HBO
The world of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is finally back on TV, after a fairly disappointing last few seasons, with a new show called House of the Dragon, adapted from his fake history novel ‘Fire and Blood’ but specifically about a particular conflict in the Targaryen history. We start in the earlier days of the rule of the dragon lords with a scene setting the world as the well-respected King Jaehaerys calls a council of all the lords in Westeros to determine who the next heir will be — either his eldest child (if a daughter), Rhaenys (Eve Best), or eldest male heir (if not a direct child), Viserys (Paddy Considine).
The realm votes for Viserys, setting a new sort of tradition of prioritizing males further from the line of birth than women that are closer. There’s a noted foreshadowing where it’s said that the King knew the truth, that the only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon was itself. And then the show makes it clear that it’s 172 years before the start of Game of Thrones, so it’s quite a ways away. The episode starts a bit slow and careful as it begins to introduce a few of our players, starting with Princess Rhaenyra, daughter and only child of Viserys, flying her golden dragon Syrax into King’s Landing.
She is met by Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Ser Harrold Westerling (Graham McTavish), an immediate sort of presence of competence, but not much of a character as of yet. We also see Rhaenyra talk with her young friend Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), who is the daughter of the current Hand of the King, the seemingly sensible and even tempered Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans). Her mother Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke) is very pregnant and discusses that contrary to what her daughter wants, their battlefield is the birthing bed — this is explicitly shown later with an interesting parallel scene.
There’s talk of some concern in Essos with a ‘Crabfeeder’ dude that is a mere hint of things to come, brought up by Master of Ships Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) who is also married to the ‘Queen Who Never Was’ Princess Rhaenys. In terms of thematic trickery, Rhaenyra comes across her uncle Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), the younger brother of Viserys, sitting on the Iron Throne. There are some odd vibes between them as he gives her a gift of a Valyrian steel necklace, but later it becomes more clear as she is frustrated that she has never been prioritized by her father, who has only ever wanted a male heir.
HBO
Matt Smith is already a lot of madcap, violent fun here, showing brutality (if understandably so) as he cracks down on the criminals of the city and verbally spars with Otto. His paramour (and I think brother owner?) Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) buffs him up as the true heir and he even lets her pet his great red dragon Caraxes at the end of the episode.
But a substantial part of the episode is the violent, well-choreographed tourney cut between that and the horrible birthing by the Queen. A mysterious new charismatic Dornishman named Ser Cristan Cole (Fabien Frankel) manages to defeat Daemon twice, first in a joust and then in a contest of arms — and then he asks for Rhaenrya’s favor, and there’s more weird flirty vibes there, but that’s Westeros for you. These two battlefields were shown, and in both cases, the Targaryens lost twice — with the Queen even worse, as they force a C-section birth to try to save their child but the baby doesn’t survive either.
The next scene where a teary-eyed Rhaenyra is forced to call her dragon to burn the funeral pyre of her mother and brother is the best acting thus far of Emily Carey as the Princess — subtle and complicated. Paddy Considine is consistently excellent across the board as he must show multiple complex emotional states, like his anger at his Council arguing about choosing a new Heir. It’s a fascinating conversation as we see the various people argue their own positions — Corlys offers his own son and Rhaenys’ of course, but that obviously would help him out.
Instead though we hear that Daemon (although we don’t actually hear it ourselves) called the baby ‘The Heir for a Day’. This is finally enough for Viserys to drop the boot down on his brother, who calls him weak — and he’s probably right, as the King is shown to have cut himself more than once on the Iron Throne, a dire sign for his future.
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Fascinatingly though, Viserys offers an entirely new canon to his daughter, that Aegon came to conquer Westeros due to his own prophetic dreaming of a coming darkness that only a Targaryen on the throne can unite the realm to save itself — a dream called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. It’s the most direct connection to the original books we have yet, and is perhaps a refutation of the finale of Game of Thrones?
I admit I quite liked that scene, and the way Viserys is now setting up his daughter as the new heir and target for trouble for the future. His ‘Promise me’ also echoes back to Ned trying to fulfill his promise to his sister Lyanna — hard to imagine it’s anything but unintentional.
Although I felt that the episode started a bit slow, and there was a bit of the ‘wait, which character is this again’ for a little while, eventually things really get going and the many complicated storylines start to emerge. I can’t say that I like this more than the pretty excellent pilot of Game of Thrones, but it’s a pretty strong first episode nonetheless — I definitely appreciate the scope and design of things, and all of the little details throughout.
A lot of very strong acting and fascinating complexity — I’m actually cautiously optimistic for this one. Fingers crossed.
New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO, streaming on HBO Max.
What did you think of the season premiere? Start a conversation in the comments section below.
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