‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Won’t Have Time Jumps, Says Ryan Condal

• “House of the Dragon” showrunner Ryan Condal confirmed there will be no time jumps in season two.
• Many actors were recast in season one due to the multi-year time jumps.
• Condal told The Hollywood Reporter that he was initially scared by the multiple recastings.

“House of the Dragon” showrunner Ryan Condal has confirmed that there will be no time jumps in season two.

Throughout the first season of the hit HBO series, there have been multiple time jumps to bridge the multi-year gap between events that lead to a civil war in Westeros, dubbed the Dance of the Dragons in the “Fire & Blood” book that the show is based on.

In a new interview with Deadline, Condal said that there will be no more huge time jumps since the civil war has begun.

“I will say, as a reward to our wonderful audience for following us through all the time jumps and recasts, they are done,” Condal said. “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.”

Several of the characters were recast during the season due to the time jumps, including fan favorites Rhaenyra Targaryen (from Milly Alcock to Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower (from Emily Carey to Olivia Cooke).

Also in the interview, Condal said he was worried about the recastings since it was uncommon to do so multiple times within a season.

“It did scare the hell outta me. It scared the hell out of HBO, too,” the showrunner said. “No one else has really done it before. I mean, the closest analog that I have is ‘The Crown,’ one of my favorite dramas of the last 20 years. I’ve talked about ‘The Crown’ more in our room than I did about most other shows other than the original ‘Game of Thrones.’ They did it incredibly successfully. It was the proof that we could do it on a more accelerated timeline because it was so successful.”

Condal continued: “They went from Claire Foy and Matt Smith to Tobias Menzies and Olivia Colman. You accepted that they were the same characters. The different thing is those are historical characters and you know who they are. But it was proof to me that if the drama was compelling enough and the story was compelling enough, that people would stay and follow the characters and not the actors. And sure enough, that’s what they did.” 

Condal added that both Alcock and Carey were “phenomenal young actors” with “incredible” careers ahead of them.

In a previous interview with Variety, Condal said he wasn’t “closing the door” on them returning in future seasons, potentially in a flashback scene.

Many fans were sad to see the pair be replaced in episode seven and even D’Arcy acknowledged during an interview with the Independent that she had big shoes to fill after the recasting.