The ‘Extreme Pressure’ is About to Explode in The Highly Anticipated Third Season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   It’s hard to imagine any of the main characters in HBO’s HOUSE OF THE DRAGON ever going on vacation. But showrunner, co-creator, writer, and executive producer Ryan Condal brought that odd image to mind, to make a wider point, as he set up Season 3 of the GAME OF THRONES prequel series, which premieres Sunday, June 21, only on Crave. “I think the big thing this season, as with any kind of real-life situation, you learn a lot about an individual when you see them under stress,” Condal said during a virtual media conference. “It’s very easy to just have a guy sitting next to a pool with a Mai Tai, and everybody’s pretty calm in that situation. But when you put them in a life-and-death situation, or where other people around them are in life-and-death situations, you really get to know who they are as characters. I think the extreme pressure applied to most of our cast this season will shed real light on who these characters actually are, at their core.” HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is set 200 years before the events in GAME OF THRONES, and tells the turbulent tale of House Targaryen. As anyone familiar with the source material would expect, it’s a complex story with the likes of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (played by Emma D’Arcy), Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) jockeying for power in a dark and dangerous time. En masse, the producers and cast have promised that Season 3 of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is by far the most fiery to date, following two seasons when some fans have been yearning for a bit more action. “The idea has always been, we have a plan, we’re going to stick to it, and we’re not going to listen to the noise in between,” Condal insisted. “I realize that this is a four-season show, and you have to wait two years in between each chapter (the first two seasons were released in 2022 and 2024). But ultimately, this is one story we’re telling. I mean, to get upset about something midway through is like reacting to a play when you don’t like the turn that the story took in the middle. But there are another two acts coming. I think that’s where we sort of are.” Nonetheless, Condal said he understands the impatience of some devotees. “I get the frustration,” he said. “It’s a long downtime between seasons. But it just takes a long time to make the show. There’s prep and shooting, and this is after scripts are written, which takes a year. And then it takes seven or eight months to make dragons. So do the math. It’s not possible to come out every year. I’m very sorry, but you guys decided to be fans of a show called HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.” Speaking of dragons and everything that comes along with them, there’s no shortage of action and carnage in the first episode of Season 3. It’s known as the Battle of the Gullet to those who have read the books, and not everyone involved survives. The first two seasons have been incrementally building up to this explosive point in the narrative. “The delight for me is that (Queen Rhaenyra) is finally in a position of confidence and power – personal, political, strategic,” D’Arcy said. “And so, a character who we’ve seen in a sort of reactionary position for the majority of two seasons is finally positioned to act. And some of the restraints have finally been lifted. There is a great clarity to her thinking. I think she has a growing religiosity. I think that she’s leaning increasingly on her faith. I think she believes hers is a holy war. I think she believes she has a divine mandate to rule. And with that comes a reduction in doubt. So yeah, we are primed to see quite a different side to her character.” As far as Daemon goes, however, Smith perceives a perilous consistency. “(Daemon) has been trying to raise an army for some time, and finally that addiction is about to be sated,” Smith said. “He’s about to enter the period or the element of his life where he feels most alive, which is war, violence, and chaos. I’ve always seen him as an agent of chaos, really. What’s strange is, there’s not a huge amount of time that has passed between Season 1 and now (in the timeline of the story), actually. And so, to transform someone completely is always … I’m always sort of at odds with that idea. Because fundamentally, the kind of situations around them change, but the people, the essence, the idea of him, is pretty similar to what it was in Season 1.” Cooke, meanwhile, had more immediate, pressing concerns. “I actually had to see the osteopath because my cape was too heavy,” she said. When other cast members expressed surprise, she insisted she wasn’t joking. There are just so many heavy responsibilities in HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. Everyone could use a Mai Tai.   billharristv@gmail.com   @billharris_tv