The sequel to the “Game of Thrones” spin-off continues to do wonders in the perpetual overflow of the intimate into the epic, the human into the geopolitical and the tragic into the warrior. A performance for the most anticipated return of the year.
For anyone who hasn’t crammed the end of the first season, released almost two years ago, the first minutes of the second season of House of the Dragon will undoubtedly have the air of a surprise story control. Between the profusion of characters and factions, the plethora of toponyms with gently poetic evocations, the sibylline games of alliance and the deluge of surnames with confusing proximity (Rhaenyra, Rhaena, Rhaenys, Daemon, Aemond and Aegon are indeed names of characters and not variations in Latin), the series does not particularly go into pedagogy, and throws us in medias res where she had left us two years earlier: on the brink of a fratricidal war between Targaryens, the illustrious line of sovereigns focused on dragons, incest and peroxided hair.
It’s that this spin-off of Game Of Thrones, launched three years after the finale of its matrix series, does not compromise with the radicality of its project: the long-term chronicle, from its obscure beginnings to the unleashing of violence, of a civil and family war plunging the kingdom of Westeros into chaos, with all that implies of court intrigue, open conflict, fire-breathing dragons and intimate tragedies.
Aridity and carbon realism
Where the last seasons of Game Of Thrones lost themselves in a somewhat disconcerting logic of simplification, as if eagerly to unravel a story that had become extraordinary, and concentrated their strike force on battle scenes over the top, House of the Dragon has reconnected with the aridity and charcoal realism of a dark fantasy in places unspectacular, often demanding, entirely devoted to the development of its finely written (and for the most part masterfully performed) characters.
A deflation of pyrotechnics (even if the series reserves some visually stunning sequences) and a tightening of the stakes which thwarted our expectations, quite cautious, to make House of the Dragon a real surprise, maintaining a fairly radical anti-epic course, daring, tempting, sometimes crossing out, often upsetting us. It was as strong as it was unexpected. Propelled by its exceptional audiences (it signed the best start for an HBO series, bringing together 9.98 million American viewers for its first episode in 2022), the series returns in force for a second season which constitutes already the serial event of the summer.
If the first two episodes, not stingy with information, turn out to be opaque for the reasons mentioned above, especially after two years of absence, the writing, dense but subtly crafted, finds its cruising speed quite quickly, and allows us to hang up the wagons.
Two women, split branches of the same sprawling family tree, once close friends
It is above all the characters that we cling to, and the remote conflict between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), daughter of the late Viserys, last legitimate sovereign of Westeros, and Lady Alicent (Olivia Cooke), wife of the same Viserys and mother of the young king Aegon, newly crowned and whose question of his legitimacy to govern is at the heart of the coming war. Two women, split branches of the same sprawling family tree, once close friends (if not more), whom a succession of tragedies have transformed into irreconcilable enemies, inflexible warlords fueled by a hatred bordering on madness.
The mourning, the impossible reconciliation of a family broken by secrets and the exercise of power, the congenital hatred devoted to each other by those of the same lineage, love, despite everything, in the middle of this thick muck and all the blood shed: it is in the perpetual overflow of the intimate onto the epic, of the human onto the geopolitical, of the tragic onto the warrior that House of the Dragon works wonders.
Once again, it is less money shots, yet very impressive (like the waltz of the dragons), or the few emphasis of staging (also very successful) which are the real salt of the series, that the confrontations, sometimes suffocating, sometimes foggy, between characters on the edge of breaking point, in the dark passageways of dismal castles. We hope that by rushing into summer, this second season will maintain this course and succumb as little as possible to an inflationary logic which could risk distorting it.
House of the Dragon season 2 by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal, with Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith… On Max from June 17.
