‘House of the Dragon’ Review: Season 2 Brings the Fire Early, but Struggles to Generate Any Real Heat
The opening lines of “House of the Dragon” Season 2 stem from a character I’m not meant to name speaking of things that have no real bearing in the “Game of Thrones” universe. “Duty is sacrifice,” the man says. (I hope I can say he’s a man.) “It eclipses all things, even blood. All men of honor must pay its price.” Sorry to interrupt, good sir, but who are these “men of honor” you speak of? Are they hiding? Is HBO saving them for the next spinoff? Some are certainly dead, given the body count on which George R.R. Martin has built his brutal world, but there are scant few in “HotD” who fit the description. To be fair, the narrating man qualifies, and his colleagues also appear to be living a principled existence. But having seen nine seasons of heartless betrayals and maniacal power grabs, simply recognizing one good man among the many bad ones tends to mean one thing: He’ll be dead soon.
Before the spoiler vultures start picking me apart, I do not know the fate of this man. He is but one among dozens of bearded white dudes talking, and talking, and talking throughout the first four episodes of “House of the Dragon” Season 2, and he may continue yammering after his introductory dialogue or he may clam up forever. What matters is that even now, as we embark on just the second season of the first spinoff from HBO‘s fantasy epic, the rules of this game are all too stark — and I don’t mean whatever is lifted directly from “Fire & Blood.” Preserving the canon isn’t as nagging as the sense that “HotD” seems ordered where “GoT” felt anarchic. The plotting, the scheming, the characters all feel familiar to the tens of millions tuning in, and such familiarity is both a comfort — to those yearning to revisit the Seven Kingdoms’ regal, gloomy vibes — and a cage. In Season 2, as war fitfully plays out and its combatants are largely separated, the season needs to fight its way out of a corner; to break precedent instead of playing into it. And it needs to get on with it already.
It’s not that Martin and Ryan Condal’s prequel lacks for action. The premiere is quite a cunning little saga, where what foreshadows the big event is both neatly tucked away and hiding in plain sight; the kind of satisfying set-up that’s better once the dominoes have fallen. But despite being easy to admire (if typically upsetting to watch), the return episode still feels… little. The next three hours do, too, standing in diminutive defiance to the soaring dragons, screaming masses, and crumbling castles that fill their extended runtimes. The spectacle is grand yet the impact modest, and that, dear readers, means there are character problems.
Two of our biggest stars see their lights dimmed by sheer inertia. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’arcy) is mourning the death of her son, Lucerys, last seen getting plucked out of the sky like a playfully tossed popcorn kernel by the vengeful Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) — or, more precisely, by the prince’s dragon, Vhagar (who kinda, sorta went rogue). Whether or not the dragon was obeying his rider or just got hangry doesn’t really matter. (It’s not debated.) War is here. Rhaenyra’s path to the Iron Throne goes through her former best friend, Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), and she means to get there by any means–
OK, not quite any means. Condal and Martin thankfully avoid leaning too hard on the ol’ chestnut, “hell hath no fury like a mother whose son was eaten by dragons,” but in sending Rhaenyra spiraling into grief, they also keep her out of the action. (One silly fight scene literally sidelines her as a confused, helpless onlooker.) And Alicent suffers similarly. With one son, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), serving as king and the other feeding royal pre-teens to his dragon, Alicent is left with the “what hath I wrought” arc, assigned many a scene where she questions past choices and gets snippy with the oblivious folks who’ve benefited from them. Far too much screen time that could’ve been reserved to let Cooke, ahem, cook is instead given to the boring beefcake Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). The jilted lover of Rhaenyra whose jealousy fuels an outsized (read: violent) loyalty to Alicent served a fine purpose in Season 1, but Season 2 keeps trotting out the white-knight-that-wasn’t to lesser and lesser returns.
Speaking of hot-heads, Season 2 also ties up its No. 1 chaos king (prince?) — Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) — in an episodes-long side quest sporting all the bells and whistles of a stall tactic. (Stuck in one place? Check. Too many dream sequences? Check. Other characters complaining they don’t know why he’s doing what he’s doing? Check!) Whatever results of his sojourn may be necessary, it may even be so good we’ll forget about this little dip in the action, but a Daemon energy shortage plagues the first half of the season, and there’s no adequate replacement in sight. (Prince Shithead is constantly vying for the crown of “most vile,” but his love of upheaval helped keep Season 1 from getting stale.)
Not that “House of the Dragon” doesn’t try to mix things up, ever so slightly. There are a handful of promising new or expanded characters, including a nice sailor named Alan (Abubakar Salim) and the most-welcome return of Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria, but their identities feel checked off a to-do list. They’re given a simple guiding principle — he’s loyal! she’s resourceful! they’re courageous! — and they follow that straight line to whatever yucky fate awaits. (Again, I’m just guessing here — some of them seem like they’ll be all right! Or, at least, as “all right” as anyone can be in this nasty little world.)
The resulting downtime from so much chatty table-setting does offer curious audience members time to consider what “HotD” really means (beyond fulfilling the dirty interpretation of its initials by showing a man with a large penis receiving rather strained oral sex). There’s the obvious criticism of macho patriarchal power structures, the recognizable parallels to modern politics, as well as a sly theory (courtesy of Vulture’s Jen Chaney) that the show is really an argument against having children. New to Season 2 is an upstairs/downstairs undercurrent, as the dueling king and queen’s subjects start to feel a little extra slighted, but it’s too early to say if “House of the Dragon” wants to go full “Andor.” What it does do is provide multiple capital-A Acting opportunities for a few leads and lowercase-b battles for audiences craving the sight of soldiers smashing into one another at full speed. (The dragons are also used regularly, and they look… OK, but their first-half flights aren’t particularly imaginative.)
Thus far, Season 2 has a hard time escaping its own trappings. The plot lurches forward. The characters focus on what we’ve already seen. New developments on either front do little to raise our curiosity. For those who want to tune in and be rewarded with exactly what they expect (plus an extra cringe-inducing death or two), perhaps that’s enough. But “HotD’s” duty to “GoT” should only go as far its prequel status requires. This is a fictional history, after all, and much like the backstabbing power players who make it up, no one is honor-bound to stick to the old playbook. There’s room for innovation, even if it’s just seeing what a few of the show’s ideas on repression and revolution would look like. Let Alicent fight the patriarchy! Lend the battles significant consequences! Stop it with Ser Criston already!
The collective joy of having a shared Sunday night TV experience is rare these days, and “House of the Dragon” Season 2 should be able to maintain our cumulative interest. Undoubtedly, the second half will have more cooking than the first (might it even include some fun?), but that’s not an excuse for keeping four episodes on a low simmer. Until then, at least there’s some comfort in knowing every noble man and ignoble king will all be dead soon. And then we can all watch the next “Game of Thrones” spinoff.
Grade: C+
“House of the Dragon” Season 2 premieres Sunday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. New episodes will be released weekly.
