House of the Dragon (2022)
Directed by Cameron Dixon
The Targaryen dynasty is at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins when King Viserys breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm.
14 connections found
View:
14 films that influenced House of the Dragon
What critics say influenced House of the Dragon
In Game of Thrones, the events that precede the War of Five Kings all happen in a relative blur: Barely seven months pass between when Jaime Lannister pushes Bran Stark out of a tower and Robb Stark raises an army.
The stark difference between winning a throne and actually sitting in it day after day has made good material for Westeros fantasy shows since the very beginning of Game of Thrones, and Rhaenyra's storyline this season continued that rich tradition.
What made Game of Thrones such a phenomenon when it first released was how it felt like any character was in constant danger of being killed off at any moment.
This is one of those episodes that most clearly justifies what House of the Dragon wants to be beyond Game of Thrones. After all, Game of Thrones often asked, who will win? This finale asks something nastier.
To have her also dragged down into the abyss that is the Game of Thrones was really, really, really tragic and hard to watch and hard to dramatize, and then hard to see being dramatized for all those reasons.
However, House of the Dragon excels at depicting the aftermath of battle, even better than its wildly popular predecessor.
The result is borderline Succession-esque in its level of absurdity, and D’Arcy, so reliably tormented, gets to show sides of the character that have never even been hinted at before.
Succession with dragons? Yes please.
It plays like The West Wing rewritten by someone who loves Shakespeare’s history plays.
…with a touch of West Wing-style governing drama…
To invoke Lord Jerry of Seinfeld: Anyone can take power, but holding power is a different story.
Advertisement
Patrick Bateman’s unraveling mind in American Psycho…
The third and fourth episodes, which deserved to be stretched over a full season, are also borderline The Wire-esque, because they weave in budgetary crises and expose faltering institutions across Westeros — failings of bureaucracy that happen because the country is ruled by battling oligarchs who couldn’t care less about the 99 percent.
Justine readily accepting the end of the world in Melancholia…
Think of Jackie Cogan rejecting American exceptionalism in Killing Them Softly…
Advertisement
…after a Columbo-style “one more thing” from Daemon…
…cooing in Rhaenyra’s ear about world domination like they’re Pinky and the Brain…