In the autumn of 2022, George RR Martin and Ryan Condal’s sweeping, rapturously reviewed Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon ended on a truly heart-stopping note: the staggering shots of Prince Lucerys Velaryon (Harvey Sadler) flying away on his dragon, Arrax, with the white-haired, eyepatch-wearing Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) in pursuit on the significantly larger and more ferocious Vhagar. When Arrax breathes fire on Vhagar, Vhagar becomes enraged and then, just as Lucerys finally rises above the clouds, Vhagar devours him and his dragon in a single mouthful. The final image we see is of Lucerys’s mother Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) as she receives the news and turns to the camera, her face flooding with despair and rage.
Since then, it’s been an agonising wait to find out what happens next – but, thankfully, that will soon be coming to an end. HBO has confirmed that the fantasy epic will be hurtling back into our lives on 17 June and, on 2 December 2023, revealed the first teaser for the show’s second instalment. Predictably, it was a corker.
It opens with a devastated Rhaenyra staring out into sea as a voiceover declares that “errors were made in the hours following King Viserys’s death”. Cut to the new King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen assembling their troops and preparing for battle, and Rhys Ifans’s Otto Hightower strategising with his daughter, the now Dowager Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke). “Many will die,” she murmurs. Then, as is to be expected in the Game of Thrones universe, there are a flurry of beheadings, horses galloping through brutal battle scenes, bursts of dragon fire, and a stunning shot of two dragons and their riders facing up to each other on an expansive beach. As Eve Best’s Princess Rhaenys puts it, “There’s no war so bloody as a war between dragons.”
Two duelling trailers – one for the “greens”, those who support Queen Alicent, and one for the “blacks”, those on the side of Princess Rhaenyra – then dropped on 21 March, followed by the final trailer on 14 May.
As the four trailers make clear, much of the first season’s cast – including Steve Toussaint’s Corlys Velaryon, Fabien Frankel’s Criston Cole, Sonoya Mizuno’s Mysaria, Harry Collett’s Prince Jacaerys, Bethany Antonia’s Lady Baela, Phoebe Campbell’s Lady Rhaena Targaryen and Phia Saban’s Queen Helaena – will return.
Best of all, there will be some fresh blood, too: Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull, a sailor in the Velaryon fleet who served in the Stepstones campaign; Clinton Liberty as his brother Addam of Hull; Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers, a healer and resident of Harrenhal; Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower, the son of Otto and brother to Alicent; Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong, Castellan of Harrenhal and great-uncle to Lord Larys; and Tom Taylor as Cregan Stark, the current Lord of Winterfell and ancestor of Jon Snow.
There is one piece of bad news, however: instead of last season’s 10 episodes, there will only be eight this time around – though, if these first glimpses are anything to go by, they’ll be action-packed from start to finish. Let the battle commence.