The final episode of S1 of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON aired 603 days before the S2 premiere. That was almost 20 months ago. Do you remember how the last season ended? I barely did. There was a queen who wasn’t the actual queen even though she deserved to be. There were some dragons and some deaths too. I had to pull up multiple wikis to get caught up. What I recall fondly is that HOUSE OF THE DRAGON was a slow burn but when it “hit”, so to speak, it was just like some of the strongest episodes of its predecessor GAME OF THRONES. Unfortunately, our dragons seemed to have tired over the last 1 year, 7 months, and 25 days because this premiere did not keep the momentum going from where we last left off.
Perhaps HOUSE OF THE DRAGON was cursed from the start. During most of its run, GAME OF THRONES was considered one of the best TV shows of all time. Even now, after what most consider a disappointing final season, it’s still at the top of the best fantasy shows ever. HOTD needed to have all the things THRONES fans loved, but with exciting new characters and stories to keep us coming back. Season 1 mostly delivered on that, keeping the tale centered around House Targaryen with some back-up support from cousins and loves House Velaryon. The show began to slowly expand to other familiar Houses and realms late in S1. Right out of the gate in S2, it’s clear this expansion will keep going, as the ancestors of some of our favorite THRONES characters are introduced.
So many Hollywood second-movie sequels make the same mistake, and I hope HOTD isn’t one of them. Adding more characters and plotlines often does the opposite of what it was meant to do. Looking back at GAME OF THRONES, it also did this. Perhaps my memory is faulty or I’m just an unreliable narrator, but I recall being so engrossed in the original S1 characters in GOT, that when new ones were introduced, it didn’t change that. Even after a strong first season, I don’t feel that way about most of the DRAGON characters, aside from Rhaenyra, Daemon, and maybe Lord Corlys. S1 takes place over three decades, so we didn’t have much real-time with many of the characters we’re supposed to care about now.
I know that all of this is not the creators’ fault. Had we gotten the second season in the fall of 2023 as scheduled, perhaps I might care more about Aegon, Aemond, and their sister whatshername. On a show as expansive as this, everything for this season was mostly likely written and at least partially filmed before the 2023 strikes. But as the strikes stretched out from May to November 2023, the HOTD audience grew further away from the show. We needed something more than the few minutes of “Previously On” HBO did. GAME OF THRONES was event television. In the days leading up to each season’s premiere, it was everywhere and it even had its own annual beer launch! HBO’s promotion and advertising of DRAGON S2 has been so doldrum, that it might as well have been just another season of LAW & ORDER: SVU.
What the creators do have the power to do is to make our characters compelling again. Rhaenyra (Emma D’arcy) should be every bit as interesting, if not more so than her descendants were in GAME OF THRONES. She has been to hell and back in her short life already. Her husband Daemon (Matt Smith) was a stand-out firecracker last season, and in SON FOR A SON he did nothing more than bark orders and stand around looking bored. To get right down to the heart of the matter; we need to become a lot more invested in the next generation of Targaryens because it is them that all this drama is revolving around. Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) can’t just be another spoiled brat like Joffrey. What is Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) supposed to be doing again? She’s right on the poster for the season (along with Rhaenyra) and her character was completely useless in this episode.
Perhaps we’re in for another steady rise in excitement, but if SON FOR A SON is any indication of how the season will go, I’m already bored.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON airs on Sunday nights at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT and streams on Max concurrently.
