House of the Dragon: The Complete Second Season: A Curiously Languid & Uneventful Sophomore Outing (4K)

The Show:

When "House of the Dragon" premiered just two years ago, it admittedly had some pretty big shoes to fill as a prequel to "Game of Thrones," considered by many to be one of the greatest shows of all time. While it may not have been able to live up to such a high level of greatness, it still proved itself a worthy successor by offering its own compelling storyline filled with intrigue, romance, family squabbles, betrayals, and more, ultimately setting the stage for a major war in the near future. As the show heads into its second season, the stakes remain very high, and all eyes fall upon it once again to see if it can keep up its engaging tale that had left us with promises of big things to come.

The season opens with Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) still reeling over the murder of her son Luke, who's death she is finally able to confirm upon finding what's left of his body. Meanwhile, in King's Landing, King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney), his Grandfather/Hand Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), his mother Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), and the rest of the Small Council attempt to plan their best road to victory in the coming war for the throne.

At Dragonstone, Queen Rhaenyra continues to plan how to take back her rightful place with her own council. In an effort to help avenge Luke's death, Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) hires assassins to sneak into the Red Keep and kill Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), but being unable to find him, they end up killing the son of King Aegon & Queen Helaena (Phia Saban), Prince Jaehaerys, instead, causing chaos and pushing both sides even closer to the inevitable war.

As the season begins, it's understandable that they'd want to start things off a little slow to reacclimate viewers to what's happened, reminding everyone where the pieces are on the chessboard and what new actions are being taken as the fight for the throne gets underway. In fact, the only major action of the first of these eight episodes is the attempted assassination of Prince Aemond, which does cause a stir for a short time, but the show does settle back down relatively quickly for further contemplations of the characters as to what their next moves should be.

The debut season had a fair amount of this as well, characters plotting with each other in councils or in private, but there remained a good amount of plot & character development throughout so as to keep the show moving at a steady & engaging pace. For its sophomore outing, the show seemed to have quite a lot of trouble getting to such development, instead opting for much more discussion of actions, and far less carrying out of said actions. To put it simply, this season's MO appears to have been to have the characters sit around and talk about doing things, but not actually doing much of anything.

Now that's not to say that they don't do anything at all or that the plot doesn't progress, but such moments became rather rare across these eight hours, which mainly has viewers sitting around and waiting for something to move the story forward in some significant manner. Every now and again, a character will be hurt or certain revelations will be made that change circumstances, but for the most part, this ends up being a very low-key season where it's very fair to say that not a lot happens, certainly not in terms of the big war that we were seemingly promised at the end of the first season.

As far as its technical & design elements go, we still get the same high level of quality, with the show's sets, costumes, cinematography, and special effects continuing to stand out. The cast remains steadfast as well, though, in another unfortunate error, it was sad to see Matt Smith (Prince Daemon, one of the show's most interesting characters) sidelined for almost the entire season, to the point where his storyline could've easily been reduced to an episode or two.

The big question remains, why was the season done in this rather inexplicable fashion? Did the book dictate this long stretch of inactivity, or was it showrunner Ryan Condal simply trying to stretch it out in order to have more seasons? Either way, it should have been clear that this slow-crawl approach wasn't going to work very well in terms of trying to keep the attention of viewers, who are once again teased at the end of this season with another promise of big things to come. Will season three actually fulfill these promises this time? Fans who were let down by this far more languid season will certainly hope so. This is a show that started off with quite a lot of potential, so we can only go forward with an optimistic belief that they'll be able to tap into it once again as it proceeds.

Video/Audio:

Video: 2160p Ultra High Definition

Audio: Dolby Atmos-TrueHD

Special Features:

Extended versions of 8-part featurette "The House That Dragons Built"

Family Tree (5 Minutes): Westerosi family ties can be confusing.  This primer will help viewers keep track of the complex and far-reaching branches of House Targaryen.

Divided Kingdoms (9 Minutes): Join Co-Creator/Showrunner/Executive Producer Ryan Condal and the cast and crew as they provide an overview of Season 2 and a glimpse of the war to come.

Conclusion:

"House of the Dragon: The Complete Second Season" features the same great technical & design elements from the debut season, and the cast remains up to the challenge of bringing this family's legacy to life, but sadly this sophomore outing ends up being far more languid & uneventful, resulting in a rather curious season where very little happens to advance the plot, leaving the promises & potential of its previous season unfulfilled.

Score: 3/5

Available on 4K starting today.

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