House of the Dragon Season 2

This Sunday, the season finale of House of the Dragon Season 2 was released on Max. House of the Dragon follows the story of the Targaryen family as a war breaks out over two competing claims to the Iron Throne. Aegon currently sits on the throne while Rhaenyra works to muster her forces to claim the throne she believes is her birthright. I enjoyed the first season quite a bit so I was interested to see how the second season would go.

I found this second season to be a significant improvement on the first season. In the first season, I thought the show was trying too hard to be Game of Thrones and just felt like a copycat at times. The second season managed to find its groove and felt more like its own thing. Instead of being a family drama inside a singular castle, the second season centers around two competing sides as they are trying to prepare their alliances. The whole season centers around this threat of war which thought worked well as a driving force to move the story forward. We know that the end goal is this huge war for the Iron Throne and this season does a great job of setting everything in motion for that to be the case. While there is a lot of prep for war, we do get a few sweeping action sequences and dragon battles that help keep the series exciting. This show also does a great job of keeping the morality ambiguous. Both sides have a valid claim to the throne and the show doesn't really set either side as a "good guy" or "bad guy". There are some bad people on both sides but there isn't as much of a clear-cut villain as there was in Game of Thrones. Finally, I felt that this season did a much better job of capturing that Game of Thrones magic. Even though the show is trying to separate itself from Game of Thrones, by doing so it manages to capture the charm of what made Game of Thrones great.

I have very little issues with the show. The only issue is that it did stumble a bit in the finale. I was hoping for a finale that shows the beginning of this war but really all it does is put the finale pieces in place with the alliances and the ends when things finally get interesting. I wanted a more exciting finale much like how season one ended.

Overall, this is another solid season of House of the Dragon, and does a great job of moving the story forward. While it may stumble at the end, I felt the season as a whole really does something great.

Score: 9/10 Grade: A Recommendation: Check it out