“House of the dragon” is sometimes impressive, sometimes frustrating
Published at 09.00
TV REVIEW In the third season of “House of the dragon”, the distance to “Game of thrones” feels both smaller and larger than ever.
It’s just as grand and intricate, but shallower, jerkier and more humorless.
House of the dragon
Season 3, Episodes 1-4
By Ryan Condal and George RR Martin, with Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Ewan Mitchell, Steve Toussaint, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel, Matthew Needham, Tom Glynn-Carney, James Norton, Phia Saban.
FANTASY DRAMA. “House of the dragon” is back with a third season. And HBO, which is now betting hard on a growing “Game of thrones”-franchise that has almost begun to ooze a little Marvel, has distributed such a long list of events, actors, deaths, times, relationships and circumstances, and more, that must not be mentioned, that one has to weigh one’s words on a golden scale in order not to step on the spoiler piano.
But, in broad and sweeping terms:
The civil war for the Iron Throne between the two different Targaryen phalanxes rages on. And in one ring corner Rhaenyra Targaryen has (Emma D’Arcy) a plan to take over the capital city of King’s Landing and proclaim herself queen.
And in the other there is an increasingly divided group of Targaryens and Hightowers. Rhaenyra’s increasingly insane half-brother Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell), who is now fully running his own race. His older brother King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), who is disfigured for life and forced to go on the run as a pauper. And poor mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), who has completely let go of her maternal loyalties and now mostly tries to be the voice of reason, putting out fires and minimizing damage.
Other important figures are, now as before, Rhaenyra’s sly husband, also uncle, Daemon (Matt Smith), which Rhaenyra never quite knows where she has, and neither do we viewers. And the legendary seafarer and Rhaenyra’s ally Corlys “the Sea Snake” Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), whose two illegitimate sons (Abubakar Salim and Clinton Liberty) now takes a bigger place in the story.
And among the season’s new faces are James Norton out as Commander Ormund Hightower, who is Alicent’s cousin and has been hatching big plans to keep Rhaenyra off the throne.
He has incredible charisma, in a role with the potential to add some color to this series. Which is needed, even if this third season opens by delivering the spectacular Battle of the Gullet, which is then followed by another truly defining event.
It’s grand, fast-paced and action-packed, blockbuster-level television, and in subsequent episodes there’s both advanced court intrigue, a clear class perspective, and at least a little bit of the humor that the original series had but has been missing here.
But there is also a lack of innovation and joy in the storytelling, and a jerkiness that gives the whole a bad flow; the first two episodes of the season feel like a dramatic season finale, while part three with its new game plan feels like the real season premiere. And despite – or perhaps rather because of – all the dragons and visual effects wizardry, the human stakes feel lower than they should this far into a series.
It was easier to believe in and care about the characters in “Game of thrones”, which was a more dynamic production in both tone and visual expression, and also sharper at combining the grandiose, overarching world-building and machinery with the smaller, personal driving forces behind the plots.
And based on experience from previous seasons, which have started stronger than they have ended, I don’t really dare to believe that “House of the dragon” will finally peak.
Although several of the actors, most notably D’Arcy, Smith and Cooke, continue to impress, and the new episodes actually somewhat match “Game of thrones” when “Game of thrones” was at its best.
The third season of “House of the dragon” premieres on HBO Max on June 22.
