“Queen’s Landing,” the second episode of House of the Dragon Season 3, opened at a 9.4/10 on IMDb, tying the highest score in the show’s history just one week into the new season. Paired with a strong premiere, it hands the series its best two-episode stretch ever, and the run in Westeros is only getting started.
House of the Dragon is wasting no time reminding viewers why Sunday nights belong to Westeros again. Season 3, Episode 2, “Queen’s Landing,” has opened with a 9.4/10 on IMDb, matching the highest score the series has ever seen, with some outlets tracking it as high as 9.5. Coming right after the 9.2-rated premiere “Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood,” it locks in the show’s strongest two-episode opening yet, a run Forbes writer Paul Tassi summed up bluntly: “That’s also the best two-episode string of the series overall.”
Sunday-night TV can still feel like an event, and House of the Dragon is leaning into that ritual again. Just over a week after Season 3 premiered on June 21, 2026, the series delivered a rare kind of headline: not a cliffhanger rumor, but a plain, measurable surge in audience enthusiasm, captured in real time on IMDb.
A record-breaking episode for House of the Dragon
Season 3, Episode 2, “Queen’s Landing”, aired on June 28, 2026, and it quickly opened with a 9.4/10 rating on IMDb, equaling the series’ all-time best (some outlets reported it reaching 9.5). That number also puts it in the same rarified air as earlier standout chapters in the franchise’s long shadow.
There’s an interesting nuance here, too: that 9.4 ties Season 2’s Episode 4, “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” which previously sat at the top of the show’s modern high-water marks. And before those, Season 1’s “The Lord of the Tides” reached 9.3, a reminder that the show’s biggest moments tend to cluster around decisive turns, not just spectacle.
Strong momentum in Season 3
The momentum didn’t begin with Episode 2. The Season 3 premiere, “Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood,” dramatized the Battle of the Gullet and now sits at 9.2/10 on IMDb after opening higher. Paired with the follow-up’s record, the show has its strongest two-episode start yet.
Forbes writer Paul Tassi summed up what that streak means in plain language: “That’s also the best two-episode string of the series overall.” It’s the kind of comment that reads less like hype and more like a scoreboard update, especially as viewers settle into weekly watching again.
The cast and creators shaping the story
That weekly rhythm depends on faces the audience already knows: Emma D’Arcy returns as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, alongside Olivia Cooke as Queen Alicent Hightower and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen. The ensemble also includes Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, and others who have helped define the show’s simmering, family-first conflict.
Season 3 also adds a fresh political hinge with James Norton joining as Lord Ormund Hightower, Alicent’s cousin and Lord of Oldtown, commanding a Reach army for the Greens.
Looking ahead in Season 3
In the US, the season is now streaming on HBO Max and airing weekly on HBO on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with Episode 3 arriving on July 5, 2026, the day after Independence Day.
The season finale is slated for August 9, 2026, and the larger endpoint is already in view: a fourth season was ordered in November 2025 and is set to conclude the story. With that finish line fixed, how many more nights like “Queen’s Landing” can this run deliver?