House of the Dragon: Season 2

King Viserys Targaryen has died. He left instructions for his oldest child, Princess Rhaenyra, to inherit the Iron Throne. But Ser Criston Cole, the Kingmaker, has instead crowned his son as Aegon II. The realm is divided with almost half declaring for the Queen on Dragonstone and almost half for Aegon. Banners have been summoned and armies are forming. But this war will be bloody, for both sides are armed with dragons. Some are trying to halt the bloodshed with a negotiation, but others are seeking to profit from the chaos as much as possible. The Dance of the Dragons has begun.

Game of Thrones was the biggest TV show of the 2010s and also, easily, the biggest live-action fantasy television series of all time. The show stumbled hard at the end, though, and left behind a bitter taste for viewers. When HBO announced a prequel spin-off, they knew they would have to work hard to win back the fans disappointed by how Game of Thrones ended.

Against the odds, they succeeded. The first season of House of the Dragon was well-characterised with some great dialogue, brief but impressive action sequences, and some outstanding performances, particularly Paddy Considine's epic turn as King Viserys and Matt Smith as his brother, Prince Daeron, as well as Milly Alcock and Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra and Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke as her rival, Alicent. This was all great stuff, and established House of the Dragon as the clear fantasy successor to Game of Thrones, succeeding where Wheel of Time, Rings of Power and The Witcher had, to one extent or another, failed.

The reason for the success appears reasonable: whilst Game of Thrones struggled when it outpaced the books and did not have access to George R.R. Martin's source material any more, House of the Dragon had its entire storyline mapped out in Martin's 2018 tome Fire & Blood, with character motivations and arcs clearly established, and major action setpieces established. With a great cast, some strong writers who'd already established themselves in the first season, and some superb vfx designers (the dragons remain unmatched on the small screen), there was no reason to expect Season 2 to be anything other than a smash hit success.

Which is why it's a bit of a mystery why the second season is such a bizarre mess. Season 2 certainly has some great character moments to match anything in Season 1, some superb action scenes, some phenomenal vfx etc, but the pacing of the season has been hugely thrown off. Much of the season feels sluggish, with too many scenes of characters sitting around talking about the plot (again) rather than getting on with business. There's also a bizarre reluctance to embrace the fact that the war has started and cannot be stopped: Season 1 ended in such a way that should have left nobody in doubt that a full-scale conflict could not be avoided. Season 2, however, spends almost its entire length re-litigating about whether the war is inevitable and maybe there's a way to avoid it etc, which beggars all belief. The writers also seem to have realised that, following the book, they'd never have a scene with Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke verbally sparring ever again, so they introduce a surreal device where the two find ways to sneak into one another's strongholds for occasional hearts-to-hearts. It's genuinely bizarre and does not wreck a sense of disbelief as drive a four-ton truck right through the middle of it.

The writers also decided it was a great idea to have Matt Smith spend most of the season wandering around the "haunted" castle of Harrenhal having weird visions and strange exchanges with the locals. One episode of this might have been interesting, even fun, but when this extends into a third episode you might be wondering this was a good use of resources, such as one of your best and most expensive actors. There's also a bemusing obsession with trying to tie the events of House of the Dragon into those of Game of Thrones, through visions, dreams, prophecies, etc that just makes the show feel less confident in standing on its own two feet.

The season finally perks up with the fourth episode, where all hell breaks loose. The Battle of Rook's Rest is excellent, with a well-choreographed ground battle and a furious aerial engagement. Any fears that HBO's vfx department would not be able to deliver on the promise of dragon-on-dragon ultraviolence are laid to rest here. The battle and its plot ramifications are a major highlight of the season.

Any hope of the season turning the corner and becoming more compelling is quickly dispelled: Daemon continues to mess around at Harrenhal interminably, Rhaenyra and Alicent continue to come up with reasons not to, y'know, get on with the actual the war the story is about, and there's a whole lot of not very much going on . The season is not helped by the late HBO decision to reduce the episode count from ten to eight, with the writers' strike just starting. This meant that the production team couldn't do anything to compact the events into fewer episodes (usually ill-advised, but in this case it would have helped the season tremendously with pacing) and just had to cut off the final two scripts from the run and shunt them into Season 3 instead. This robs Season 2 of any kind of climax, it just stumbles to a halt.

There are other strengths to Season 2. Though he debuted at the end of Season 1 and showed some good promise, The Last Kingdom's Ewan Mitchell really nails the role of Prince Aemond and becomes a great addition to the show. Jefferson Hall's Tyland Lannister is also most entertaining and has more to do this season as a politician and diplomat. The acting throughout remains strong, even if the actors sometimes struggle to sell the more nonsensical plot twists.

Season 2 of House of the Dragon (***) is a deeply odd, dispirited convulsion of television. It retains many of the strengths of the first season, including great acting, vfx and casting, but the pacing and writing are all over the place. There's a lack of firm commitment to the fact this is a war, and despite the source material being complete and eminently filmable, there's a strange tendency to drift away from it at times in favour of contrived, less interesting "TV drama" moments. Game of Thrones and House are both at their very best when they resist being "ordinary TV" and it's odd this season makes such strides to try to become that. The battle sequence in the fourth episode is a huge highlight, though, and hopefully now all this additional scene-setting has been done, Season 3 can just cut loose with business and get the story going at last.

The season is available to watch on HBO and Max (and local equivalents) in much of the world, and Sky Atlantic and Now TV in the UK, alongside physical media releases. A third season of House of the Dragon is currently in production for release in late 2026.

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