[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon.]
The Season 1 finale of House of the Dragon may have seen peace in Westeros go up in smoke, but the show itself seems to have finally found some chronological stability after its continuity was disrupted by several time jumps. Following Sunday’s season finale, showrunner Ryan Condal put any fears of further narrative leaps to rest, saying “they are done.”
In an interview with Deadline, Condal reflected on the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series and addressed fan concerns like the show’s recurring lighting issues. An even more encouraging acknowledgment came when he confirmed that the Targaryen’s chronologically uneven march to war — which has required different actors to portray key characters like Emma D’Arcy’s Princess Rhaenyra and Olivia Cooke’s Queen Alicent — has finally reached a steadier pace.
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“As a reward to our wonderful audience for following us through all the time jumps and recasts, they are done,” Condal shared. “We tell the story in real-time from here forward. The actors are playing these characters until the end. We’re not recasting anybody. We’re not making any huge jumps forward in time. We are now in the Dance of the Dragons, and we’re gonna tell that story.”
Elsewhere, Condal praised Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who played the younger counterparts of Dragon’s two female leads, and explained the storytelling decisions that forced the writing staff to push ahead to the war-time narrative.
“The challenge with this season was providing enough of the seeds and backstory, the prologue to what happens without getting mired in it,” he said. “Viserys’ entire reign is a period of peace. It becomes potentially dangerous in terms of making television to live in that world for too long, without the incident that everybody knows is coming. So sure, it would been great to have an extra episode of time to do this and do that. But… the other things that happen in that timeline do not ultimately change what’s going to happen in the future.”
The showrunner also admitted to using The Crown as a template for how to tell a multi-generational tale with the same characters over several years. We’ll give Condal bonus points for learning from the fellow regal drama’s mistakes by retaining Matt Smith through all of its time jumps.
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