After spending a lot time in its first season simply getting its many gamers on the board, House of the Dragon’s second season appeared poised to let the dragons dance and at last plunge Westeros right into a cataclysmic civil conflict. An escalation of fiery battles and royal treachery felt just like the logical subsequent step for a sequence chronicling how the Targaryens fell from grace prior to now and sowed seeds that may go on to avoid wasting the world within the distant future.
Instead, House of the Dragon’s second chapter put way more give attention to the quiet moments that form historical past slightly than the explosive ones that go on to develop into legends. The selection made some sense, given HBO’s determination to shorten season 2’s episode rely from 10 to eight, and appeared considerably prescient within the wake of final 12 months’s strikes that put the present’s manufacturing on maintain.
And whereas it culminated in a season finale which may not have lived as much as everybody’s hopes action-wise, the episode solidified House of the Dragon as a sequence able to telling its personal highly effective tales and including new depth to A Song of Ice and Fire. That could appear anticlimactic to viewers who needed huge set items, however it’s going to seemingly give the sequence’ 4 seasons a extra convincing and satisfying arc.
This has all the time been a present about characters — the selections they make and the results they face. While dragons laid waste to cities in a few of House of the Dragon’s extra thrilling episodes this previous season, the precise stress of the present is the palace intrigue: misinterpretations of each other’s actions continued to be the most important threats to the realm because the schism inside House Targaryen grew even deeper.
Queens Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) already knew nicely how calamitous their battle for energy would develop into if it continued to unfold throughout the Seven Kingdoms. But with each ladies surrounded by males determined to see themselves on the Iron Throne, House of the Dragon made clear that their makes an attempt at waging conflict with warning had been doomed from the soar.
In a season that was punctuated by riots, maimings, and mindless bloodshed, House of the Dragon framed Rhaenyra’s quiet time poring over household information as one of the pivotal moments within the present’s historical past — not not like Game of Thrones’ season seven reveal of Jon Snow’s Targaryen heritage. But House of the Dragon was way more clear than its predecessor about how necessary illegitimate youngsters — an “military of bastards” — may develop into if given the possibility. And whereas just a few harmless individuals had been burned to demise as Rhaenyra examined out her idea, “The Red Sowing,” the penultimate episode, unexpectedly established Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), Ulf White (Tom Bennett), and Hugh Hammer (Kieran Bew) as individuals who appear fated to assist form Westeros historical past.
There’s by no means been any query about how House of the Dragon will finish — many of those individuals die horribly, and House Targaryen falls into destroy. But season 2 spent ample time highlighting how the Black / Green conflict may have been averted if the 2 sides may simply interact in good religion.
The finale, “The Queen Who Ever Was,” pulled again on its motion to make a bigger assertion about how — even at this level when conflict’s all however inevitable — its characters nonetheless have the flexibility to see the state of affairs extra clearly and alter their minds. The episode gave a deeper and unmistakable that means to Daemon’s goals of his previous, the current, and Game of Thrones characters like Daenerys and the Night King. His return to Rhaenyra spoke to his understanding of why the Targaryen household wanted to be sturdy for the realm, not simply themselves. And that very same readability of thoughts is what introduced Alicent to Dragonstone undercover, prepared and prepared to give up King’s Landing regardless of Aemond’s plans.
But conflict is a machine that’s arduous to cease as soon as its gears have been set in movement. And “The Queen Who Ever Was” used its closing moments to emphasise how there shall be no getting back from the conflict on the horizon.
That conflict appears like one thing House of the Dragon desires to deal with as a real turning level for its characters, and this season’s restrained motion felt like an intentional selection to avoid wasting the bombast (and manufacturing sources) for the sequence’ lately introduced closing two seasons. Pacing points totally derailed Game of Thrones in its residence stretch; House of the Dragon may very nicely meet the same destiny, however its restraint confirmed that the writers room may need the endurance to withstand going too huge too quickly. After all, this season left little query that the world will burn when the present returns and all of its characters can have little selection however to burn with it.
Correction, August seventh: An earlier model of this text incorrectly listed Alyn of Hull slightly than Addam of Hull as one in every of House of the Dragon’s distinguished new characters.
