House of the Dragon Full Season 2 Review

Since the credits rolled on episode eight of House of the Dragon's second season, I have found it difficult to come to a decisive verdict on this season. I suppose that's how the writers must have felt, as really it can often feel like while we teeter on the verge of something important happening, we're often pulled right back to our characters' comfort zones.

Rhaenyra remains in Dragonstone, Daemon is left tripping his nuts off in Harrenhall, Corlys and Alyn have a ridiculous amount of scenes standing in the same dockyard. House of the Dragon has always been more of a centred series than Game of Thrones. We are dealing with characters who are all part of one family, after all, but following the first season where we finally escaped the confines of the Red Keep in order to see broader environments, it feels as though we've not actually got a good look at the realm at war yet.

Of course, Rhaenyra and Alicent still remain hesitant about all-out war, but it means they're not given much to do over the course of this season. Very little at all is done by any of our main characters and I can count on one hand the amount of major events from the Dance of Dragons that have been covered in this second season. Whether HBO wants to drag out the story for more than four seasons or if the writers simply felt like they weren't ready to let fly, the end result is largely a season that is promising great things, just not in any of the episodes it has.

That's not to say House of the Dragon Season 2 is entirely pointless. There are some great moments sprinkled in there, with tremendous acting from (almost) all of the cast members that really elevates it to a series that can still be enjoyed. Even without the standout performance of Paddy Considine at the heart of the show, Emma D'Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and especially Ewan Mitchell bring the characters to life in such a way that you can't help but watch when they're on screen, even if what they're doing isn't particularly worth your time.

Following the review of the first two episodes, I was hesitant to criticise the show, as I thought overall it did a largely good job at introducing us to the clumsy, early stages of the Dance of Dragons, where the war hadn't yet broken out in full, but moves were being made. Unfortunately, I failed to foresee that this would be the entire season. Picking up after Aegon's son is murdered in his bed, we do move at a decent pace to the battle of Rook's Rest in Episode 4, which had me hooked for the other major book events that could have been covered this season, and yet, sadly we spend most of our remaining time trying to find riders for unclaimed dragons, as the show reverts to being all about the winged budget destroyers.

And still, even if we are ambling about for most of our time, it still feels good to be back in Westeros. The costume design, cinematography, and sound are all very well done once more, and even if I'll never love the dragons and CGI beasts as much as I adore the politicking and verbal backstabbing in Martin's world, I've still got to give the VFX artists credit for their work on the dragons in this season. We're introduced to even more winged heralds of doom this time around, each with their own unique design that makes even the loss of one feel like something very important has died.

It has been a while since I read the book depicting the events in House of the Dragon, and so perhaps I'm being unfair expecting the show to move at a quicker pace, but when opting for a leaner season this time around, you would hope that would come with tighter storytelling that doesn't have time for extra fat bogging it down. To match the pace of the book would be nearly impossible, as it is meant to be read as a history more so than a proper novel, giving out accounts of world-shattering events in a couple of paragraphs, and yet I hoped that we'd be spending plenty of time with those events, rather than lavishing in the space between them. Compared to what else is on TV these days, House of the Dragon remains a strong drama with phenomenal acting and a big-budget feel, the likes of which we rarely get even in big-budget shows.

It might never reach the peaks of Game of Thrones, nor might it match the gripping drama that its first season offered, but the show remains strong enough for me to hold onto some optimism. And yet, my excitement for a third season largely remains purely because I know where this story is going, and I know that it can't keep treading water forever.