House of the Dragon Review: Politics and Family Drama Upstage Fighting Dragons

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Twenty two months after the tragic chomp that ended the first season, House of the Dragon returns. Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), mother of the slain Lucerys, is in mourning. We see her seeking proof of her son’s death, wailing over his barely-there remains. We see the men around her, principally her uncle-husband Daemon, seething. Her men want revenge. The Targaryan men have always been hot-blooded. This time, they want war.

On King’s Landing, home of the other throne-seeking faction, Allicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), wife of Viserys, mother to the current king, understands what the death of Lucerys will lead to but is in some denial. She worries that war is now inevitable but seems to be deceiving herself in thinking that another way to resolution is possible. But, like Rhaenyra’s men on the the other side, her own men want war. As everybody knows, the best form of defence is attack.

So, of course, there will be blood. We will have war. And that war will be fired up by the creatures promised in the title of the series. The millions who saw Game of Thrones know that HOTD, after all, is the story of how a once powerful house fell. They know the fall was caused not because of an external threat but because of Targaryen in-fighting.

The mental and physical decrepitude that visited King Viserys (Paddy Considine) on the way to the grave is the direct cause. But the narcissicism of House Targaryen is the more insidious spur of the incoming violence. If the family wasn’t so consumed by themselves, maybe Viserys uttering the name Aegon wouldn’t have led Allicent Hightower into believing the dying man was referring to her son as his heir rather than a late, great ancestor who bore that same name.

That incident does come up for discussion in one scene but by then too many people have died and too many irrevocable decisions have been made for one word to matter. So, yes, there will be blood.

In essence, maybe the promise of dragon-fired violence and the popularity of the original Game of Thrones is what ensured HOTD’s hit status. But it can’t be the whole thing. How we get to that war is surely part of the appeal—and this season, led by Ryan Condal, Miguel Sapochnik having exited, drills in on the how. We can call this subgenre a war procedural.

As the trailers before the season premiere made clear, there is a House Black and a House Green led by Rhaenyra and Allicent respectively. But as we see in the first four episodes HBO shared to critics the women are frequently undercut by the sanguinary men around them.

The first shot is fired from House Black; its victim is a child. The manner in which it happens confirms something odd about the world inhabited by these high and mighty people: their ramparts are incredibly porous, viewed from the remove of the modern, concrete world viewers occupy. We are being asked to believe that entry into a place that is the equivalent of Aso Rock is easy merely because these places require the service of artisans. But then again, we are being asked to believe in fire-spitting dragons. In both cases, we go along because of an unwritten contract: We offer Condal, HBO, and company our credulity, if they can offer us sufficient thrills. Luckily, they do so magnificently across the first four episodes of the second seasson.

Those who tune in to the show to see some dragon jousting will have to wait until the fourth episode for the first big bite of that kind of thrill. But those who want more than just those remarkable creatures will be thrilled by the games humans play, by the way the dysfunctional Targaryen family grasps for power. There is no arguing with the arresting visual spectacle of dragons fighting in the skies, but the men and the women and the way they pursue their desires are just as compelling. Vhagar’s chomp in the last episode of the first season is unforgettable but so is the negotiation involving the feet of Allicent Hightower and the attentions of Lord Larys Strong in episode 9.

In one especially memorable moment this season, the formerly reluctant but now overenthusiastic king, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), challenges his grandfather’s view of a certain matter. The older man insults the young king’s crude ways; the young king punishes the older man. Not a single blood is spilled but this scene is as thrilling as anything else in the series. The veteran Rhys Ifans, as Otto Hightower, plays his character’s constipated exasperation with his juvenile grandson adeptly. Plaudits and applause were made for scenes such as this.

But House of the Dragon isn’t just preoccupied with House Targaryen; it is just as interested in the ways in which the masses are affected by the high-powered moves from the ruling houses. The small folk, as they are called by their leaders, can’t quite do anything but they are the ones who have to walk past the corpse of the working men hung by their king for a crime the bulk of them know nothing about, they are the ones who have to grieve with the queen when a child is killed, they are the ones who are manipulated into cursing a rival for the throne. The theme is expressed eloquently by one character: “When princes lose their temper, it is often others that suffer.”

There may be duelling dragons here. But a lot of the human politics are real—and far more captivating.