‘House of the Dragon’ Rebounds in Its Shocking, X-Rated Season 2

From its theme music and credit sequence, to its costumes and locales, to its lore and themes, to its narrative focus on the ceaseless competition for the Iron Throne, House of the Dragon sought, in its first season, to not simply be a faithful prequel to Game of Thrones, but a veritable carbon copy. Nonetheless, if it got off to a rocky start marred by excessively familiar action and too many leaps forward in time, it eventually found its footing by its finale. In electric fashion, that capper culminated with eye-patched Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) getting revenge on his bastard cousin Luke Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) by chomping him and his dragon in half via his own winged beast, the gargantuan Vhagar. While it may have required 10 uneven hours, the show finally appeared to have found its footing on the ground and in the sky, thereby setting up the savage dragon war destined to dominate the remainder of its tale.

Returning to HBO nearly two years after the end of Season 1, House of the Dragon takes true flight from the outset of its superior and stirring second season (June 16 on HBO), diving right into the fallout from that fateful murder with political jockeying and, more calamitously, a series of assassination attempts that compromise any lasting hopes for peace. Over the course of its first four episodes (which were all that were provided to press), showrunner Ryan Condal—aided by co-creator George R.R. Martin and GoT-vet director Alan Taylor, who helms the premiere and phenomenal fourth installment—devises a raft of intricate machinations involving parties who are torn between wanting the best for themselves, their allies, and their houses. He delivers shocking bombshells in spades, and better yet, he stages the franchise’s finest dragon fight to date: a larger-than-life skirmish that results in a death that once again radically rewrites the fate of the seven kingdoms.

House of the Dragon begins in the north with the Night Watch at The Wall and references to the Starks, but the Song of Ice and Fire—though a relevant prophesy courtesy of the late King Viserys I (Paddy Considine)—is still on the distant horizon as this saga kicks into gear. At King’s Landing, newly coronated King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) has turned out to be a petulant young punk unfit to rule, much to the frustration of his Hand, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans). As Otto and his daughter Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) patiently try to guide the sovereign toward responsibility and reason, war becomes more unavoidable thanks to Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), whose grief has fueled her anger over Aegon usurping the throne (with Alicent’s help), and whose shipping blockades have exacerbated tensions between the two kingdoms. Rhaenyra hasn’t lost her burning ambition for the crown, but her sorrow has left her distracted. Her diplomatic caution worries her council advisors, and it also rankles her uncle-husband Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), who endeavors to escalate matters to outrageous degrees—purportedly in order to fulfill his Queen’s wishes, but in reality out of his own cunning self-interest.

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