But we were expecting it. Incest is as much a familiar fantasy trope nowadays as dragons or witches or very, very long council meetings. (I\u2019ve been to actual council meetings less tedious than the ones in the George RR Martin books.) <\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of the bag of thronesy tricks of Ryan Condal, its showrunner, who I imagine has a shorthand for it, the \u201cole incest boondoggle\u201d or something. I can imagine him saying, \u201cHey, you mooks, let\u2019s try the classic mother-son-smooch switcheroo on these marks. We\u2019ll blind \u2019em with the vintage Oedipal oopsie!\u201d<\/p>\n
House of the Dragon is largely the backstory of the Targaryens, one of the throne-hungry families from Game of Thrones. They have white hair and anger issues and keep pet lizards. <\/p>\n
But they\u2019re not as cool as that sounds. They are also at war with one another and everyone else over the really uncomfortable throne about which generations of angry folk will eventually be gamesing. (There is no Ikea in Westeros, apparently. Nowhere to buy a throne of your own.) <\/p>\n
Also, there are a lot more dragons on House of the Dragon than there were on Game of Thrones, and it\u2019s making nobody any happier. It should really have been called Game of Thrones II: 2 Many Dragons or, maybe, House of the Dragon: Mo Dragons Mo Problems.<\/p>\n
In general I\u2019m a sucker for this sort of nonsense. Replace an alcoholic cop with a malfunctioning robot or swap out a philandering career woman trying to have it all for an anxious hobbit running from an orc and I\u2019m all in.<\/p>\n
[\u00a0House of the Dragon review: This scorching Game of Thrones prequel is top-drawer fantasyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n The reason broadsheet readers more widely tricked themselves into watching the original Game of Thrones was by telling themselves that it was, in fact, a clever political rumination on the nature of power and not just an excuse to watch dragons and zombies smash against each other while the programme makers said \u201caieeee!\u201d and \u201cwhoosh!\u201d <\/p>\n The series\u2019 downfall was ultimately that saying \u201cpower corrupts\u201d was really its main insight. And it said it again and again until it sort of puttered out with a sad gasp and we all cried \u201cWe know! We heard you in series one!\u201d<\/p>\n Possibly in contrast to this, the other Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms<\/a> told a smaller and more self-contained story. It starred Peter Claffey, a real-life Irish man, as the eponymous knight, Dunc. He was a big lug with a heart of gold and a brain of wool, a decent man with humble ambitions. <\/p>\n That show\u2019s creators remembered that there were other things to consider beyond the machinations of venal power brokers \u2013 decency, kindness, wanting to belong, what it\u2019s like to be powerless \u2013 and they made the most of that.<\/p>\n [\u00a0A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Cheerier than Game of Thrones and brimming with Irish talentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n House of the Dragon, however, like its franchise mammy, prefers to go big. Really, really big. Series three opens with a ginormous sea battle in which huge dragons piloted by tiny people spit fire on an armada filled with more tiny people. <\/p>\n Like much CGI, it often looks like a rich and creamy soup with human-shaped croutons floating in it. The issue with CGI use is not the technology itself but the temptation to use it to make everything HUGE for no reason, thus rendering it all abstract and weightless. The vistas onscreen become too big to care about. \u201cOne death is a tragedy, the destruction of a CGI armada is a pretty underwhelming third act,\u201d as Stalin once said.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s also a weirdness in how we alternate between angry whispers on theatrical sets and grunts and screams in a fog of ones and zeros. The relationship between the tiny foreground and vast background on these shows is still uncanny and unreal.<\/p>\n While Game of Thrones was ultimately building up to a big set piece between dragons and zombies, this episode of House of Dragons involves dragons versus their ancient enemies, um, boats. <\/p>\n Key things that happen in this battle: a ship captained by an angry pirate lady crashes into a ship steered by a crusty old sea warlord. They don\u2019t exchange insurance information. Rhaena, a young Targaryan, trains a wild dragon. (There\u2019s arguably too much in this show about the training and husbandry of fictional lizards. It\u2019s kind of the Westerosian Farmers Journal.) Then she rides it into a battle where it burns a number of her allies to death. Back to the dragon-driver theory test with you, Rhaena.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Prince Jace locks his mother, Queen Rhaenyra, in her room so he can have dragon-based adventures. It\u2019s not a great idea. How many arrows is a bad number of arrows to have in you? Jace ends up with at least that number of arrows in him. <\/p>\n It\u2019s fine. We haven\u2019t seen him in two years, so I can barely remember if I like him or not. That\u2019s an issue with long gaps between series. There are whole scenes in this hour that purely function, I think, as placeholders to remind us of different characters: \u201cRemember these guys? Me neither! I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll do something interesting in an upcoming episode!\u201d<\/p>\n Widow\u2019s Bay, over on Apple TV, has exactly the right scale for a witty, spooky horror show<\/a> featuring a townful of people. It\u2019s about an island, Widow\u2019s Bay, that is traditionally troubled by paranormal activity, terrible phone coverage and an ancient curse that affects all who are born there. <\/p>\n It\u2019s another work of postmodern bricolage riffing on everything from The Fog to Jaws to Halloween to Eerie, Indiana, but it\u2019s got real stakes thanks to the rich writing of its showrunner, Katie Dippold (among others), the direction of Hiro Murai, who made Atlanta with Donald Glover, and nuanced performances from a great ensemble cast.<\/p>\n![\"House](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/UY5DXCANDJC3VIQEWFGDSCGTW4.jpg\")
House of the Dragon: Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen and Harry Collett as Jacaerys ‘Jace’ Velaryon in season three. Photograph: Sky\/HBO <\/p>\n![\"Widow’s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/MDY6X4HT6VGTXJEZBR3J7UCG5U.jpg\")
Widow\u2019s Bay: Matthew Rhys and Kate O\u2019Flynn. Photograph: Apple TV <\/p>\n