House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6 release time, trailer, and what's to come

We don't have many episodes to go until the conclusion of House of the Dragon season 2, so I'm sure these aren't ones you're going to want to miss. The Game of Thrones prequel takes us back a few hundred years before the events of the original show, following House Targaryen at the peak of their power. That means there are more dragons, more incest, and eventually, just as many battles. The Targaryen civil war, dubbed the Dance of the Dragons, has finally begun in season 2, and I can promise you that more major deaths are on the way.

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, a Targaryen history book written from the voice of an archmaester. And as Ramsay Bolton says in Game of Thrones: "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Let's preview what you can expect from tonight's episode, which marks the sixth of the season.

Season 2 episode 6 release date and time

The sixth episode of House of the Dragon season 2 premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 21 at 9:00 p.m. ET. If you're catching the linear showing on HBO tonight, you'll want to make sure you turn on the channel at exactly 9:00 p.m. ET so you don't miss a minute of the episode. If you can't make the premiere time, that's no sweat; HBO has multiple encore showings after the premiere. According to HBO's schedule, the new episode will air again at 10:10 p.m. ET, 12:00 a.m. ET, and 1:50 a.m. ET, leading into Monday morning.

If you're tuning in to the new episode tonight on HBO's streaming service Max, you can start watching at any time after it's released at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Season 2 episode 5 recap

Last week's episode of House of the Dragon season 2 was a slower one, but we probably all needed the breather after the Battle at Rook's Rest. In "Regent," Criston's army returns to King's Landing and for some reason, he thinks it's a good idea to parade Meyles' head around the city. The smallfolk don't find this admirable, though. Aegon is in bad shape and as the maesters get to work on treating him, Aemond brings up the elephant in the room. A regent must be chosen to lead in Aegon's place. Though Alicent volunteers herself for the role, Aegon's council chooses Aemond.

Daemon continues to struggle in the Riverlands, not exactly understanding how to get supporters behind him. He also has a weird sex dream with his mom, which, I mean... no comment! Corlys mourns the loss of Rhaenys and is angry with Rhaenyra for sending her to Rook's Rest. Baela speaks with her grandfather and tells him that Rhaenys went there on her own accord and she went out valiantly. Rhaenrya wants Corlys to be her Hand, a position he will take up.

Rhaenyra feels lost in episode 5; she knows she's the rightful heir to the Iron Throne but she's never been trained for battle and her council won't allow her to leave Dragonstone. So what can she do? She confides in Mysaria who gives her advice, and after Jacaerys visits the Twins, he returns home to plot with his mother. They talk about the fact that they need more dragons in their army, however, they don't have dragonriders. Jace points out that there must be others out there in their bloodline — a.k.a. bastards — who might be able to claim their riderless dragons.

The episode ends teasing the upcoming dragonseeds storyline, which should be a really entertaining element of Fire & Blood to see depicted onscreen.

What to expect from season 2 episode 6

As mentioned, the ending of episode 5 sets up the dragonseeds, in an event that is dubbed the Sowing of the Seeds. We know that's what is coming up next, but considering we don't see any of the new dragonriders and only one other dragon in the episode 6 preview, I'm a little confused about what's going to happen. If we were following the Fire & Blood order of events, we'd need to see the Sowing of the Seeds next. But it looks like the show is dragging this event out across multiple episodes for some reason. This makes me pretty nervous for the rest of the season.

Check out the preview for season 2 episode 6:

As seen in the preview above, episode 6 sees Rhaenyra continue to struggle with her next move. She's accepted that she doesn't have Daemon on her side, so she must turn to the other dragons to build up her army. Criston realizes that if Daemon takes the Riverlands, his army isn't big enough to challenge his. Aemond, however, isn't worried about Daemon. There's also a conflict at King's Landing which is teased in the preview, showing a riot breaking out in the streets and Alicent and Helaena being chased. Uh oh.

The preview for tonight's episode gives us more of the same, but I'm hoping there's much more to the story that is not shown in the teaser! There's only one way to find out, and that's to tune in for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6 tonight on HBO and Max.