No Second Season Slump Here

(032125) House of the Dragon is an exciting and suspenseful fantasy/adventure show. Like its predecessor, Game of Thrones, it is full of political intrigue and epic battles. Both this show and the original Game of Thrones are structured much like a Shakespeare play with the bonus of dragons, magical ravens and in the case of GOT, even zombies. The show has been a financial success, it not only had the largest audience of any debut in HBO history, but has maintained its high ratings through out the season. Therefore, fans should not be surprised to learn that the crew and cast have signed up for an additional two seasons. The show has also gained critical acclaim and some awards success. The first season earned a Golden Globe for Best Television Series Drama in 2023. Emma D’Arcy was nominated for Best Performance by an actress at the Golden Globes the same year, and in 2024 but she did not win.

After a two-year gap, House of the Dragon returned to HBO Max the summer of 2024. The DVD and Blue Ray versions came out during the Christmas holidays with some enlightening and some so-so extras mostly dealing with the technical aspects of the show. I saw the DVD version along with its extras.

The second season preserves most of the same decent cast, thrills, and excitement as the first season, The significant difference is that this season has a whole new stable of directors and writers with no one staying on from last season. Although the storyline is a bit more muddled, and there seems to be a little less sex and violence this Season does come close to matching the very good first season.

This season features a war between two sides of a family aided by fearsome dragons. Audience sympathy may be spit and it is easy to see and emphasize with the points of view of both families up to a point.
The only problem is with its complex storylines involving a multitude of characters, new viewers may be lost unless they saw the first season or read the books. Even viewers of both might find they have problems following the stories and keeping the characters straight. Also, there are several young blonde female characters on different sides often with the same or similar hair styles and after a while they are are hard to distinguish from each other.

The acclaimed Tony winning British actor Paddy Considine has a major role, He was mostly British productions such as 24-Hour Party People, Doctor Sleep, Peaky Blinders. Here he plays a benevolent king who is too nice, much llike King Lear.

The most well-known actor in the show is Matt Smith He made a big splash playing the Eleventh Doctor (not my favorite one) on Doctor Who and well as Prince Philip in the excellent, The Crown. In this show he is Daemon Targaryen, a fierce but not particularly moral warrior.

Milly Allcott is also about to gain increased visibility and popularity because she is playing the role of Kara Zor El/Supergirl in James Gunn’s highly anticipated revisionist Superman film. Here she plays one of the best characters, the young princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and she eventually becomes the queen. But she has many obstacles and impediments to being a just ruler and keeping the peace including members of her own family..

Tom Glynn-Carney who played Aamond Targaryen a highly hedonistic and difficult to like aristocrat. He eventually challenges his sister Rhaenyra. Although most of the characters like real politicians are not totally good or bad but he is as close to a villain as we get in the series. But the best performance of all might come from Emma D’Arcy (no relation to D’Arcy from Smashing Pumpkins) who was a hit in the theatre playing in Mrs.Dalloway in The Crucible. D’Arcy shows the depths of her talent and is completely convincing when her character falls into despair and anguish when her son is unexpectedly struck down.

The Season has some fine sparkling dialogue often in the form of words of wisdom taken directly from the novel. “The is no war so hateful to the Gods as one between kin,” and there is no war as savage as one involving a dragon. A witch tells a price: “I’m not a woman but a barn owl condemned to live in human form. “
One of the best scenes occurs when two warring matriarchs meet up to avert a war and potentially mutual destruction.

As I mentioned before in my House of Dragon Season One review, this prequel series more than adequately follows up the Game of Thrown saga. It is never startlingly original, and it lacks characters as memorable as Daenerys and Tyrion from Game of Thrones. It also takes too long at what it’s strung to do and it both starts and ends with two families going to war. But it tells an involving tale with decent action scenes, and it should please fans of historical action fantasy epics especially admirers of The Last Duel and The Green Knight.