I’m still mad about the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale, and I’m not alone! I have never felt so cruelly led on by something that isn’t a human man. How dare they leave us on such an anticlimactic cliffhanger? Even the casual viewers among us don’t want to invest eight hours of our lives in a show, only to be rewarded with the promise of dragon content … two years from now. Has Max forgotten that the point of TV is to entertain? Should they change their motto to, “It’s not TV, it’s sadism?” Well, yes to the first, and maybe to the second, because that noticeable lack of action – and thus poor storytelling – at the end of Season 2 is due to one thing and one thing only: money. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav only gave showrunner Ryan Condal enough money for eight episodes, even though this season’s storylines clearly needed ten. Of course, the show’s writers could have picked up the pace to deliver more action in these eight episodes, but at least we have a corporate baddie to be mad at.

In any case, House of the Dragon is off the air again, which means we have two years to predict how its major cliffhangers will resolve. Let’s speculate wildly, shall we?

1. Rhaena spends another season chasing that dragon

Desperate to fill in the extra minutes of the Season 2 finale that would have otherwise been devoted to something interesting, House of the Dragon creators decided instead to include several scenes of Rhaena running through grass. While only one was necessary, they continued to check in on her as she ran through more grass. Then, when she finally finished running through the grass and found the dragon Sheepstealer, the storyline ended. She didn’t even get on the dragon. That said, why should we stop dragging this out? In Season 2, we can see her start to walk up to the dragon before the camera cuts away. Then we can check in on her every few episodes to see that she’s walked several more inches. By mid-season, she’ll have paused for a drink. Then, maybe, she’ll get on the dragon in the Season 3 finale. But even that feels too soon. Let’s make it Season 4!

2. Rhaenyra and Mysaria make it official

I’m starting to suspect that the writers paired up Rhaenyra and Mysaria simply to make the end of episode 6 more interesting. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a cliffhanger or meme-able moment for the Internet to dissect that week. Because honestly, where has this storyline gone? I want to see these two take things further. I want to see them hunt for apartments in Dorne and pick out dragonglass chandeliers. I want to see them start a feminist bookstore and launch a lecture series featuring Toni and Candace from Portlandia. I want to see them kidnap Criston Cole and cage him in their dungeon, letting him out only to eat and write “Topple the patriarchy” on a chalkboard  500 times in a row. Hopefully this will all happen in Season 2.

3. Tyland Lannister has two beautiful babies with Lohar’s wives

Since they will be sailing for two whole years before we see them ever fight in the Battle of the Gullet, these two will have time to grow close. Lohar’s request for Tyland to impregnate their wives will be fulfilled, and their new family unit will have two new little dragonslayers on their ship in the season premiere. Lohar and Tyland will even realize that they have feelings for each other and enter a civil union in the season’s opening. Then, instead of depicting the Battle of the Gullet, the show will spend three episodes telling the story of Lohar and Tyland’s declining marriage, sparing us no torrid detail or icy, passive-aggressive breakfast conversation. The Battle of the Gullet will happen off screen.  

4. Alicent’s only non-psychopath son arrives in Westeros

With ol’ Aemond One-Eye slowly becoming the new Joffrey, Alicent will need someone – anyone – to show as living proof that she’s not a failure as a mother. This will come in the form of Daeron Targaryen, who has been confirmed alive in the show and who is apparently a well-adjusted, non-psychopath teenager. Likely, he’ll appear right at the end of Season 3 as a replacement for another scene that would have been more dramatic and expensive.  Then, Alicent will whisk him away on another spa trip at that lake where she floated around naked for a whole episode. They’ll spend several episodes talking about their feelings, before … Wait, I’m starting to sense that an underlying cynicism has been driving my predictions. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. Let’s just move on to the next prediction.

5. No one will watch Season 3 because Season 2 was so anticlimactic that the entire world has given up on the Game of Thrones universe forever, causing all future Thrones seasons, spinoffs, and remakes to tank immediately, causing Max and thus the entire streaming industry to implode

Oh, OK, I see it now. Yes, I have been a bit cynical.