REVIEW: House of the Dragon Season 2 Expands Everything

Where Season 1 focuses on years of storytelling, House of the Dragon Season 2 focuses on a small snippet of time. The civil war for the Iron Throne is underway, with the Blacks in Dragonstone backing Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and the Greens in King’s Landing backing Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney). That is what Season 2 is all about: the political struggle, the growing understanding that violence can not be avoided in war, and ultimately, where the smallfolk fit into the larger picture of the world.

The core of House of the Dragon Season 2 is the fight for the throne, but more importantly, it’s a look at the women behind it. Alicent (Emily Carey) and Rhaenyra have been at the center of the story since the beginning. This season, we see their strained relationship and the guilt that Alicent carries as her psychotic sons pour gasoline onto the war. But we also see the emptiness Rhaenyra feels because of the betrayal. And while we only see them together in one scene this season, we see their journeys mirrored in each other.

Alicent, once a powerful voice on the Green’s Small Council, has her voice muted over the entirety of the series until she is expelled from the council and her children’s side. Alicent means nothing now. Where Alicent has failed to maintain her power in the fight, Rhaenyra has retained hers. That doesn’t mean that she did not have to fight for it. While Rhaenyra begins the season with trust from those around her, Daemon erodes her power first and opens the door for the other men on the council to question her power. She finds a way to hold on.

First, that is with the support of Rhaenys (Eve Best), who calms the worries with a level head. And then it is Mysaria who inspired Rhaenyra to take a great risk in trusting the smallfolk and putting bastards on the backs of dragons. It’s the last action that causes ripples throughout her court but, more importantly, worries her as much as it inspires her. With seven dragons and the board, the intensity of the war has grown beyond containment.

This season’s focus on women trying to fight a war surrounded by men who question them at every turn makes the narrative of the series striking. It carries complexity and depth and shows the audience new ways of exploring politics in Westeros. It keeps it from rehashing the fight for the Iron Throne we see in Game of Thrones and allows the world to expand its view. Not only do we see the power struggle through the eyes of women, but we also see it through the eyes of those most affected, the smallfolk.

Towards the end of the season, the smallfolk are the key to winning the war, but also come into their own power. We see them rise against the Greens, ride dragons with the Blacks, and also be burned by the war at the same time. It’s a theme that I hope to come to the center of the narrative next season, and perhaps the most intriguing part of the entire second season.

House of the Dragon Season 2 gave us deaths but expanded its cast with Abubakar Salim and Clinton Liberty as Corlys Velaryon’s(Steve Toussaint) sons Alyn and Addam of Hull. Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), The White Worm, has filled the void that Princess Rhaenys served in Rhaenyra’s heart as an advisor and grew into something more.

The expansion of characters like Baela (Bethany Antonia) and Jace (Harry Collett) is fantastic, pushing them into a larger spotlight and allowing them to grow more layers than we saw in the first season. While Jace’s strategic nature is a star, Baela’s empathy and determination are compelling in a way that we need more of in this Targaryen story.

And while we also saw the young Tully become Lord of his house and Larys work in the shadows once more, the cast expansion in Dragonstone truly matters. That said, Aemond’s (Ewan Mitchell) ascent to the Iron Throne is a bloody one, but in stark comparison to his petulant brat of a brother, he is a natural in his calculated malice. His rage and anger move just as quickly as Aegon’s, but because of his competency, it’s more violent. Aegon may have hung the ratcatchers, but Aemond burned an entire city and its folk.

But if there is one piece of House of the Dragon Season 2 that is frustrating, it’s Daemon Targaryen’s storyline. After a fight with Rhaenyra, the king consort storms off to Harenhall on dragonback. While he and the court back at Dragonstone hold that it is to amass an army that includes the many Rivermen, the truth is that Daemon is running away from his wife and the inferiority he carries having to bow to her.

While Daemon’s storyline introduces a new character, Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin), and opens the fantasy world further with hallucinogenic witchcraft, it is still boring. Daemon, despite Matt Smith‘s usual intense acting, is just nowhere near as interesting as Rhaenyra and the people at Dragonstone, nor even the Green’s uneven storyline.

Daemon at Harenhall bogs down each episode that it’s featured. The strength of what’s shown at Dragonstone is what makes this season triumphant. It casts a shadow over the other stories, so I kept coming back to House of the Dragon Season 2 with excitement each episode. That said, his turn in the finale, is one that almost makes up for it.

House of the Dragon Season 2 gave audiences dragons in spades. It gave us a dragon fight, a deeper look at the connections between dragons and their riders, and it also showed us the power they have politically and how that can shift when more people can ride them and when they’re used to scare a populace. Dragons are not just weapons, and while we have heard that in how they’re talked about, in Season 2 we see it in just about every facet. The dragons don’t outshine the human emotion we see in the series either, and that’s a delicate balance that makes the series excel in Season 2.

Ultimately, House of the Dragon Season 2 is stellar, but for different reasons than the last. Its ability to balance spectacle against grounded emotional moments makes it shine; however, its pacing isn’t anywhere near as fluid as you would expect after the previous season. Instead, Season 2 starts slow, speeds up and then halts again. It’s a cycle repeated across the entire season, and while it felt too jarring in the beginning, the pacing made sense by the finale. To build a bigger world and raise emotional stakes, you must move slower to gain audience investment below the surface level.

House of the Dragon Season 2 continues to push forward the legacy of its franchise, but it does so by taking more care of the points of view we see on screen. The characters are deep, the action is fantastic, and, more importantly, it sets a path for the story to run down that will only feel even more epic in scale. On par with the first season, House of the Dragon Season 2 continues to show why George R.R. Matin’s work is perfect for adaptation.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is streaming exclusively on MAX (formerly HBO Max).