The ‘House of the Dragon’ season finale has arrived early — and not on HBO’s terms.
On Sunday, episode five of this Netflix comedy, in which Steve and Fiona have to move out of their apartment after Fiona finds a giant book of spells, is expected to close with a five-minute intermission. And the rest of this episode will come back on at 11:30 p.m.
As NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers noted earlier this week, this intermission was “a Netflix thing,” that’s why it opened at the end of the episode with a scene that will close the episode with a “little pause.” In other words, the episode will be shortened.
HBO didn’t take to Facebook or Twitter, but instead sent a pre-emptive statement to The Hollywood Reporter:
“We don’t like to preempt. We’re sorry that Netflix and Amazon forced a five-minute intermission on a show you guys like. But we know that this type of program has its advantages, like less commercials, and we’ll be returning the episode next week with a full 10 minutes of content. So we feel great about the choice to end with this.”
The decision makes sense to HBO CEO Richard Plepler.
“There are those who would say, ‘But they’re not watching Netflix anymore. They’re going to watch [their] HBO Go or Watch [their] HBO All Access. They’re going to watch whatever they want.’ But there should be an awareness of what you want, when you want,” he told the The Hollywood Reporter recently, “and when you want that program to be available in that window.”
The full story is here.
There is no word if HBO will release a full-length episode next week.
In the show’s second-season finale, Fiona has returned to the magic of the city: The House of the Dragon.
It’s also a more traditional drama than Season 1, which was a deconstruction of Harry Potter, according to Entertainment Weekly writer Brian Lowry. “In the premiere, it was all about what it means to be ‘the boy with the dragon tattoo on his back’ all the time, that’s definitely not the future of this show. This year, it’s mostly about the relationship between two people who have to confront their demons, Fiona and Steve, who have to move in together or face the
