"House Of The Dragon Season 2" Painfully Boring

     Anytime someone says a season is a set-up season they are almost always coping. The season of one of their favourite shows just didn't go the way it was supposed to do, and so they're just trying to justify to why they should continue watching. That is legitimately how I felt about this show. I remember how floored I was by how good season 1 of House of the Dragon was. How I had forgotten how much I loved that fantasy itch that Game of Thrones managed to satisfy me. And I still felt it here too, at least at the very beginning of course. Once again the production value manages to blow away anything else on TV (other than the hair of some characters), and it truly is breathtaking to take it all in. But once you wear the armor for a little bit the luster quickly goes away, and once you take a closer look it begins to crumble quite quickly, as it feels like the show just wanted to showcase some of the familiar actors/actresses from last season a bit more before inevitably killing them off for what should be a pretty lengthy story spanning decades. 

    I think the prime example of this is Alicent Hightower, because I am so serious her character is useless. Yes, yes I know she was thrust into this position by her father at a young age and she's had to watch as her children descend into madness and she fails to control them. But also, she kind of does nothing this entire season, and frankly I don't remember her actually doing anything else this entire season. In spite of that they set her up as this like mighty foil to Rhaenyra, especially in advertising, because I see photos of them juxtaposed in advertisements everywhere. Rhaenyra mind you, who spends the entire season also complaining that she does nothing at the same time. Look, I love Game Of Thrones, but part of the appeal was that there was always some sort of conflict going on, some sort of political intrigue going on, with seven different storylines that all equally had merit. Looking at House of the Dragon Season 2, what appeal is there?

    Can you honestly tell me that Matt Smith did anything this season? Legitimately, all he did was immediately fuck off to Harrenhal at the beginning of the season, and then immensely trip balls for the rest of it. By the way, all of this for him to suddenly be humbled at the end of the season because he takes in some weirwood sap. Like come on I get that showrunners were disturbed by the popularity with his character but that's because he speaks his mind and just goes out there and kills shit. He's an instigator and all he does is order some smallfolk to be murdered (that we never see mind you), and then just bend the knee to Rhaenyra at the very end. This isn't just exclusive to these two characters by the way, the show basically just alternates between black and green POV's and sadly it's just a lot more boring than it should be. Even interesting characters you hardly see anything of. Like frankly, fuck Alicent, I'd much have rather seen more of Aemond/Aegon/Helaena, especially if the Helaena/Aemond rumours were actually true. Instead all we get is some more posturing about how certain characters can't do this or that, and don't even get me started on the random making out.

    Look, Game of Thrones had the sex, lots of it, but what it also had was the battles, and it was genuinely interesting. This show just feels like it wants to showcase the characters, but they can't really go that much farther without killing off any of the important ones, which is clearly something they didn't want to do. Rhaenys is the only "majorish" character who I think dies, and yes while I think her dying on dragon back was cool, there needed to be more. Do I think this show could stretch on for 5 seasons? At the snails pace they're going at I think I would much rather have it if they went quite a bit faster, even if that meant characters die quicker than we are introduced to them, because they don't particularly do much with the characters that have already been well established anyways. They better do something grand with the next season, especially with the way they've been setting up everyone going to war, because this season, which has already been a waste, will have just wasted all the goodwill people had left for this show.

Final Score: 60/100

    Look I want to give it a higher score, I thought Rhaenys fighting Vhagar was cool, but that was one scene out of a show that has 10 episodes a season, all of which are over an hour by the way. I just can't justify it if there is no payoff next season. I do hope the reason everything felt so stagnant was because of the writers strike, so they were basically just waiting for them to come back before making any sort of big decisions, because they really do nothing this season. It's just a shame. A part of me really does believe wholeheartedly that just having every season of this show being like a reign of each king until Roberts Rebellion would be the best move. I mean realistically how much can you do with characters that you introduce/are killed off in one season? I mean we haven't even seen Daeron yet and he should basically be dead in one to two season anyways. How much more can you milk this series anyways? Ultimately, I do think the first format of the season, with the time skips to prevent it from becoming too boring was the right move for a show based off of some cliffnotes George R. R. Martin wrote anyways.