HBO Max’s new juggernaut series House of the Dragon wraps its first season tonight, with a finale that is sure to include blood, sex, and dragons. The massively successful new entry into the Song of Ice and Fire franchise has won fans across the globe, and the series has spent much of its first season setting up the pivotal Dance of the Dragons. Showrunner Ryan Condal spoke to The Times in London (via Deadline) about what to expect in the show’s second season: more battles and more jokes. The series has been criticized for lacking any humor or levity, unlike Game of Thrones, which featured the witty Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and other humorous characters like Bron (Jerome Flynn) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju).

Condal said that season two would lead to “natural pathways into moments of levity” in the series, and will be relying on Matt Smith’s droll Daemon to provide more humor. “I think Matt Smith is very funny. If there is one character that does not care, it is Daemon.” Condal also noted that so much of the first season was priming viewers for the eventual war between the Targaryens and the Hightowers by building the characters on both sides of the conflict.  “We will get to the spectacle, … But you have to understand these people’s complexities before they’re thrown into war,” adding “Series two will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in.”