\n\t[Warning: At some point in this review, there\u2019s a good chance that I\u2019m going to confuse Rhaenyra and Rhaena and possibly even Rhaenys (RIP). I\u2019m going to goof and mention Aegon when I mean Aemond, or possibly Alyn when I\u2019m taking about Alys. If you\u2019re the sort of person who\u2019s going to get sanctimonious about this, please stop reading and come back when I next write about a show with between five or 10 characters, each with names like \u201cBob\u201d and \u201cKim.\u201d]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe problem with the third season of HBO<\/a>\u2018s House of the Dragon<\/a>, premiering on June 21, is Andor<\/a>, or rather Andor<\/a> Syndrome. It\u2019s a condition wherein people like a thing until a subset of the thing proves to be so exceptional that some people decide that the subset of the thing should simply be the thing. Get it? The Mandalorian <\/a>was fun and good and Star Wars-y, but then Andor came along and it was like, \u201cHoly CRAP, this is what Star Wars can be?\u201d That sentiment became so pervasive that when something like Skeleton Crew<\/a> came along and it was merely fun and good and Star Wars-y,\u00a0 many people responded with, \u201cWhy can\u2019t this be Andor?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tHouse of the Dragon\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n \tThe third and fourth episodes feel different, in a good way.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tAirdate: 9 p.m. Sunday, June 21 (HBO) \n\tNot everything can be Andor and not everything needs to be Andor. But what if Andor just proved that Andor is the thing that I like at this moment?<\/p>\n \n\tWhen it premiered in January, nobody said that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms<\/a> was all that Game of Thrones<\/a> and its myriad potential spinoffs necessarily needed to be, but the series\u2019 amiable simplicity \u2014 six short episodes, a fully contained and completed storyline, no dragons \u2014 was focused and well-executed.<\/p>\n \n\tThat has never been the case for the first two seasons of House of the Dragon, with its surfeit of\u2026everything. Too many similar-looking characters with similar-sounding names and similar versions of \u201ccomplexity\u201d and, yes, too many darned dragons.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSimultaneously too much and too little, House of the Dragon has always been packed with promising elements and intriguing mythology, but with only 10 episodes in the first season<\/a> and eight in the second<\/a> \u2014 and then with two years between each batch of episodes \u2014 there has been no way for momentum to build. The first season spun its wheels, got cool, squandered the momentum with a time jump, threatened to get cool by the end, and squandered the momentum again with a gap between seasons. The second season spent the whole time building to the brink of coolness again and then\u2026here we are two years later.<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s creative ambition or industry tumult or corporate preference or some combination of the three, but it\u2019s a bad way to tell a story and it\u2019s a worse way to treat an audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThrough the four episodes sent to critics, the third season of House of the Dragon is, in many ways, the same. Scenes of entertaining brutality and entertaining inspiration are placed directly next to scenes with characters and situations that dissipate the pleasure of what came before. The series is still too packed, too narratively rushed and, as much as I\u2019m certain passionate fans will disagree, the surplus of dragons and special effects has become somewhat anticlimactic. Just because you have the technological capacity to do a battle scene with four dragons and thousands of CG boats doesn\u2019t mean that it wouldn\u2019t be better with two dragons and, heaven forbid, some practical effects, but\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBut!<\/p>\n \n\tThe third episode of the season and, to a lesser degree, the fourth were my favorite House of the Dragon episodes to date. Why? Because they were funnier, smarter and a little more intimate in scale, albeit with episode lengths of between 56 and 64 minutes and, yes, lots of dragons. They weren\u2019t exactly House of the Dragon doing A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, but I could pretend that the things I liked about that show were being brought to the surface in this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWe left things on the brink of conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D\u2019Arcy), reassured that her uncle\/husband Daemon (Matt Smith<\/a>) was on her side, is ready to stake her claim to the Iron Throne. She\u2019s got a navy led by Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), three freshly minted bastard dragon-riders in Ulf (Tom Bennett), Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Hugh (Kieran Bew), and the assurance by frenemy Alicent (Olivia Cooke<\/a>) that she\u2019ll facilitate Rhaenyra\u2019s arrival in King\u2019s Landing in order to protect her own family.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAlicent, however, does not speak for her mentally unstable sons. Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is hideously burnt and incapacitated with pain, but ruthlessly ambitious. Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), down an eye but up a dragon, is thoroughly psychotic and unlikely to surrender willingly. Plus, Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) has secured the help of the Triarchy fleet by virtue of mud-wrestling Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn), the fleet\u2019s admiral.<\/p>\n \n\tThere are dozens of other characters doing dozens of other things.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe first episode builds to the Battle of the Gullet, a major naval campaign so awash in effects work that I never for a second believed any of it was taking place at sea. But it\u2019s artificially huge and artificially bloody and there are dragons doing dragon things.<\/p>\n \n\tSure, I guess.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cast: Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint and many, many more.
Creators: Ryan Condal and George R.R. Martin\t\t\t<\/p>\n