BY Eric Rezsnyak
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” finally returned for Season 2, after nearly two full years off air (the Season 1 finale aired in August 2022). That meant that the epic fantasy already had a big challenge ahead of it. This first episode needed to recapture viewers’ enthusiasm, remind them of the many (often similarly named) characters, and set the tone for the critical sophomore season. As someone who absolutely loved Season 1 — it’s basically “Dynasty” but with dragons! — I had high hopes for the show’s return. But after the Season 2 premiere, I found myself more concerned for the show and its future than I ever have been, as a A Song of Ice & Fire reader and “Game of Thrones” apologist. I realized that many of the actors in this series are playing the roles very small/quiet, and we’re lacking big characters and the bawdiness that made “Game of Thrones” a fan favorite. Plus, that ending? Fucking hell.
Below find my thoughts on the S2 premiere, roughly organized via character arc. And before I forget: we got an entirely new opening credit sequence, this one ditching the Kings Landing/blood themed intro from S1, and giving us a history of Targaryens via stitched tapestry. Very cool, but also awfully similar to the opening credits from Amazon’s “Wheel of Time” show. Which, admittedly, I may be the only person watching/enjoying.
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First, in case you need it (I did) here’s a solid recap courtesy of HBO on what happened in Season 1:
Queen Rhaenyra: Ostensibly our lead figure for this show — or one of the two — Rhaenyra gets exactly one line in the entire Season 2 opener. That is deliberate, as she is completely distraught following the reported death of her young son, Lucerys (“Luke”), at the end of Season 1, shockingly sniped out of the air by certified crazy person Aemond Targaryen and his barely controlled mega-dragon, Vhagar. Rhaenyra spends much of the episode with her dragon, Meleys, searching for proof of death for Luke and his dragon, Arrax. She finally finds it, in a scene that I would argue did not fully land (I have no idea what she was cradling in the fishing net, and I’m not sure I want to know), before flying back to Dragonstone and demanding of her War Council that they bring her Aemond, “a son for a son.” The family barbecue is officially cancelled.
Queen Alicent/Otto Hightower/Ser Criston Cole: Alicent is our other lead, the unwitting engine for the Targaryen civil war after misinterpreting the dying king’s wishes in Season 1. Alicent spends most of the episode being annoyed at her children — big-in-his-britches King Aegon will not mind her, psychopath Aemond be psychopathing — and her father, Aegon’s Hand, who is dismissing her contributions to the Small Council. Alicent is clearly sharp, cautious, and deeply concerned about the cost this war is going to have on Westeros, and her extended family. But she’s going to have to work a lot harder to gain any real agency in the sausage fest that is calling the shots. (It’s easy to compare Alicent to Cersei Lannister, although Alicent lacks Cersei’s ruthlessness and genuine skill at conniving — at least, for now.) As for Otto, this Hand seems perilously close to losing grip of not only his kingdom, but also his king, as Aegon is already bristling at his grandfather’s direction. To which I say: good. Maybe it’s just me, but Rhys Ifans is bringing almost nothing to this role. Otto is a dour, condescending bore, and it would bother me not a bit to see him written off. Meanwhile, certified hot piece Ser Criston spends the episode alternating between having sex with Alicent and apologizing for it — they both know they shouldn’t be doing this, but like Miley Cyrus, they can’t stop — and, later, secretly meeting with Aemond to strategize a more aggressive war push. Literally nothing good is going to come from any of this, but between this show and “Bridgerton” Season 3, we are truly living in the golden age of televised cunnilingus. And good for those ladies.
Daemon Targaryen/Princess Rhaenys/The White Worm: Daemon spends this episode fully Daemon-ing, setting up multiple vicious pathways to attack the Greens (that’s Team Hightower) while Rhaenyra is out on her journey into despair. At first he attempts to command his sister, Rhaenys, to saddle up on her dragon, and the two of them would combo attack Vhagar and kill the giant wyrm. Rhaenys — who is probably my favorite character on this show, and if it weren’t for sexism, would be the rightful ruler instead of any of her nieces or nephews — shoots Daemon down efficiently and brutally. Daemon ultimately pivots and after a convoluted plotline featuring the White Worm — his former prostitute who is caught spying on behalf of the Hightowers — sneaks into King’s Landing and pays off a corrupt Goldcloak and the castle ratcatcher to murder Aemond in the Red Keep, to satisfy Rhaenyra’s demand for vengeance. The episode succeeded in in reminding us that Daemon is singleminded in his pursuits and absolutely devoid of sentimentality. Personally I do not think we needed the White Worm segment at all. There’s no reason he couldn’t have snuck into King’s Landing and bribed the Goldcloak on his own. And to be honest, I had completely forgotten the White Worm existed. I’m assuming she’ll be a factor as the show goes on, but I’m going to need that actress to bring a lot more to that role, because right now it’s a whole lot of nothing.
King Aegon: Aegon — who I am guessing is a teenager at this point? — now sits on the Iron Throne, and is a bit of a shit. It’s important to note that he doesn’t appear to be malicious or crazy, like Joffrey. In fact, we are shown that he genuinely seems to want to do right by his subjects during their petitions. He’s just an idiot bro. The showrunners seem to be using Aegon to inject some levity to the proceedings, as he and his drunken court do the medieval fantasy equivalent of a beer bust from the throne room. The episode succeeds in more fully centering Aegon’s personality — not a great guy, but not a monster — and also signaling that he was in no way prepared for the role of king. It also shows us that he wanted to be a good father to his young children. More on that in a moment…
Prince Aemond: Aemond himself doesn’t do much this episode. He broods and briefly conspires with Ser Criston on how to take a more active role in the conflict, despite everyone around him telling him to calm the fuck down, especially since his actions escalated the conflict to a point where, everyone agrees, there can be no halting aggression. But he IS a main driver for the plot of the episode, as the Blacks (that’s Team Rhaenyra) make moves to directly take him out. Aemond is one of the more dynamic characters on this show — right up there with his uncle Daemon, with whom he shares quite a few similarities. I don’t see us losing Aemond any time soon…
Prince Jacaerys/Cregan Stark: Rhaenyra’s eldest living son, Jacaerys (“Jake”), meets with Cregan, the House Stark member currently stationed at The Wall, to firm up the North’s support for Team Black. To be honest, the Stark scenes seemed largely nostalgia bait for “Game of Thrones” fans (“Hey, remember the Starks? You love the Starks! Well, we’ve got ’em too!”) but they also served to set the larger scene that the White Walkers were a looming threat even back during this time period, and the Starks were at least somewhat aware of them. An interesting tidbit dropped by Cregan is that the previous King Aegon once visited the Wall with one of his wives, and their dragons absolutely refused to cross the Wall boundary. I’m not sure if that jives with what we saw in “GOT” with Daenerys’ dragons, but I like the implication. If anything, that scene made me bummed that HBO axed the “GOT” prequel series that would have shown the origin of the Wall, because I would love to see that story played out. Anyway, Cregan ultimately offers up a few thousand of Winterfell’s older men to back the Black, and the meeting is ended when Jake receives the awful news of his brother’s death, which wrecks him.
Larys Strong: Larys is essentially “House of the Dragons” version of Littlefinger or Varys. Unfortunately, Matthew Needham is also playing this role very small, and he isn’t making the impact that character could. This episode, we see him bending King Aegon’s ear, pointing out that his mother — who I believe Larys is obsessed with, per Season 1 — is basically compromised due to her former friendship with Rhaenyra, and also that Aegon is well within his rights to replace Otto as his Hand. These are important plot points, and certainly add intrigue. I just wish we had a more dynamic character pulling the strings here.
Corlys Velaryon: In what I think was the worst scene in the premiere, Corlys inspects his own badly damaged ship — from which he narrowly survived — and drops exposition about the shipping blockade that Team Black is setting up to cut off trade to/from King’s Landing. That’s an important tactical element to this conflict, but not particularly compelling television. Corlys also has what is presumably an important conversation with a new character, Alyn, a shipwright, but if you asked me to explain what they were talking about, or why any of it matters, I have nothing for you. There were far too many of these clunky exposition scenes with characters we either do not know, or do not care about, in this premiere. This was the least successful of all of them.
Ser Erryck Cargill/Ser Arryck Cargill: The show has a lot of work to do with these characters. At the end of Season 1, the twin members of the Kingsguard were divided over their allegiances in the Targaryen civil war. That’s compelling, and an obvious echo to the Clegane brothers in “GOT.” Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me tell you which brother is on which side here, nor do I have any real attachment to these characters beyond, “Oh, he and his brother will eventually have to face off against each other.” There’s no character there. There’s really very little acting thus far from Luke and Elliott Tittensor. If the show wants me to care about them, they need to start investing time and narrative meat real quick.
Queen Helaena/Prince Jaeharys: OK, let’s get into this. First, I wish the show would spend a little more time on Helaena, because she’s a fascinating character. It was hinted in Season 1 that she has some kind of future sight, and we saw that again this episode, as she told her brother/husband Aegon that she “feared the rats.” That was literally prescient, as the last 10 minutes of the episode feature the ratcatcher and the corrupt Goldcloak hired by Daemon infiltrating the Red Keep with the goal of killing Aemond, but instead settling to fulfill the “a son for a son” decree from Team Black by coming across Helaena and her young children in their bed chambers. When the assailants demand that Helaena identify which kid is her son, Helaena points out Jaeharys and then quietly slips away with her daughter in her arms, as the two men murder and then behead the child Jaeharys in his bed.
To quote Christina in Mommie Dearest:
Horrible things have happened in the first season of this show. Horrible things happened frequently on “Game of Thrones.” But this, murdering a child in his bed and beheading him? This feels like it went way too far. I get that it is what happens in the story. I get that it is an important event in the Targaryen civil war. But personally, this felt gratuitous. They didn’t actually show us the violence, but the directors made the decision to let us hear the violence, to its incredibly gory end. I think that was a huge mistake, and I suspect it may cost the show viewers.
Because you CAN push viewers too far. It has happened before. I immediately think of “The Walking Dead,” which was soaring in popularity up until the absolutely brutal on-screen death of Glenn — and then viewers abandoned the show in droves. That was also a scene directly taken from the source material. But there is a big difference from reading about a traumatic event, and then being forced to watch it play out on screen. Both this show and “GOT” have had shocking deaths in the past — the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding, even Luke and his dragon getting devoured by Vhagar last season — but the beheading of a child? I think a lot of viewers, especially mothers, are going to have a very difficult time watching that scene, and I’m not sure this show in particular has engendered enough good will to traumatize its audience at that level yet.
That said, the show has been renewed for Season 3. And this is just the beginning of the horrors that befall both sides during the Dance of Dragons. Will viewers be able to stomach this level of savagery episode after episode? I personally never flinched from the deaths in “Game of Thrones,” but I recoiled at this.
Is this show hitting as differently for you as it is for me? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
