House of the Dragon’s latest episode reveals the series’ biggest problem - Beritaja

Ollie Upton / HBO

Warning: This article contains spoilers for House of The Dragon play 2, section 2.

The 2nd section of House of The Dragon play 2 begins, arsenic it should, in chaos. As The news of Prince Jaehaerys’ execution spreads passim The Red Keep of King’s Landing, furniture maidens and castle workers are detained, each while Jaehaerys’ father, Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), rages complete his son’s death, and members of his Small Council — namely, Alicent (Olivia Cooke) and Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) — brainstorm complete really to respond to The tragic event. The Hightowers, arsenic cunning arsenic ever, determine to usage Jaehaerys’ assassination to their governmental advantage by parading The boy’s dormant assemblage done The streets arsenic portion of a ceremonial convoy and denouncing his execution arsenic an enactment of wanton cruelty connected The portion of Aegon’s rival, Rhaenyra (Emmy D’Arcy).

Jaehaerys’ decease people hangs dense complete The entirety of House of The Dragon episode 2, and head Clare Kilner many times re-emphasizes The grisly quality of his execution pinch close-up shots of his bloodied bedsheets and The stitches that support his severed caput attached to his corpse. Despite each of that, The episode, written by Sara Hess, greatly struggles to navigate The inevitably dour temper group by The House of The Dragon play 2 premiere’s shocking conclusion. The episode, specifically, races done truthful galore important crippled twists and developments that it leaves you reeling from The affectional whiplash caused by its haphazard plotting.

There’s excessively overmuch going on

Theo Whitman / HBO

House of The Dragon‘s latest section packs a lot into its 69-minute runtime, which — contempt its magnitude — proves to beryllium excessively short. So overmuch happens passim The installment, including Jaehaerys’ morbid funeral, Otto’s removal arsenic Hand of The King, Aegon’s executions of each of The Red Keep’s ratcatchers, Criston Cole’s (Fabien Frankel) confrontation pinch Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) and his consequent request that Arryk airs arsenic his relative Erryk (Elliott Tittensor) and effort to assassinate Rhaenyra Targaryen. That, notably, is conscionable what happens in The episode’s King’s Landing scenes.

On apical of each of those beats, The section besides makes clip for a tense statement and parting of The ways betwixt Rhaenyra and her husband, Daemon (Matt Smith), complete his engagement in Jaehaerys’ murder, aggregate scenes betwixt Rhaenyra and a still-captive Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), and a duel betwixt The Cargyll twins that results in The deaths of both. Somehow, in spite of each The moments of condolences and decease scattered passim The episode, it past ends pinch Alicent and Criston sleeping together again little than 24 hours aft their matter helped pave The measurement for The execution of 1 of Alicent’s grandchildren.

The show’s existent battle: crippled vs. characteristic development

Ollie Upton / HBO

To opportunity that The second segment is an overseas 1 for The section to extremity connected would beryllium an understatement. It is, for starters, highly jarring to jump from The sadistic back-to-back deaths of Arryk and Erryk Cargyll to much progressively callous and emotionally acold moments betwixt Alicent, Otto, and Criston. Even much importantly, Alicent and Criston’s climactic hookup speaks to a bigger problem that House of The Dragon has faced ever since it premiered, and which is suffocatingly evident passim The show’s astir caller installment. The series, rather simply, continues to person a difficult clip juggling The affectional needs of its galore characters pinch The basal advancements of its plot.

The caller section rushes done truthful galore confrontations, deaths, and governmental twists that it doesn’t springiness itself immoderate room to research The emotions its biggest moments would inevitably provoke. No 1 extracurricular of Aegon and Jaehaerys’ mother, Helaena (Phia Saban), reacts astatine each usually to The boy’s midnight decapitation. Alicent, Otto, and Criston, in particular, dainty The arena pinch a level of disregard that isn’t conscionable appalling but which defies logic. To beryllium clear, House of The Dragon‘s characters Can perfectly beryllium villainous, but The show has to beryllium observant not to thin truthful difficult into their shared selfishness that they go one-note.

The series’ latest section jams truthful overmuch violent, sadistic trauma into its runtime that it’s intolerable to judge moreover 2 characters arsenic self-involved arsenic Alicent and Criston instantly moving past Jaehaerys’ horrifying execution and jumping correct backmost into furniture together. It’s a storytelling determination that threatens to wholly negate The first weight of Jaehaerys’ death.

Is House of The Dragon repeating Game of Thrones’ biggest mistake?

For astir of its eight-season run, Game of Thrones managed to support its overarching communicative moving guardant without ever leaving its characters and their needs by The wayside. That, of course, changed in the show’s last 2 seasons erstwhile it began to prioritize its crippled complete its characters, but Thrones would not person gained The pursuing that it did if it had ever fallen unfortunate to that mistake. Up to this point, House of The Dragon has ne'er taken its audience’s intelligence for granted arsenic overmuch arsenic Thrones‘ past 13 episodes did.

The show has, however, consistently struggled to bring its plot-heavy root worldly (a fictionalized history of The Targaryen dynasty titled Fire & Blood) to The screen. That’s a problem it will person to reside sooner alternatively than later if it wants to extremity causing The aforesaid kinds of aggravated affectional whiplash that it does passim its newest episode, particularly fixed that The seeds person already been planted for its formed to turn moreover larger this play and next.

New episodes of House of The Dragon play 2 premiere Sunday nights connected Max and HBO.

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Editor: Naga



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