‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Will Open With the Battle of the Gullet

House of the Dragon Season 3 is well underway, with HBO finally confirming its June 2026 release month. With A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2 already filming and Season 1 awaiting its finale this Sunday, Game of Thrones hype is finally finding its footing after seven years. Westeros is back, with a packed schedule through 2028.

While HBO’s first Thrones prequel had a notable sophomore slump, the energy is still there. We expect House of the Dragon Season 3 to provide the sought-after action viewers hoped for in Season 2, hopefully offering enough spectacle to distract from any adaptation disagreements. There are expected to be at least four major conflict sequences, including a special cold opening in the Season 3 premiere: the franchise’s first full-on naval battle.

‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3 Will Start With the Battle of the Gullet

HBO

The House of the Dragon Season 2 finale, while exciting in its own way, drew widespread frustration from fans, who thought the closing montage of main characters armoring up for various battles might be leading somewhere, only to discover they would have to wait two years for the result. Characters like Alyn and Corlys, as well as Rhaenyra’s new dragonriders, were shown preparing for a major confrontation, which Season 2 teased from the get-go: the Battle of the Gullet.

This is a fateful naval battle in the Dance of the Dragons, and it’s connected to the naval blockade organized against King’s Landing by Rhaenyra’s faction. Using the fleet of House Velaryon, the most powerful naval force in Westeros, Rhaenyra has essentially cut King’s Landing off from outside imports, leading to the starvation of the smallfolk. Tyland Lannister traveled to Essos to request the aid of the Triarchy, with whom Daemon and Corlys waged war during Season 1, seeking a navy for the Greens to break this blockade. A visualization of this conflict can be seen below:

Speaking with Deadline in February 2025, HBO executive Francesca Orsi revealed, “I’m really excited. I think you’re going to be in for a great surprise on how we start the [season] with an exciting battle.” This is, without a doubt, referring to the Battle of the Gullet, but early Season 3 should also involve some other major action set pieces: Rhaenyra’s return to King’s Landing, which was set up by her finale meeting with Alicent, and the Battle at the Red Fork, with Jason Lannister’s army marching toward Harrenhal.

Why ‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 Cut Its Climactic Battle

Rhaenyra and Vermithor in House of the Dragon

As much as fans have enjoyed criticizing the writers for House of the Dragon Season 2, the finale’s greatest flaw came from Warner Bros. higher-ups. Speaking with EW in May 2024, Executive Producer Sara Hess stated, “It wasn’t really our choice.” Later, speaking with THR, showrunner Ryan Condal elaborated:

“One of the things that came into play in season two is: What is the final destination of the series and where are we going? It was a combination of factors that led us to rebalance the season knowing now where we’re going. We wanted to rebalance the story in such a way that we had three great seasons of television [after season one] to round out and tell this story. When you’re trying to mount the show, which requires a tremendous amount of resources, construction, armor, costumes, visual effects … we are trying to give The Gullet — which is arguably the second most anticipated action event of Fire & Blood — trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves…. We just wanted to have the time and the space to do that at a level that is going to excite and satisfy the fans in the way it’s deserved.”

From the information revealed, the script was likely written with ten episodes, with the Battle of the Gullet planned as the penultimate episode climax. WBD executives likely revealed the reduced episode count and financial restraints late in the pre-production process, forcing Condal and Hess to “rebalance” as needed. Whether this was executed properly is to be seen, but budget restrictions aren’t an unfamiliar subject for recent Warner Bros. projects.

Since David Zaslav took over as WBD CEO, the company has taken strides to reduce expenses (via Variety), including layoffs, the cancellation of completed film projects like Batgirl, and the removal of original content from the HBO Max streaming service to save on licensing and residual costs. Hopefully, House of the Dragon Season 3 won’t suffer from this as well.