Critics praise “violent” and “gorgeous” second season of ‘House of the Dragon’
Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon returns to HBO next week (June 16), and the early reviews are very positive.
Last month, a trailer for the second season of the show was released, which built upon the tension that highlighted season one’s end, as Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) butt heads to claim the Iron Throne, kickstarting a Targaryen civil war, otherwise known as the Dance of the Dragons.
The trailer sees The Blacks, led by Rhaenyra and Daemon (Matt Smith), plan an invasion of King’s Landing to claim the Iron Throne from the Greens, led by Aegon. Over the course of the intense trailer, we get several glimpses of the bloody and fiery war to come, along with a trip to The Wall.
Watch that trailer below:
The second season was renewed five days after the premiere of season one, in August 2022. The series is based on George R. R. Martin’s 2018 book Fire & Blood and it is set almost 200 years before the events of Game Of Thrones. Its eight episodes will go out weekly from June 16, wrapping up on August 4.
The season two reviews have been strong so far, currently sitting on a 91 per cent rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Empire awarded the season four stars, writing: “Above all else, House of the Dragon remains a spiky, acidic human drama; an astute, timely and well-performed study of the way power and wisdom are so often mutually exclusive.”
The Independent also rated the show four stars out of five. “While it takes a few episodes for House of the Dragon to crescendo into the sort of grand, violent spectacle that the series does better than pretty much anything else on TV, there are enough nuggets of incident… to satisfy viewers’ bloodlust.”
The Telegraph also gave it four stars, writing: “Summer is coming, and for those eager for an alternative to sunburn, football and queues at the airport, House of the Dragon has all you could require for a roaring good time.”
Another four-star review came from the Evening Standard. “We spend more time with each of the main characters — freed from the timehopping constraints of season one — and as such we get a deeper, more satisfying dive into them. [Olivia] Cooke, in particular, is great as Alicent.”
Less charitable, however, was the Rolling Stone review, which stated: “In its second season, HotD remains a show that mistakes confusion for complexity, hurling waves of thinly-defined, often interchangeable characters at the audience, and hoping no one will mind because here be dragons.”
Starring Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy and Rhys Ifans among others, the first season of House Of The Dragon received high acclaim, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama.
In a four-star review of the first season, NME wrote: “What is reassuring is that House Of The Dragon feels as though it is walking on solid ground: the bubbling rivalries, the jostling for power, the eruptions of violence; six episodes in, it is all coming together to create a rich stew … it is a relief to see a prequel that seems to know what it’s doing. A decent watch for fans and neutrals alike.”
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Max Pilley
NME
