House of the Dragon Season 2 Review: Between Dragons and Blood, The Return Of The Magnificent Got Prequel Series
Cast: Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Ewan Mitchell, Eve Best, Matt Smith, Matthew Needham and Fabien Frankel
Created By: Ryan Condal and George RR Martin
Streaming Platform: Max
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
Not even two years have passed, House of the Dragon Season 2 is available and those who know the times of Westeros know that except for the finale of Game of Thrones, things in these parts proceed very slowly. The second season of House of the Dragon, the HBO TV series, is finally arriving taken from the book (not a novel, rather a medieval-style chronicle) Fire and Blood by George RR Martin, basically the prequel to the events narrated in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels from which the cult Game of Thrones series was based. From June 17, the 8 episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 will be released, once a week, in the USA on HBO and at the same time in Italy (just before dawn) on TV and on-demand on Sky and streaming on NOW. But having been lucky enough to have previewed the first 4 episodes of this new season we can only allow ourselves a spoiler: season 2 is absolutely up to par, if not perhaps better than the first. So let’s summarize briefly and without spoilers the plot of House of the Dragon Season 2, waiting to be able to resume our episode recaps (if you need, review the season finale).
The first season of House of the Dragon broadcast in 2022, it introduced viewers to the beginning of the Dance of the Dragons. A civil war arises within the Targaryen family as told in the novel Fire and Blood by George RR Martin on which the TV series is based. After having shown in the first ten episodes of the TV series the motivations that pushed the members of House Targaryen to enter into conflict, the second season of House of the Dragon takes viewers into the heart of the battle between the Greens and the Blacks. That is, the two factions that were created during the events narrated, to establish the legitimate heir to the Iron Throne after the death of King Viserys I Targaryen. While waiting for the release of House of the Dragon Season 2 exclusively on HBO Max, courtesy of Warner Bros. we had the opportunity to preview the four TV series episodes, which we tell you about in this review of ours without spoilers.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Review: The Story Plot
The new season picks up where the first one ended, with the Vaghar dragon of the “pirate” (due to the eye patch accidentally taken off by his cousins during an argument) Aemond who cooked and ate the poor Lucerys and his little dragon Arrax, while they were trying to bring home the skin after the meager figure with the unpleasant Baratheon who had refused his support to the Blacks commanded by Rhaenyra. And reminding you that in Fire and Blood, there are various versions of Lucerys’ end, including one that involves her survival with amnesia due to the blow to the head, it is obvious that mother Rhaenyra needs to grieve for little Luke. But it is also obvious that this is the casus belli that Daemon and the most aggressive of the Black faction were waiting for to break the deadlock and start the war. In King’s Landing, meanwhile, even the Greens are certainly not sitting idly by.
The coronation, at the hands of the slimy Criston Cole, of Aegon II, the mentally unstable brother of the already mad but lucid Aemond, went badly, with Aunt Rhaenys interrupting the ceremony by bursting in with her dragons who breathed in her nephew’s face to make him understand what the mood is (but without killing him because it’s not up to her). Ah, how we miss old King Viserys… And so Otto Hightower has his work cut out to prepare the war machine with its annexes and related things, while his daughter Alicent, the queen’s mother, has a bit of fun and still tries to ward off the most belligerent hypotheses. But we already know that war is now imminent and that between dragons, fire, and blood we will witness the epic battles to which Martin’s literary-television universe has accustomed us. So, let’s stop here at the summary of the plot and look at the trailer for House of the Dragon Season 2.
The story picks up where we left off, Rhaenyra is mourning the death of her son Lucerys at the hands of Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and is concentrating all the forces on her side at Dragonstone, together with her as well as her husband Daemon and his closest advisors also include his aunt Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best), and her newfound husband Lord Corlys. Around Alicent and his son Aegon, in addition to the family members, we have the ambitious Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) and the devious Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), both increasingly influential within the royal entourage. But is it impossible to avoid confrontation? Is a bloody war the only solution to the dilemma of who is Viserys’ true heir?
The king had chosen Rhaenyra, but Alicent is convinced that he changed his mind immediately before dying, whispering the name of his firstborn (we know, however, that he was referring to a completely different Aegon…), and now the kingdom is completely divided into ‘support one or the other suitor. If Luke’s death is fundamental to pushing the two factions towards war even further, there will need to be another dramatic event (caused, once again, by the irresponsibility of those men we were talking about just above) to make the truly irreparable fracture. The first four episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 are still preparatory, they serve to create the right ground on which to begin the so-called Dance of the Dragons, but they are fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the conflict to come.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Review and Analysis
To put it mildly, if the main reason why you watched Game of Thrones was the abundance of nudity and sex scenes, chances are that House of the Dragon has already disappointed you in the first season: but so be it, and perhaps it is worth admitting that in Game of Thrones the hot scenes were sometimes more gratuitous than those in the risqué Italian films of the 70s. But if you love TV stories of Westeros for the depth of dialogue and, let’s face it, the brutal fight scenes, then this second season will excite you. House of the Dragon has returned to the magnificence of the first seasons of the mother series, when events followed one another in long, cinematic terms, without any rush, to allow the story to grow with ruthless precision and attention to detail. Elements that return in House of the Dragon, where every shot, every detail, every word has its specific and determining importance. So, there’s no need to rush, take all the time you need to enjoy this second season, of which we will reveal every Monday every curiosity and useful information as if we were your Master of Whispers.
The beginning of this second season therefore differs little from what we saw at the end of the previous one, those who expected flames and bloodshed straight away might be disappointed because they will still have to wait a bit. Most of the first episodes are dedicated to the relationships between the characters, the loves, the deceptions, and the enmities that bind them and that take shape while preparing for the clash that is about to happen. They are episodes that allow us to dive back into the politics of the Seven Kingdoms in this particular moment of their history, take us around the West, and make us discover the geography of a continent that in the first season we had seen almost exclusively from the perspective of King’s Landing. The pawns increase and the series still takes time to outline the forces at play, to prepare the viewer for what is about to happen.
Once again, therefore, we have the opportunity to witness excellent acting performances, the performers have time and space to let their characters shine. Once again it is the female characters who stand out the most, in particular Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke in the roles of the two queens, displaying an emotional complexity that their male counterparts are unlikely to achieve. Daemon (the always fascinating Matt Smith), Cole, Aegon, and all the others are presented to us at the mercy of their emotions, blinded by hatred, ambition, and the thirst for revenge. It is the women who mediate, who seek peaceful confrontation, but unfortunately, the world of House of the Dragon is a world led by men, and the will of their women always ends up being crushed. The concept around which all these first episodes revolve, but we also imagine the rest of the season when we see it, is how a war that seems inevitable could instead have been avoided, how the dialogue could have completely reversed the situation (in a particular moment, in the third episode, this becomes very clear).
At one point a character wonders how the fight started: was it when Aemond lost his left eye? When he then killed Lucerys? Or was it some other subsequent misfortune? The truth, the same character always admits, is that we will soon forget how this war began, and the futile reasons that triggered it, but we will only remember how it ended, and what was lost in the meantime. Eventually, someone, always a member of the same family, will ascend the throne, and things will pick up where they left off. House of the Dragon Season 2 does a splendid job of setting up a war that would have no reason to break out, thus giving a different weight to everything about to happen: we know that in the next episodes, the deaths will be many and painful (we already have a small taste at the end of the fourth), and the awareness that those lives could have been spared gives a completely different meaning to the blood that will stain the battlefields. Let the Dance of the Dragons begin, but at what cost?
The second season of House of the Dragon begins exactly where the first ended, as the showrunner of the TV series, Ryan Condal, had previously anticipated Unlike what happens in the first ten episodes of the HBO show, in the second season of the TV series there will not be the time jumps that characterized the first season of House of the Dragon. The plot instead continues linearly, to tell in detail every single aspect relating to the so-called Dance of the Dragons. Although in the first season of the TV series the time jumps could also create a certain confusion for the viewer, at the same time they maintained a fast pace in telling the events, with twists and continuous changes. The total absence of flashforwards in House of the Dragon Season 2 instead immediately projects the audience into a different and much slower atmosphere, which does not give them time to get used to the previous type of narration. Probably for this reason, at first glance, the first four episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 give the impression of being “only” a prolonged preface of what will come next.
Those who, after the finale of the first season of the TV series, House of the Dragon Season 2 expected to see Rhaenyra carry out an unparalleled massacre, may be partially disappointed. The Dance of the Dragons is a war that in the book Fire and Blood by George RR takes place over many years because it does not only concern King Viserys’ children but also his grandchildren and subsequent offspring. Consequently, it is normal that starting from the second season of House of the Dragon the events will be told little by little, as for the moment they essentially involve the first of this generation of Targaryens. The Greens and Blacks, having previously declared war implicitly, have not yet had the opportunity to study each other. So far, season 2 of House of the Dragon, rather than showing a fight to the death of the dragon, offers a table-top naval battle in which you start to hit the smaller boats one at a time, in turn, to mark the territory.
The second season of the TV series therefore starts quietly but slowly recovers along the way, still offering interesting implications. Even in House of the Dragon Season 2, there is no shortage of twists and surprises, as well as some unexpected cameos, other dragons, and new characters. In all this, even the protagonists themselves appear to have changed a lot about the latest events that have seen them involved in the plot. At the end of the first season of House of the Dragon, the audience is inevitably involved in the drama that Princess Rhaenyra is experiencing firsthand. In one fell swoop, the failed Queen of the Seven Kingdoms finds herself losing two children and her father, as well as being denied her right to her throne. Painful situations that are already difficult to process if they occur individually, while all together undoubtedly end up becoming an enormous burden to bear. Above all it is not just about the losses as such, but also about everything that revolves around them.
Rhaenyra only later learns of Viserys’ disappearance, without therefore being able to give him even a final farewell. The Throne usurped by Aegon not only prevents her from becoming Queen by right but also from realizing what Viserys wanted. The death of Lucerys itself for Rhaenyra is a loss experienced essentially alone. The Princess inevitably feels guilty for allowing her son to take that journey from which she never returned. While Daemon, Rhaenyra’s current husband, has never been too inclined towards sentimentality. And probably for this reason, he is unable to support Rhaenyra in the most adequate world, even following the death of their last born. Too many tragedies happened quickly in the Princess’ family, one after the other. So, each event ended up being overwhelmed by the next one as there was humanly no space to face everything together. Yet in the second season of House of the Dragon, we witness a Rhaenyra with different facets, who manages to arouse admiration and empathy in the viewer at the same time.
If on the one hand, there is the pain for the losses suffered, on the other there is the desire for justice. However, the Princess does not want to shed more unnecessary blood or start a ruthless war, but rather her battle is a personal battle to make up for what she believes to be her own mistakes. Rhaenyra is in a lot of pain. But just as his father had done when he was ill, he endures his discomfort in a composed and dignified manner while still trying to be a guide for his kingdom. The Targaryen Princess lost so much, yet she put her pain aside to protect others. First of all, her children and secondarily all those who believe in her and still consider her the legitimate ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. Paradoxically, however, the great sense of protection experienced by Rhaenyra at the moment turns out to be a double-edged sword. Not only because the Princess risks making choices mainly dictated by her maternal instinct, rather than in her role as sovereign. But also because among those who have shown trust in her so far, some are starting to have doubts about her role, considering her too vulnerable.
As appears in the first season of House of the Dragon, Prince Aegon II Targaryen’s accession to the Throne was a choice desired by many people except the person directly involved. The eldest son of Viserys and Alicent has always felt like his father’s second choice, which is why he has never really aimed for succession, experiencing a certain sense of inferiority towards his half-sister Rhaenyra. But later when Aegon is acclaimed by the people after his coronation, he begins to gain more confidence in himself. Just as she is convinced that that was Viserys’ will, due to Alicent’s misunderstanding of the last words spoken by her husband on her deathbed. In House of the Dragon Season 2, a different version of Aegon is shown, especially in the family context. The prince is a more present husband and father both with his sister/wife Helaena and with their children, despite what happened in the first season of the TV series. Even as ruler Aegon tries to take his place as the new King of the Seven Kingdoms, attending meetings of his Council and suggesting directives on actions to be taken.
Yet despite his willingness to immerse himself in a challenging role of great importance, Aegon is not convincing. Precisely because being King is certainly not a simple task, Viserys’ firstborn male does not have the right maturity to govern an entire kingdom. Aegon is a young man who is too impulsive and irresponsible, who acts in the belief that he is always in good faith without worrying about the consequences. The new Targaryen King confuses rights with duties, thinking that everything is granted to him or worse still justified only because of the position he holds. Alicent raised his son by instilling in him the concept of a legitimate heir to the Throne, imposing on him what was his will and, before that, those of his father Otto. But the truth is that Aegon doesn’t know what it means to be a King, precisely because he was placed on that Throne. And that weight, figuratively speaking, is starting to make itself felt.
In the second season of House of the Dragon, all things considered, Rhaenyra, albeit without the Throne, proves to be a better ruler than Aegon. A Queen who, despite her current pain, continues to be a point of reference for her people, puts others first. You sometimes even waste precious time, but only to best evaluate the pros and cons of each decision. In addition to the weight of her crown, Rhaenyra also carries with her the weight of Lucerys’ death. Aegon, on the other hand, is just starting to become an adult and his impulsiveness turns out to be his worst enemy. Although the Targaryen King also tries to act for the good of his Kingdom, she is unable to find a middle ground and control his emotions. For this reason, even if involuntarily, Aegon, unlike Rhaenyra, ends up putting himself first, condemning everyone else with his actions. The second season of House of the Dragon before the real war between the Greens and the Blacks, highlights another aspect that all the protagonists have in common.
Regardless of their families, positions, or degrees of kinship, each of them finds themselves fighting their own internal battle. A prerogative that not only includes Rhaenyra and Aegon as explained previously, but also concerns those around them. Everything that has happened in recent years in House of the Dragon has left an indelible mark on the members of House Targaryen and the rest of their families. Every death, every decision, every conflict, every union, and every child had consequences for everyone, regardless of anyone’s reaction. And the more time passes, the more the ghosts come back to the surface. In House of the Dragon Season 2 characters such as Daemon and Alicent appear different from how they have been seen so far in the story. The Targaryen Prince has always shown himself to be cynical and indifferent, if not even complacent in some cases, during dramatic events and other problems in the family or the kingdom. Especially since his brother Viserys favors his daughter Rhaenyra as heir, a decision that has negatively affected Daemon’s life, making him feel unworthy as his successor. With Viserys’ subsequent death and Rhaenyra’s current emotional state, Daemon feels somewhat responsible for the Kingdom.
But while on the one hand, he tries to take control of the situation, on the other he is held back by the demons of the past because his unconscious suggests to him that Viserys was right to consider him inadequate. Alicent also finds herself in a similar situation, as as a young girl she was forced to live a life that wasn’t hers just to satisfy royal traditions. Ever since the Queen managed to have her son Aegon crowned, she has put on armor that is difficult to scratch precisely by what she has had to endure over time. By marrying Viserys, Alicent had to give up her youth and carefreeness, suddenly finding herself at the head of a kingdom. Although she has tried hard to behave like a true ruler, Alicecent continues to see in Aegon her failures as a mother. And consequently, also as Queen, with a son incapable of governing and placed on the Throne by her.
The situation of the older ones has repercussions on everyone like a domino effect, even among the younger ones like Aemond, Jacaerys, Baela, and Rhaena. All Princes and Princesses are trapped in a role that does not belong to them, conditioned by the traditions of their families just like their parents. Because in the end, the weight of the crown is not just that of the metal that the King or Queen wears on their heads. But it is something much deeper and more deeply rooted that sooner or later we find ourselves dealing with, even without sitting on an Iron Throne. Majestic and epic thanks also to a very high budget (the first season cost 200 million dollars), House of the Dragon Season 2 does not forget its fantasy nature, promising the introduction of 5 new dragons who will have a central role in the battles we will see (also) in the remaining episodes. But the most interesting aspect remains the psychological one of the characters. Women and men were moved by pain and the desire for power. All by a legacy in the form of a throne that tears apart anyone who approaches it. Even though we find ourselves face-to-face with the possibility of choosing peace.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Review: The Last Words
Initial impressions of the first four episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2 are generally positive. Compared to the fast-paced pace of the past premiere, the second season of the TV series partly struggles to get going but recovers ground along the way. The Dance of the Dragons is only just beginning, but it already promises to deliver a no-holds-barred battle where, in establishing the legitimate heir to the Iron Throne, no one can truly be considered safe. The second season of House of the Dragon, at least in the first four episodes that we saw in the preview, prepares the ground for the inevitable clash, the so-called Dance of the Dragons, which is about to happen. The acting performances of the performers were excellent, in particular those of Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke in the roles of the two queens.
House of the Dragon Season 2 Review: Between Dragons and Blood, The Return Of The Magnificent Got Prequel Series - Filmyhype
Director: House of the Dragon, House of the Dragon Season 2, House of the Dragon Season 2 Review, House of the Dragon Season 2 Analysis, House of the Dragon Season 2 Spoilers,
Date Created: 2024-06-07 17:21
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Pros
- The acting performances of the performers are always of the highest level
- The plot well structured and developed
- The intensity of certain situations, capable of striking the viewer deeply
- Interesting new developments and twists
- Always fantastic settings
- Surprise cameos welcome
Cons
- This second season is in some ways slow and preparatory, not everyone might appreciate the pace chosen for the narrative
- Slow narrative pace
- The absence of Paddy Considine's Viserys is felt
