House of the Dragon marks HBO’s biggest finale audience since the end of Game of Thrones

Prior to the launch of House of the Dragon, you may have wondered, as I did, how many Game of Thrones fans would actually be viewing the new series. After all, the final season of Game of Thrones left many vocal fans disappointed, but as we know, House of the Dragon has proven to be a major success for HBO. In fact, the recent season finale of House of the Dragon has posted the best ratings for an HBO finale since the conclusion of Game of Thrones back in May 2019.

The House of the Dragon season finale had some competition from Sunday Night Football and the final game of the Major League Baseball ALCS between the NY Yankees and Houston Astros, but HBO revealed today that the finale drew 9.3 million viewers across all platforms.  “We’re so thrilled to see House of the Dragon catch fire with Game of Thrones fans around the world, as well as new viewers who are discovering the world of Westeros for the first time,” said Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and HBO Max. “Congrats to George, Ryan, Miguel and the whole House of the Dragon team on an incredible first season.” All episodes of the first season of the series are averaging 29 million viewers, which is closely behind the final season of Game of Thrones, which averaged 32.8 million viewers.

As for where the second season of House of the Dragon will take us, showrunner Ryan Condal teased to Entertainment Weekly that the first season was merely “setting the table for a very bloody feast to come.” Condal added, “The reason that I wanted to really spend our time doing this is because I wanted everybody to understand who all of these characters were and the long history they had behind them — behind their fathers and their grandfathers — that led us to this point where they end up fighting a civil war against each other.” With the history behind the warring families out of the way, Condal is “really interested in picking up with all of those characters that we spent all of this time introducing, particularly Rhaenyra and Alicent’s families, and seeing what happens now that we’ve flipped the chessboard over and spilled the pieces on the ground,” Condal continues. “How do all those react? That’s the story that we tell in season 2 and beyond.“

What did you think of the House of the Dragon season finale?