heads will roll.
For anyone who’s complained that there isn’t enough going on “House of the Dragon,” Season 3 feels as if showrunner Ryan Condal and his writing team heard your reaction and dialed up, “A hundred things are happening at once.”
After two seasons of preparation for the battle, the “Game of Thrones” prequel has finally arrived for the good part. Season 3 is all gas, no breaks.
It’s hard to keep track of how many heads were cut off, how many dragons spewed fire, or how many major conspiracy events occurred.
Of the three shows in the world of “Game of Thrones” (the original show, this show, and “A knight of the seven kingdoms.””), ”House of the Dragon” is an inferior offering.
That hasn’t changed – even though this is the best season ever.
There is a lot of action. Much of it lacks depth, as the characters are left underdeveloped and the story spread thinly among many of them. But, the flow of this season is better than the previous two seasons, and it is more entertaining.
If you can leave your brain at the door, Season 3 is the perfect summer show, full of spectacle, strong performances, and more liveliness than previous seasons amid the violence and tragedy. (The authors appear to have taken into account that those with lighter complexions “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was a hit).
Set a hundred years before the events of “Game of Thrones,” “House of the Dragon” follows Daenerys’s (Emilia Clarke) ancestors: Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and her half-brother Aegon (Tom Glynn Carney), fighting over who is the heir to the Iron Throne.
Rhaenyra has her uncle/husband Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), her fiercest warrior. The show is still sidelining him a lot. But, in an improvement over Season 2, at least he wasn’t forced to spend the entire season delusional about having sex with his mother (remember that?).
On Aegon’s side, his brother, the unstable, blindfolded Aemond (Evan Mitchell) is his most formidable warrior. The latter remains the MVP of the show.
Mitchell remains the cast member who is most aware of what kind of show this really is: not a prestige drama, but a bawdy, operatic, absurdist melodrama. His scenery-chewing continues to steal the show.
Aemond and Aegon’s mother Alisant (Olivia Cooke) is also a major conspirator.
In the previous season, Aemond also tried to kill Aegon. He hurt the future king so badly that he sidelined him. Emond is now functionally in charge.
So, there is infighting even within the parties to this war. If this sounds complicated, yes, it is. And, there’s more!
Not only does the plot haphazardly jump between dozens of characters, it still can’t choose who to focus on. Apart from this, some new players have been included in it.
Some of them are played by attractive actors — like “Sons of Anarchy” star Tommy Flanagan, who plays a haughty Northern warrior fighting alongside the Starks, or “House of Guinness” star James Norton, who joins the cast as a haughty Hightower relative.
It’s spot-on casting, but you’re not sure whether to cheer or groan when they enter. The last thing this show needs is to keep expanding More Letter.
“Game of Thrones” had a lot of actors, but it did a good job of balancing the story and focusing on a half-dozen main characters per episode.
The “House of the Dragon” writing team still hasn’t figured out how to do this well, and this problem is exacerbated in Season 3. The story is still unfocused.
Both “Game of Thrones” and “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” are available to general audiences. As with “House of the Dragon,” if you haven’t read the books (or haven’t spent time looking up the lore on Google), the show leaves you out to dry.
If you haven’t seen “Game of Thrones” or “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” the battles are impressive. Other shows do a better job of giving you a character’s perspective during a fight.
There’s a lot of action and chaos in “House of the Dragon,” but it moves through it all so shakily that it dulls the emotional impact. Random side characters get more screen time than those who directly play a major role, such as Daemon.
But, if you can turn off the part of your brain that points you to all this, it’s a great time, full of showy activities.
The third episode teases us with the better show that “House of the Dragon” should have always been while still respecting Rhaenyra’s incredible perspective. It’s too little, too late for the show to shift focus from a bird’s-eye view of “what happened” to a subjective perspective.
But, when viewed in isolation, this is an extraordinary episode.
If you liked the first two seasons of “House of the Dragon”, you will love Season 3 even more.
If you thought the first two seasons were okay, season 3 probably won’t change that. But, at least it’s not boring. The explosive part of the plot is finally here.
“House of the Dragon” Season 3 premieres Sunday, June 21 at 9 p.m. on HBO
Leave a Reply