House Of The Dragon Suffers A Massive New Leak At The Worst Time (2024)

House of the Dragon has suffered a massive leak ahead of its highly anticipated season finale despite efforts to avoid this exact outcome. This is the second time in the show’s two-season history that such a massive leak is disrupting the rollout.

House of the Dragon has pulled off a feat that few thought possible back in the 2010s; serving as a spin-off to the legendary Game of Thrones, the show has managed to live up to the hype and even step out of its predecessor’s shadow to embody its own identity. Based on Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin’s 2018 book Fire and Blood and taking place almost two centuries prior to the events of the first series, the plot of House of the Dragon has riveted fans with its Game of Thrones-esque appeal constrained within a much less ambitious and spread-out narrative. After a successful and record-breaking first season run, the show’s second season would kick off its run by introducing a few new houses in its second season and starting the Dance of the Dragons succession war in earnest.

After a stellar run on the second season, which saw some controversial content worthy of Game of Thrones, bad news has emerged for House of the Dragon as it closes in on its season finale at the end of the week. Reports indicate that a sizeable portion of the final episode for season 2 has already been leaked online, making its way to TikTok and other social media sites for illicit viewing. Several clips from the episode were uploaded by a single account before it could be stopped, totaling about 30 minutes or half the runtime of the episode, and these clips are now spreading around on other social media despite the originator being banned. In a statement provided by an HBO spokesperson to Variety, the company addresses the issue, narrowing the source of the leak and urging fans to make use of the proper channels to access the content when it officially releases on Sunday.

This is bad news for the show, which already suffered a review-bombing after episode six, which features one of the aforementioned controversial segments. This incident comes just days before the show’s finale, which might contribute to a decline in viewership. The incident also mirrors one that occurred at the end of season one of the show, which saw the final episode leak online just two days before its October 2022 premiere. That leak had apparently been the result of a distribution partner in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa failing to keep a proper lid on things. Learning from the past, HBO reportedly took action to avoid this fate, even refusing to send out journalist copies of the film, which still failed to plug the leak coming from one of the company’s affiliated distributors.

Like all great predecessors, Game of Thrones has a few advantages over House of the Dragon, but being safe from internet hacks and leaks is certainly not on that list. This is an issue that has plagued the franchise from the moment it became a worldwide phenomenon following its phenomenal first season on HBO. The problems have only worsened since then, as increased popularity has net the shows more attention from piracy and leakshare groups.

In a similar fashion to House of the Dragon season two’s early confirmation, the show was renewed for a third season well in advance of the second installment’s premiere. While this shows massive confidence and means that the show isn’t fighting for its life with its finale ratings and viewership, this leak is still endemic of a major issue that needs to be reigned in well in advance of the season three finale, which is guaranteed to have higher stakes.

House of the Dragon is available for streaming on Max and on linear programming on HBO, with the season 2 finale set for 4 August, 2024.

House of the Dragon

TV-MA

Action

Adventure

Drama

Release Date

August 21, 2022

Cast

Paddy Considine , Matt Smith , Emma D'Arcy , Rhys Ifans , Steve Toussaint , Eve Best , Sonoya Mizuno

Main Genre

Fantasy

Seasons

1

Creator

Ryan Condal

Story By

George R. R. Martin

Number of Episodes

10

Source: Variety