver on some things the fans felt like they were waiting for.”

Taylor directed seven of the bloodiest episodes of Game of Thrones, including Season 7, Episode 6, “Beyond the Wall.” He returned for House of the Dragon Season 2, directing the season premiere and Episode 4, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” which depicted the Battle of Rook’s Rest.

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Game of Thrones typically saved its biggest battles and dramatic twists for the second-to-last episode of each season, and it looks like House of the Dragon plans to continue that trend. Season 1, Episode 9 saw the Green coup in King’s Landing, culminating in Princess Rhaenys’ violent escape on dragon back in the middle of Aegon II’s coronation, while Season 2, Episode 7 depicted “The Red Sowing.” However, showrunner Ryan Condal has confirmed that the season was originally intended to end with the Battle of the Gullet, and if veteran director Taylor was meant to handle Episode 9, it probably would have fallen there.

This serves to bolster a popular theory among fans on social media — that House of the Dragon Season 2 wasn’t restructured much at all when its episode count was reduced, and that instead, two episodes were essentially dropped from the end. This could lead to some pacing issues, which may explain the lukewarm reviews of the season as a whole.

Tragically, this seems to have been a studio decision, leaving the writers with no choice at all. Last year, writer and producer Sara Hess told Entertainment Weekly that cutting the episode count “wasn’t really our choice,” which makes sense as Warner Bros. Discovery was facing financial difficulty at the time. On top of that, the season began filming just before the WGA writers strike started, meaning that the writers could not re-work their scripts to change the pacing of the season. As it was, the show faced scrutiny because Condal was present on set during the strike, but he was acting only as a producer, not a writer.

With more time to work within this unexpected limitation, the writers might have been able to shuffle some things around and make the season feel more complete. However, Condal has said that he chose to move the Battle of the Gullet to Season 3, wishing to give it all the screentime and funding it deserves. Fans likely would have felt the sting of the shortened season either way, but many take comfort knowing that their least favorite changes were out of the creators’ hands.

House of the Dragon Season 3 is filming now, and is expected to air sometime in 2026. Before that, a new spinoff called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere sometime this year on HBO and Max. George R.R. Martin’s books are available now in print, digital, and audiobook format.