HBO
As it currently stands, the ‘HBO’ and ‘Max’ tentpole show House of the Dragon is announced to plan for four seasons for ending — which theoretically is enough time to tell the full story of the Dance of Dragons as told in George R R Martin’s ,Fire and Blood,, but I do wonder how things might be elongated and shrunk to fit — or if they will even end it at a the ‘correct’ place by most people’s standards.
The second season was meant to be ten episodes, with the finale clearly implied to be a big battle at King’s Landing, but we also know that people at Warner Bros. Discovery cut the budget and forced them into eight, while also forcing them to film during a writer’s strike, meaning it would be not permitted to change any script in any way, even if they wanted to. So that meant that the showrunners were shackled into a season that had to account for quite a lot of CGI dragon budget, plenty of extras, and somehow also tell a reasonable story.
In general I feel like the season mostly succeeded, with only one really ‘dragging’ story in my mind, and another that didn’t drag so much to me but I understood how it felt that way to other people. In the book, Daemon Targaryen raises an army at Harrenhal, but we have essentially zero insight into how he did this or how long it took — meaning that unless you wanted to cut Matt Smith’s time in the season, you had to keep him doing something. And the book also implies an odd change of character, in that he decides to support his wife wholeheartedly after some questionable decisions — so it makes sense for the show to delve into that.
Considering that this is a fantasy world and that Game of Thrones felt mostly allergic to fantastical nonsense, I enjoyed how the visions of Harrenhal and manipulations of Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin of the late, lamented GLOW) drove Daemon to face his own fears, past, and trauma to be open to seeing the classic ‘dragon dreams’ often described. It was also a great excuse to bring back Paddy Considine as Viserys, while reminding us it was absurd he wasn’t nominated for an Emmy.
His final vision of future horrors and triumph weren’t a problem for me, even if the White Walker looked a little low budget — and even if I didn’t like how Game of Thrones ended that whole ice zombie story at all. I prefer creators to have more room to tell stories without being burnt out, and I think this show deserves more than what it will get, despite much of the fanbase being frustrated by the tease of the final episode — an episode that most people liked if it hadn’t also been the finale.
Considering the restrictions of the production, I feel that the season ended pretty well as essentially a story of the two women ostensibly in positions of power but straining against the patriarchal world pushing back on any change. This is entirely something in the text, so it’s not like the show writers had to stretch that hard to find that theme.
I think that the show does suffer a little from an initial sort of ‘forcing biases’ by making the Green side more the ‘bad guys’ and the Black side more the ‘good guys’, despite clearly showing shades of gray in both. This can lead to that sort of ‘party watch’ situation where people want to cheer for characters and laugh at the arch lines, which was something that happened in Game of Thrones as most characters began to wryly quip more and more and the show felt designed to get ‘reactions’ like it had back when the show had people dying unexpectedly and it was filmed by people on YouTube.
The second season actually pushes back on that even more, giving troubled, known rapist Aegon far more complexity and pathos — helped by his severe bodily harm. Otto was given a few great moments of arch wit and anger at the fools around him, and even Aemond was shown to be at heart a bullied child who hasn’t been able to let it go, so he continues to punish those he can.
HBO
I consider some of the season’s highlights to be the fight between the twin brothers which had real pathos at the end, the fight where Rhaenys fell, which was gorgeously realized, the young Oscar Tully showing enormous ‘huevos’ and getting everyone’s respect by standing up to Daemon and his own people, and the excellent ‘dragonseed’ scene where the long hinted at Ulf and Hugh get their own dragons.
Some of the weaker elements were some follow-throughs — Rhaenyra was a little static at times by necessity, which is hard to make exciting to watch, the finale scene in Essos was a little discordantly placed despite it being fun, and everything with Rhaena in the Vale with her doing nothing for multiple episodes and racing off in the wild for a reason not really explained, even if it was clear that the idea was to have her find another dragon — the way that was dragged out frustrated me.
On the other hand, I think acting was, as per usual, stellar across the board, with a lot of the actors getting a chance to shine in new ways. I know that some have more things to do next season like Baela, but in general I was impressed by how they delved into the realistically subtle PTSD someone would experience like Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel, doing an excellent job in becoming the most hated character on the show).
Considering how enormous this cast is in the second season, despite the few that died, it’s impressive how well balanced it is — with only a few exceptions, really. I think the show might’ve gotten a little caught up in the admittedly stellar chemistry between Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke and stretched the levels of credulity a little just to have them share a few more scenes before it becomes impossible in the storyline to do so.
Among the so-called controversies, it’s amusing that people complained about Rhaenyra and Mysaria spontaneously making out because the tension was there, despite them not discussing it afterward — and why should they? I think sometimes that audiences want things spelled out more than I think makes compelling television, because then everything gets over explained.
I could nitpick little things here and there, and delve into every episode, but that sort of thing has been done to death in the weekly podcast game. Instead I ask the question: Am I still invested? The answer is easily yes, despite some of my issues — I felt the same in season one, which I think also had some issues even if I really enjoyed it. Perhaps not as great as the first or second season of Game of Thrones, but so far there’s nothing to make me worry like I was there even starting as early as the fourth season. If someone doesn’t want to keep watching, that’s their business — but I think these show creators can pull this whole thing off.
What did you think of this season? Sound off in the comments below!
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