While Game of Thrones' ending is a controversial one, folks have returned to Westeros thanks to its spinoffs (which are streaming with an HBO Max subscription). While we're currently in the midst of House of the Dragon Season 3, fans are also looking forward to the second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. However, the showrunner explained why filming its sophomore season has been brutal. And after hearing his recollection, I totally get that description.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms trolled the fans with its first few episodes, and its comedic tone set it apart from the rest of the GOT franchise. Eventually, the drama came with Duncan's trial, and I can't wait to see what happens in Season 2 of the book-to-screen adaptation. In a conversation with THR, creator/ showrunner Ira Parker spoke about how challenging it's been filming the second time around, offering:
Season one was so hard. So totally hard. The speed at which we had to shoot these things and how quickly we had to move around. It felt more like an indie film, or even a student film, than it did a Game of Thrones production. Then came season two, and it is somehow 10 times harder. This has been a brutal, brutal season. The biggest part has been this weather. We had to go somewhere for some heat and dryness because Book Two takes place in a drought.
Yikes. While one might have thought that the HBO show's scale and epic medieval battles made filming difficult, but for Season 2 it was mostly about the weather. Indeed, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms had to stop filming Season 2 due to historic rains that flooded the set in Gran Canaria, Spain. One can only imagine what a logistical nightmare that created for the cast and crew, as well as how it affected the shooting schedule as a whole.
Later in the same interview, Parker went on to share more about the chaos that happened when the drought set surprisingly flooded in the middle of principal photography. In his words:
Yeah, the place we chose to shoot our drought in got a once-in-a-100-year storm. It kept getting water, and we got rained out of locations. We got flooded. There were national emergencies. We had to put the crew on hiatus. We were going to go back — and then it happened again. There’s been so much stopping and starting that it’s been hard to get into a real cadence. This has been going on too long for a six-episode season, and we still have three more weeks of shooting.
My mind is spinning, and I'm not actually involved in A Knight of the Seen Kingdoms. While one might assume that the hardest part of filming its sophomore season would be meeting fan expectations after Season 1, but that wasn't the case. Instead, they dealt with an unprecedented situation that must have been a headache to figure out. And production is still happening as a result of the weather that complicated things back in April.
It's not all bad, though. Ira Parker also praised his cast's work during the ups and downs of bringing Season 2 to life. In his words:
But what’s helped is that Peter and Dexter are a year more experienced and have their thing down. So we’ve sidestepped some of the growing pains of season one. Season two has been a fucking bastard.
While the weather has brought new challenges to AKotSK, at least Parker could rely on his cast. Specifically, it's two leading actors who play Dunk and Egg, respectively. And at least the first season racked up a bunch of 2026 Emmy nominations.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is currently expected to return for Season 2 sometime in early 2027. For now, new episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays on HBO as part of the 2026 TV schedule.
