Warning: This review contains spoilers
House of the Dragon has finally started to roar. To date, season two of the Game of Thrones spin-off (Sky Atlantic) has foundered amid indifferent reviews from critics, while ratings in the US are down 20 per cent compared to its first series in 2022. But with its stirring latest episode, there are grounds for believing this tale of scheming royals and soaring dragons may finally have achieved lift-off.
The events chronicled in House of the Dragon take place 200 years before Game of Thrones – the wildly popular prestige drama based on George RR Martin’s (unfinished) Song of Fire and Ice saga that, for a few dizzying years, was arguably the biggest franchise in popular culture. In this earlier timeline, the fantasy kingdom of Westeros is ruled by the Targaryen dynasty, which has two distinctive attributes: blonde hair and a personal arsenal of dragons.
As the second season gets under way, the royal “House” to which the title refers is ruinously divided. On one side is the Green faction, based in the capital of King’s Landing and led by cruel and impulsive King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and backed by his mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). On the other are the breakaway Blacks, fronted by Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), who regards herself as the rightful ruler.
It’s taken some time for the story to build to its present impasse and a common complaint is that the series is too slow, too political – and lacks heroic characters with whom viewers can empathise. Those criticisms are not without merit: Game of Thrones wooed audiences with likable protagonists such as Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. House of the Dragon, by contrast, is populated exclusively with plotters, rotters and monsters, smoke-belching and otherwise.
TV guide: the best new shows to watch, starting tonight
The Young Offenders Christmas Special review: Where’s Jock? Without him, Conor’s firearm foxer isn’t quite a cracker
When Claire Byrne confronts Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary on RTÉ, the atmosphere is seriously tetchy
‘We jumped the shark in the very first episode!’: 35 years of The Simpsons
But now the show has at last kicked up a gear. It all happens in the jaw-dropping concluding 20 minutes of episode four as House of the Dragon finally puts its heavy artillery into the field. And by artillery, we, of course, mean dragons – big dragons, small dragons, and in-between dragons, going at it as if their lives and the fate of all of Westeros hangs in the balance. Which they obviously do.
Game of Thrones initially brought critics onside with its top-level skulduggery and generous supplies of unpleasant people plotting dark deeds in dimly-lit rooms. Yet, for many, it was the epic moments that cut through and it is those we remember today. The Night King staring down Jon Snow after the Battle of Hardhome, Ramsay Bolton fed to the hounds after the Battle of the Bastards, Daenerys and the Dothraki hordes appearing over a hill and torching the Lannister army. These were the Game of Thrones scenes that transcended TV’s historical limitations and delivered true cinematic thrills, up there with the best of fantasy on the big screen and the page.
Beware, we are getting into spoiler territory next. Until now, House of the Dragon has, by contrast, largely played its safe. Mindful that it’s the back-stabbing that made Game of Thrones credible in the first place, it has swerved towards Machiavellian plot-lines and extravagant nastiness (including the butchering of a baby in their cradle just a few weeks ago).
But instalment four is where the show lets loose, giving viewers a thunderous pay-off right up there with Hardhome. With the Greens and the Blacks manoeuvring for the war to come, drunken Aegon II takes his dragon, Sunfyre, to Rook’s Rest, where forces loyal to the Blacks are under siege.
Rushing to confront Aegon is Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), an ally and mentor to Rhaenyra – who has her own dragon, Meleys. But their conflict is rudely interrupted by a third dragon, the vast Vhagar – a giant larger than Sunfyre and Meleys combined.
His rider is Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), younger brother of the feckless Aegon II and self-evidently a more suitable leader (so reckons Aemond at least). Vhagar scorches both Meleys (a foe) and Sunfyre (a supposed ally). Rhaenys plunges to her death while Sunfyre and Aegon II hit the ground in a fireball – their fate undetermined.
Fantasy at its finest evokes an intoxicating feeling of wonder. That’s why generations continue to be smitten by JRR Tolkien’s work and why his heir, Brandon Sanderson, is one of the world’s bestselling authors. And it is precisely this rush of awe and excitement that is conjured by the latest House of the Dragon. After a slow start, the show has given us a moment to savour. Fans will hope there is more to come in the weeks ahead.
House of the Dragon airs on Sky Atlantic at 9pm.
