House of the Dragon Season 1: A Fiery Return to Westeros
“Game of Thrones” is back!
HBO’s new “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon” has concluded its first season, and with it has proven the global phenomenon is alive and well!
“House of the Dragon” was created by Ryan Condol and George R. R. Martin, and show-run by Condol and Miguel Sapochnik (director of the acclaimed Game of Thrones episode, Battle of the Bastards, from season 6). The series is adapted from a portion of George R. R. Martin’s 2018 book, “Fire and Blood”, and covers the events of “The Dance of the Dragons”, a war which took place between two factions of the Targaryen dynasty roughly 200 years prior to the original events of Game of Thrones, and inevitably led to the fall of the most powerful dynasty in Westerosi history.
This new series delivers everything one would want from the “Game of Thrones” franchise; political drama, complex interpersonal dynamics, and characters you can’t help but root for despite their morally grey worldviews. Paddy Considine in particular, as King Viserys Targaryen, delivers an especially sympathetic performance over the season’s ten-episode run, and Matt Smith does an exceptional job portraying Daemon Targaryen, the younger brother of the King and a character you love to hate. However, the heart of the show is found in the performances of the four actors playing the series’s two leads, Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower. Former friends turned bitter enemies, Milly Alcock and Emily Carey (playing the younger Rhaenyra and Alicent respectively), and Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke (playing the older Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent) do a wonderful job of not only making the transition between the time-jumps and actors seamless, but they excel at depicting the enmity between the two characters.
House of the Dragon’s first season has set the bar high, and book readers will know this is only the beginning of the inevitable war to come. Season 2 is set to begin production at the beginning of 2023, and personally, I cannot wait to see how the remainder of “The Dance of the Dragons” unfolds.